awl

She also had silver earplugs threaded through with silver hoops, an awl covered in silver—and a companion: a middle-age man laid to rest in the same jar with a fraction of her wealth.

Back in 2016, Kelly Conaboy wrote for The Awl: "What does a bay leaf taste like? Nothing. What does a bay leaf smell like? Nothing. What does a bay leaf look like? A leaf."

"I do think that it is a potent form of aromatic, very necessary for soups, stews and braises," Chef Sohui Kim tills Conaboy for The Awl.

"Wagner is not a piece of slippery soap which the bureaucrats have got used to shoving all over the place; Wagner is an awl, a stiletto that you cannot hide," Prigozhin said.

But the rivalry, and the intensity of feeling that spawned both it and the anonymous letter to the Awl, never really comes alive on the page.