Side note: Pleased to announce that Irritated Risotto was a huge success. Agitated rice-stirring works just as well, if not better, than gentle love and care. From now on I will be making risotto with a headache.
Side note 2: Blaming Tuesday’s typos on headache and excitement for pancake day. Please forgive.
Breakfast
Eggs - two sunny side up with very runny yolks for me, two sunny side down with crispy edges for Jack. Avocado - one slightly too ripe mashed onto brown toast with chili, salt, lime and olive oil for me, one slightly too hard with olive oil and a lot of salt, sliced at the side of the plate for Jack. Sriracha sauce for both.
We wander into town, a generous portion of sky with sun smeared all over. I long for Deanston Bakery’s cardamon buns, best served on a day like today. Sometimes I’d get a smoked salmon bagel too because a bun and a smoked salmon bagel for a fiver is too good to pass up. Made the decision one day to stop the bagels as every bite I had made my jaw click in a concerning manner and I’d rather not think about going to the dentist. Here, there’s a tiny blue cafe that feels like a slice of Glasgow’s tart/bun/pastry obsession. I see on Instagram they have a fig, honey and frangipane tart today. It’s delicious and buttery and I love figs but I wish for a more marzipan-y frangipane. We eat outside with two cappuccinos. There, on the wooden slats of the table, the crumbs gather in a circle - a conference of crumbs. I think about reading tea leaves and wonder if the same can be done for crumbs. My old flatmate texts me that Honey Trap, another southside stronghold of tart/bun/pastry treats has closed. “I went this morning to get a bun. Imagine my despair. I got a greggs instead”.
Parting ways, I get lost and buy some olive green nail polish - an ode to yesterday’s green juice. In the charity shop, I talk myself out of buying an olive green and pink floral dinner plate set that looks like it has been salvaged from the set of Written on The Wind. There are very little food scenes in Written on The Wind, which surprises me now I think about it. Billy Wilder pours emotion into the entire set and costuming - the heartbreak, longing, tensions and guilts cling to lace curtains and velvet sofas, teem from huge bouquets of carnations, coat Lauren Bacall’s pink chiffon dresses. You would think food would be a good vessel for these emotions too. Nothing says "I can't keep holding back how I feel about you, Lucy. How I've felt ever since the first day we met. I'm in love with you.” like an Marie Antoinette looking cake layered with ripples of pink icing and blue candied flowers or a bowl of spaghetti with a glossy red sauce.
Lunch
Dear Reader, I am overjoyed to tell you Lunch and I finally found our footing today! Albeit at 5pm, but breakfast crept into the afternoon.
Bought a tin of mackerel from the entire aisle dedicated to tinned mackerel. In some shops they even have branded plastic lids designed specifically to cover your half-eaten tin of mackerel. Really like this commitment to a singular type of tinned fish. In the shop I play out the little routine of pretending I know Norwegian, as the cashier reliably asks (in the exact same order as always): “something something something pose?” (meaning something along the lines of “do you want a bag?”). “Nei.” “Something something something kvittering?” (“do you want a receipt?”) “Nei.” A chorus of tusen-takk follows ("a thousand thanks"). Note to self: learn Norwegian, beyond these few words and how to order an oat milk cappuccino.
Tinned mackerel dissolved into its tomatoey sauce, spinach and olive oil on toast. Black pepper. Tomato sauce and fish have become one in the tin, inseparable from each other for all their salty sins.
Had a big orange as a snack. I always think orange and coffee would be a good match, but bitter meets bitter and I hear the church bells ringing. Sat at the desk in the living room for once, a plastic surface with strong carved mahogany legs. 60s luncheon meets 1800s banquet.
Dinner
Some time in the mackerel-afternoon-haze, the sun settles. Time moves quickly but the days are getting longer.
Handmade chips roasted in the oven with a couple of garlic cloves thrown in. Love when the garlic bursts out of its papery shell in the oven, leaving gooey roasted garlic to snack on while doing the washing up. When crispy, potatoes are layered up with tomato/lime/corriander/red onion salsa, feta, srirachasauce. The kitchen smells mildly of mackerel. Today was the first day of 2022 I was able to sit outside to eat - the cappuccino and fig tart in the afternoon - and that makes me feel hopeful.
Ruby Eleftheriotis is a curator and writer, with one foot in Scotland and the other in Norway. You can find her on instagram here.
To get a better understanding of Russia’s hybrid war against Ukraine, have a look at this list of resources, compiled by Marta Bohdanna Iwanek.