a sniffly, springy food diary
crying in Cambridge and eating outside
It’s never just about the food is it…You can find my other Food Diaries here and here. xo.
I.
The sun shines and I suppose I should be used to it by now but I’m not. Today will be balmy, too, meaning the Friday frenzy will be loud and reverberating, the same as it was every early New York spring. After a cup of tea, a banana-walnut bowl of oats, and a few hours of schoolwork, I take my…wait for it…first lunch of spring outside.
Perhaps the most glaring privilege of looking out onto a green is that I don’t need to dirty a single Tupperware to spontaneously upgrade my meal al fresco. So, I flake cold, leftover fish—a nice miso-glazed cod from the night before—into a bowl of warm rice with grated cucumber, chopped romaine, almonds, and some drizzled sesame oil and soy sauce, and bowl in hand, I head outside, letting the clang of the metal on porcelain do the bragging for me. I’m wearing shorts for the first time and I despise and adore it. Whose legs are those??
Late afternoon I walk all the way to campus, something I’ve taken to doing since the weather’s turned. With every step, I alternate between thanking the dangling willow vines for their reminders of beauty, and cursing them between sniffles and painful-delicious rubs of my eyes. Back swiped with sweat, I arrive a few miles later to Exmouth Market, where I’m meeting a school friend for drinks—celebratory ones, in honor of us reaching the end of our term. We sit outside Ken’s, a sleek, breezy wine bar, our bodies angled into the sun, and order a glass each; crisp white for her, orange for me. The street is packed, every chair filled with giddy people in sunglasses. I can almost see the blinking lights of our collective Vitamin-D levels recharging, and to that I say: thank god.
I stick to one glass, because my evening will be spent reading at our department’s casual spring event. I’m sharing an excerpt from a Substack piece actually, this one about my mom, and despite having to sit in a stuffy university lounge devoid of windows on the most exquisite evening of the year…I’m genuinely happy to be there, sharing.
I tear away the gold foil, breaking off a few pieces of my something sweet, hoping they’ll like it. They do, it seems; they laugh at my funny line, and they tell me they thought of their mothers, and I’m warmed up by all of it.
For the rest of the reading, I sip on far worse wine and munch on prawn cocktail crisps (a crazy sentence to type), leaving—as I always do—baffled and touched by all the different ways a creative brain can flex. It’s incredible to notice how we’ve all processed our existences and let stories emerge from them in such different ways. I think about it all night, coming home from the pub for a late, cobbled-together snacky dinner: thick spears of cucumber and celery stuck into a large plastic tub of hummus and topped with everything bagel seasoning. For sweetness, I shovel a few fistfuls of granola, and then start to unwind.
II.
Saturday starts with a run. Too beautiful these days for cycling in my basement bedroom, I’ve tried to trick my body into remembering that occasionally it does enjoy it. The entire flat has the same idea, all three of us leaving in quick succession, clad in spandex, sunglasses perched on our noses. I run, eating clouds of pollen, listening to 2000s pop, and begrudgingly admit that yeah, it feels really good. Breakfast afterwards is a bowl of Greek yogurt, stewed rhubarb, chopped hazelnuts, and another handful of that homemade granola I can’t stop snacking on.
I head to Shoreditch and bop around for a few hours with a friend, stopping into Jenki Matcha for a fix of caffeine. For me, it’s a simple (confirmed excellent) “Green White,” but I clock the tasty-looking signature lattes infused with ginger and turmeric and cacao for next time. A jolt is needed, because it’s time to make my way over to the Barbican Centre, where I’m thrilled/ecstatic/honored/blessed to be seeing the final matinee performance of The Seagull, starring Cate Blanchette & Emma Corrin.
As the lights dim, I look around the packed theatre and I’m smacked with shock that this many people, in the year of 2025, will shell out hard cash for three hours of Chekhov on a spring Saturday afternoon. But then I see Cate do a split in sequined pants and tap shoes, and understand. I leave grateful for modern translations, my gracious gorgeous flatmate providing the ticket and invitation, and the sanctity of the t h e a t r e, baby. It’s alive and extremely well.
The sun is thankfully still blazing, so I linger outside afterwards. The patio is swarmed with arty people sunning their tattooed limbs and draining glasses of wine and beer. I read a few pages of my book and eavesdrop on a few 20-somethings’ conversations I’d be having verbatim with my friends, smiling at how we’re all the same in the end. At this point I’m starved, and order a thick, dense slice of their cafe’s carrot cake to tide me over. It’s sticky sweet and cold from the fridge, just how I like it.
Back at home, it’s a long catch-up phone call and a springy pesto pasta for dinner. To add a bit of oomph to the storebought jars I find lacking in everything but oil, I blend up all of the tender herbs in the fridge, garlic, olive oil, red wine vin, a few spoons of Greek yogurt, walnuts, a bit of tahini, and salt and pepper. The zippy, verdant sauce adds depth, but I still top it with red pepper flakes, and a few heavy shakes of nutritional yeast. I finish my proper-thespian day with a rewatch of Theater Camp, a remembered perfect film, a mug of rooibos, and an early night that I feel excellent about.
III.
I go to Cambridge! Plans to travel with a friend fall through, but I still go. I decide at 10, and after a quick toast of banana, peanut butter, cinnamon, Maldon, and a flat white from the Liverpool Street coffeeshop with the shortest line, I’m on a train by 12. The Amtrak-ed American in me can hardly believe the ease, proximity, and affordability of it all.
In truth, I think I go to Cambridge just so I’m afforded a train journey. Nestled in with my book and my journal and pen, I remember the podcast episode where Jacqueline Novak jokes about considering buying back-and-forth airline tickets simply so she can have ample time in the air, free of distractions and sipping on ginger ale. Maybe she’s onto something, I wonder, as I feel the warmth come through the windows, and take in every mooing cow we pass.
I arrive without a single plan or moment of done research, but I decide that I don’t care? If I get to spend 30 pounds to breathe crisper air and read my book in the grass (sure, in exactly the way I’d do at the park outside my door…) I’ll be happy.
But first—lunch. I find myself in the heart of town at the sprawling outdoor market, and though it feels wrong in a place like this to order anything but pies or pasties or fish & chips even, I am called to the dumpling stand. I tuck my steaming hot order (shrimp + and a pork and chive bun) into my bag and meander over to the River Cam, where I stroll past the punters until I reach a sunny, open patch of grass. I devoir the vinegar-soaked dumplings.
It’s a practically perfect day, and that’s evidenced by the sheer number of humans walking by with ice cream cones in their fists. Earbuds playing Carole King, I spend the day walking the river, looking around, thinking hard long deep. My eyes well up at the joyful, springy sights I take in, and I deem the observations life-affirming. The past few weeks have been difficult, and I don’t remember the last time I cried from something shimmering and nice. The man playing guitar on the deck of his houseboat, the rowers gliding across the water; I jot it all down, promising to write about it.
I make loops around the campus, taking in the hordes of people sunning on the lawns, wondering who I’d have been if I had a college experience like this. It’s hard to believe these hallowed halls hold sleep-deprived, horny, Adderall-addicted 19-year olds all the same. And hallowed they are. I gaze up at the chapels and stony libraries brimming with nine-centuries of history, and know that I should be reflecting on the brilliant minds that have stood here before me. Instead though, I’m wondering if I should increase my Hinge age to 45 and set my sights on some salt-and-pepper bearded, divorced professor with a bike and a cross-body bag. That could do me some good, I think, and I see an entire alternate existence play in color in my head…Me, splitting time between cities…typing on the train…heating up coffee in his empty flat, waiting for him to return from his lecture…But I’m thrust back to reality when I realize the light has turned golden and I haven’t yet gotten my ice cream.
I order an ube-coconut cone from the very popular Jack’s Gelato, and the creamy cold of it is excellent. I nibble on the cone as I head towards the station, buying a return ticket, and feeling a swell of appreciation for this day I’ve given myself for no reason at all. For the time, space, and ability.
A quiet and solitary day, yes—but one where my brain has been lit up and buzzing with inspiration, simply from all of the human energy on display for me to absorb and consider. It’s spring, and everything is bursting from the soil. My time in England has offered a lot of this, and I’m confident all of the silent ruminations will be worth it looking back. I rest my head against the window of the train car, and doze the whole way home. Legs gummy, feet swollen from all of the steps, I mindlessly reheat some leftover pasta before showering off the pollen and gorgeously going horizontal.
If you enjoyed this Food Diary, check out my (slightly more food-forward) others linked at the top. Digestive hell in Brighton Beach…getting naked at the K-Spa…my perfect Los Angeles sandwich…