6:01am
How is it time to get up already? I pop my morning pills and get ready for work. I cycle to the train, which is only a 5 minute walk from home, but it’s a 2 minute cycle and when you’re trying to catch a train, each minute counts.
7:03am
I arrive at Central Station. I head straight for the Pret. On Fridays I treat myself to an Egg and Avocado on a baguette and a filter coffee. I use the term “treat myself” quite loosely here, as Pret isn’t that great and this particular Pret is even less so, but it’s the only cafe open in the station that early in the morning. There’s nothing vegan that I can find at this Pret other than a banana or a pack of crisps so I usually go for this sandwich, as I have an egg every now and then. The baguette is usually pretty fresh and the egg salad is okay. The avocado leaves something to be desired, though. It tends to be too hard and tasteless. The other big problem with this sandwich is the black pepper, which dots the outer edge. Thankfully it’s not throughout the sandwich because, and I know this is a controversial opinion, I hate black pepper. The coffee at this Pret is horrible. Early on in my early morning journeys to the prison, I ordered oat lattes, but finding them undrinkable and the wait untenable, I’ve moved onto black filter coffees. If I bring my own reusable cup, it’s only £1 and that’s about what it’s worth.
I order from a trainee employee who is completely flustered and out of his element this morning. The people behind the counter are frantic and the coffees are chaos. Customers are grabbing the wrong cups, taking a drink, and sending them back to be remade. The queue of I-already-paid-and-am-waiting-for-my-drinkers is growing. My cashier rings me up and asks another woman whose coffee-making arms could only be moving more quickly if she had 8 octopus tentacles at her disposal if he should pour my filter coffee himself. She shoots him a look of death and he jumps to the task. Delivering me my coffee, I ask the trainee if he can spare a napkin – Pret keeps them behind the counter, presumably to keep people from taking away large stacks with them – and he gives me a stack about a centimeter thick.
7:14am
The long slow train on the Edinburgh line departs. I’m sitting facing backwards next to my bike. The other woman with the bike who takes the same train as I do every Friday is asleep in the seats facing me. I peel open my sandwich and dig in. There’s a familiarity in this sandwich. A comfort. I push down the vacuum-sealed lid of my coffee cup and it makes a great popping noise. I take a swig – the coffee isn’t so burned this morning! Hot and black – just what I wanted.
1pm
I’m waiting for my student to arrive. I microwave the last bit of tomato basil soup hoping my stomach can withstand the bloat I’m expecting.
5pm
I’m home from work and awaiting Candice who’s coming by to help peel potatoes and sweet potatoes and apples and pears for me. I get to work immediately on the piecrusts. I make a double batch. I’m thrilled when the pastry comes together at just the texture I want it. I separate it into 4 flat discs to make it easy to roll out into top and bottom crusts later, wrap them in cellophane and place them into the tiny bit of room I have left in the fridge. I haven’t remembered that I should eat something for dinner and am eyeing the corn flakes again when Candice arrives and immediately sets up a delicious platter of vegan cheese, baguette, and green olives. Lifesaver! She uncorks a bottle of red and gets to work peeling immediately. I offer her an option of two different peelers. She pulls from her pocket, a third. She goes for the sweet potatoes first, trying out each peeler to find the one that best suits her work.
7:15pm
I start making a cake. It’s a pumpkin espresso bundt cake. The recipe comes from King Arthur flour, a top quality brand back home. It’s a big bowl of pumpkin goodness and nothing more satisfying than turning over a firmly packed cup of brown sugar. As it bakes, the fragrance fills the room and I begin to get excited about Sunday’s flavors. I start chopping the now-peeled sweet potatoes and throwing them into roasting pans with an onion, vegetable oil, salt, and rosemary. When Candice finishes with the sweet potatoes, I ask her to move on to apples. I realize now that I have nowhere near enough to make two apple pies – not even one, actually. So instead, I make a spiced apple and pear crumble with an oat topping. It’s off to buy more apples tomorrow first thing, as the pies will take a while in the oven.
9:40pm
I set to making a Christmas fruitcake. I wouldn’t normally have this at a Thanksgiving feast, but I’m worried about not having enough desserts and bought a tasty bag of brandy-soaked fruit the other day. I remove the pumpkin cake from the bundt pan and notice it’s flattened quite a bit. I hope its flavor will outdo is appearance. I clean the pan, re-grease and flour it, and pour in the Christmas cake batter. I set it in the oven and say goodbye to Candice.
10:25pm
I checked the Christmas cake with a toothpick and found it coming out clean, so I removed it from the oven thinking it was good to go. I consider letting it stay in the pan overnight, but decide to flip it onto the cooling rack. As I do so, I feel something not right. Hurriedly, I turn it over to see what’s happening and it reveals a bit of goo eeking out of the top. Panic sets it. I flick on the oven and slide in the cake.
I leave the room to brush my teeth and change for bed. When I come back, I smell burning. Is it just the bit that dripped into the bottom of the oven? No! It’s the cake!! I see a bit of very dark brown along the edge of what only moments before was a beautiful cake. I start to pick at it with a butter knife, but know I’m only going to ruin anything that might be salvageable if I keep that up. I sit the cake in the pan onto the cooling rack and cover it with a tea towel. I’ll deal with that tomorrow.
11:23pm
Having someone to talk to while cooking made the night fly by. Maybe it even went a little too fast, as it’s now past 11pm and I’ve not gotten done even half of what I needed to. Tomorrow morning back to work. The big day is nearly upon us.
This week we’ve very excited about having giacinta frisillo sharing with us from Glasgow via New York: giacinta frisillo (she, they) (@giacinta_frisillo , @_glovestory_) is a visual and performance artist and community educator. she loves cats and hates capital letters. This week, giacinta is having a Thanksgiving meal, feeding friends, serving them with the best autumnal foods and we are looking forward to hearing threads of her thought processing what Thanksgiving means to her.
As ever, get in touch if you too would like to have a week writing on the Gazette, it’s open to all. Best,
Sinae+Kate