“Dublin Airport, please.” Heading to London, hardly believing my luck. First time off the island since the carry-on, road-testing a newly purchased carry-on case. Bright red, a fancy one with four wheels instead of two. Four wheels good, it turns out. Gliding smoothly along shiny floors, enjoying the long, snaking airport queue. Four wheels fantastic, it turns out. Never going back.
At the check-in gates, out of practice, fumbling with my passport and reading glasses and my phone and the QR code and the scanning machine. “It’s been a while,” I tell the man in uniform, who watches me try and fail and fail again to get through. “You’ve got too much stuff in your hands,” he observes.
Then, just as I worry he’s annoyed, the man in uniform decides to fast-track this fumbling, flustered woman, using his power to instigate a random act of kindness, lifting ropes and ushering her, ushering me, through like royalty.
It’s been a while, but finally I make it to the other side. And then it hits. The smell of too many designer perfumes in a windowless space. The smell that means you’ll soon be somewhere else. It’s all coming back to me now.
A 7am flight. Gliding again, above the clouds, and beyond them somewhere a soft pink-and-orange sunrise. A few days in London. Grand plans that will never materialise to visit cultural institutions. But it’s Irish Times Food Month, in case you hadn’t noticed. So this historic trip off the island will be mostly told through the medium of food and beverages.
The full English
Instead of going places, because we couldn’t go places, I travelled the world on food websites during lockdowns. Must have watched this one video about the best breakfast in London 20 times. Terry’s Cafe on Great Suffolk Street. I head there from the airport and soon recognise the owner from the video. It’s Terry’s son Austin wearing his trademark cap.
The place is packed. “You don’t mind sharing a table with Pat over there?” he says, and I don’t, so I glide my carry-on over to Pat. She’s lived in a council flat around the corner for 53 years. “They look after me here,” she says.
I order The Works. Pat nods approvingly – she can’t eat as much as she used to any more on account of her various ailments, but she would if she could. The plate arrives. There’s a huge Cumberland sausage, beans, black pudding, mushrooms, fried egg, tomato and bubble, which stands for bubble and squeak, but Pat doesn’t have to tell me that, because my mother is an East Ender, innit.
I can’t eat it all, but I eat enough to win Pat’s approval, and then I need a lie down.
The curried crab
I’m staying with my brother Peter, his wife, Aoife, my nine-year-old nephew James and their dog, Teddy. They take me out for a fancy dinner at a place in Shoreditch called St Leonard’s. We leave Teddy at home listening to “relaxing dog music”. (“Hey Google, play relaxing dog music,” Aoife commands the digital assistant before we leave.)
At St Leonard’s we rhapsodise over the raw mackerel, dandelion and soy butter. We fall on the fermented potatoes and tahini mayo and sunflower-seed rayu. We tuck into phenomenal curried crab, yuzu, shiso and creme fraiche. James has chips brought in from the chicken shop next door.
The Fuckoffee
It's been far too long since I saw my nephew. The next day we take the bus, and in Bethnal Green he points out an interesting cafe. It's called Fuckoffee, and the foul-mouthed coffee place becomes a bonding experience for the two of us.
“Do you want to go Fuckoffee?” he asks me. “Yes, please, I’d love a Fuckoffee,” I tell him. It cracks us up. And when we eventually, inevitably go for coffee at Fuckoffee we are thrilled to discover they have brown paper bags printed with the word Shite. I take three to bring home.
“Have you got your shite bags, Róisín?” James says as we leave. “Fuckoffee, James,” I reply. We cackle all the way home.
The Scotch egg
The Sunday food market in sprawling Victoria Park is famous. You can get fresh oysters and vegan jellies, and there’s even a stall selling popular snacks for dogs. James buys Teddy a rabbit’s ear and a chicken foot.
Farther on, past the market at the beautiful Chinese Pagoda, a group of people have gathered for their weekly Stand in the Park. They meet here each Sunday, in parks all over Britain and all over the world. These are people who don’t feel their views are being heard, views that go against what they call “the mainstream narrative”. I know I am supposed to think these people are crazy. The geologist. The teacher. The veterinarian. I don’t think they are crazy.
I listen for a while, hovering on the edges. They talk about legalities, moralities, divisions, vaccinations. “This is the only place I can speak freely about how I really feel,” says one woman. I go back to the market and buy a Scotch egg with chutney and mustard and split it with Peter.
The salt-beef sandwich
On Brick Lane we join the queue for Beigel Bake. It’s an efficient system. You order your bagel or sandwich, then shuffle along to the counter where the melt-in-the-mouth salt beef is piled high on to bread, smeared with mustard, loaded with long, sliced gherkins. I chew and think of my mother, who always speaks so reverentially about the salt-beef sandwiches of her London youth. I post a picture of the sandwich on the family WhatsApp, hoping to make her drool.
The takeaway
I highly recommend a few days off the island for a gourmet tour of somewhere else. I didn't realise how much I needed a change of scenery. I thought all this carry-on would be well over by now. But it's not over, not anywhere. Masks. Cases. Covid news. Judgment. Division. Derision. Personal responsibility. Boosters. Spoofers. The carry-on just keeps carrying on. How I wish it would all just fuckoffee.
roisin@irishtimes.com