soaking and slow-cooking on sundays

settling into England winter, a few roast recipes to consider

My dad credits Oxford—rather, England and its perpetual grey—for his love of baths. When he arrived from Baltimore as a PhD student in 1977, he was puzzled by his classmates’ brow-beating on taking baths. Soaking? In your own filth? It seemed entirely nonsensical, even a little foul.

But it only took four years of living there to convert him. Nearly five decades later, my extremely American father still starts each morning with a bath. A typical sound in our household was the sudden splash of water, followed by his pleased “ahhhs” echoing from behind the closed bathroom door (I can feel my teenage eye-rolling creeping in at just the thought). Now, even for the briefest of trips, he adamantly requires a tub, his ritual of soaking and steaming so important he can’t imagine existing without it.

And here I am, in England. I swear, it took barely two weeks of living here for me to start considering taking one myself.

An unseasonably nippy front had blown in during early September. My suitcases were still unpacked, tan lines striped my chest, and I was still reaching for my sweaty Brooklyn summer rotation of shorts and tank tops. Despite the trees still lush and school not yet in session, the weather flipped on its head and said, “You better lock in, girl—it’s fall and you’re in England.” Stepping off the overground train one of those first chilly days, I zipped up a coat that felt foreign, headed toward home, and thought, “I could…run a bath right now.”

It’s not a frozen, bone-deep chill—it’s stayed reliably in the low 60s all fall. But with dampness in the air, and that thin cloak of grey stretching wide across the sky most days, it’s a clammy kind of chill that begs to, yes, be soaked off and forgotten in a tub of scalding water.

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Since that first Bath Craving, I’ve noticed myself starting to develop a real fondness for the seemingly infinite ways culture here is shaped around the gloom:

Drinking hot tea around the clock (7 or 8 cups a day, if you’re my flatmate), casually flipping on the kettle without even noticing, squidging that bag of breakfast tea against the side of the mug. Warming both hands and taking steam right to the face.

Spending hours in cozy, old-man pubs with wooden chairs, surrounded by packs of families, friends, and tables lined with, truly, endless pints of belly-busting lagers, ciders, and foamy pours of Guinness.

Waiting patiently in queues that snake out of butcher shops on Sundays, purchasing heavy cuts of meat to slow cook in roasting pans built into the oven. Tucking into these roasts at home or the pub, hearty portions drowned in rich gravy, soaking roast beef, salted wedges of potato, and stewed carrots.

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Sure, London, as the global hub of England, is a mishmash of every imaginable international cuisine—my list of places to try is already nearing 400. The world-renowned markets dotting the city serve up just about everything. The men in rolled beanies and tiny tattoos on this side of the pond are opening just as many nearly identical small-plate restaurants and listening bars in “up and coming” areas. All of this I expected.

But I think the (annoying) New Yorker in me assumed the younger crowd might scoff at tradition, opting for hyper-modern spots and new flavors, leaving the old haunts behind. I was very wrong, and it’s been one of my favorite surprises. Every Brit I’ve spent time with has been keen to share their favorite spot for a Sunday roast, and they moan as I describe the menu items I’ve tried so far—the nut roast served with lentils, the pub sandwich stacked with pork. They frequent their local pubs more than anywhere else and miss them when traveling abroad. These daily, weekly, seasonal rituals are so present and deeply ingrained, and I’m starting to understand why.

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As someone with fruit in the name of her Substack, who could soliloquize about nothing but bowls of plump, uncooked July produce and the thrill of watching bulbs poke out of the dirt in May… I had been a bit nervous about adapting. I understand the darker edges that come with the gloom here. My dad is the first to scoff at the weather; after a final nasty bout of pneumonia following his Oxford graduation, he swore he could never live here again. The drinking culture is an obvious, dicey response to the climate, and it’s one I don’t love. The prospect of 4 pm sunsets for five months is more than a bit unnerving, and soon enough, I may be so vitamin D-deficient and irritable and resembling a Victorian ghost that it’ll be laughable to read about me finding the silver linings in any of it.

But! As I wrote about growing up hating when a torrential downpour would come to an end, I’ve felt similar pangs of pleasure here in realizing the only real option is to accept and let myself dissolve into it all. And there’s simply something undeniably comforting about living somewhere that has gotten it down. Crusty yeasted bread has been washed down with sips of ale from heavy cups by the English for centuries… and from just two months here, I can confirm it remains as soothing a salve as ever.

A core tenet of mine is that food is best enjoyed when it matches the emotional tone of the moment (perhaps the thesis of the blog itself…). This realization has shaped my experience of cooking as a single adult and defined my relationship with feeding and caring for myself. In response to the doom, the gloom, the spitting rain, and the fogged-up bus windows, I’m enjoying leaning into the relative simplicity of the local food here. The dark wood paneling of the pubs. Starting my days with a milky mug of English breakfast instead of espresso. Saying I could run a bath—and maybe someday soon, actually doing it. They know how to do it here: how to survive the chill in your bones, how to meet the moment, often through rib-sticking fortification—and I’m quite enjoying taking their advice.

Film from my weekend trip to Oxford in October. The oldest pub in town.

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A Dreamy Sunday Roast

I’ve shared many of these on OOSF before, but here’s a little collection of some of the coziest, roast-adjacent recipes I’ve made or been served. While not traditional British, they more than fit the bill to create a warming, hearty autumnal meal to plate up and share with your people.

For a Thanksgiving, a Christmas, a Sunday Roast, EDIT: hell, a goddamn random weeknight dinner to share with your best friend or your lover because Donald Trump has been elected again, the future is frightening, the world horrifying, and drowning your sorrows in hot gravy and fatty meat is one solid way to cope.

ode to beige food

Roast:

• Carolina Gelen’s Orange Chicken Roast with Fennel and Shallots

• Molly Baz’s Pastrami Roast Chicken

• Any Jewish-Style Beef Brisket

• Ottolenghi’s Slow-Cooked Lamb Shoulder with Fig & Pistachio Salsa

Sides:

• Carla Lalli Music’s Shaved Parm and Purple Cabbage Salad (book here)

• Golubka Kitchen’s Lemon Miso Potatoes (the best roast Ps you’ll ever have)

• David Tanis’ Olive Oil Mashed Potatoes

• Popovers (which I slightly prefer over Yorkshire pudding myself)

• Alison Roman’s Buttered Stuffing with Celery and Leeks

• Smitten Kitchen’s Butternut Squash and Chickpea Salad

• Miso-Glazed Carrots (many similar recipes, this one works!)

• Amanda Hesser’s Winter Squash Braised in Cider

As for dessert, I haven’t yet made sticky toffee pudding or anything of the sort, so that’s on the docket for this season for me.

Happy Sunday. Hope the lighting is low, that you’re surrounded by someone who adores you, that your phone is on Do Not Disturb, and that your meat is fork-tender. Love you.