Balancing on the Towpath

a lunch along a canal

Sometimes I listen to newsletters via the Substack app. Lately the voices have been changing from robotic female to gentle female. This morning it was a man’s voice coming from the top of my dresser where I had left my phone. I was cruising around the room, hanging my housecoat on the back of the bedroom door, looking for a pair of socks and generally spinning as I feel I’ve been doing since I’ve been back. A little jet-lagged, a little sick, a little distracted by the news, by my phone and the dopamine hits from Instagram. All to the tune of a man’s voice reading

Jami Attenberg

’s newsletter, Craft Talk. It was a strange sound, but somehow the words landed: 

I know everything is on fire right now. Please don’t forget to write. Please don’t forget to take ten minutes or a half an hour to sit down and capture your feelings in this moment in time. Go hide somewhere—even your bathroom—if you need to get away for a second. Take your phone or a little notebook with you. Whatever you need to make it happen.¹

So this is why I am sitting and writing now, not in my bathroom, but at the kitchen table, with books and a coffee mug and toast crumbs scattered around my laptop. I am writing for ten minutes. Regardless of how banal, how stiff, or resistant I may be. Jami Attenberg can do this to a person. 

Last week while away in London, James, cousin Betsy and I travelled across the city to Towpath, a little restaurant tucked along the Regent’s Canal deep in east London. It’s a place of dreams, in that rough and fancy, grit and glam, London kind of way. On the way from the tube we passed graffiti on brick walls, a leashless dog eating cold fries on a treeless street, warehouses and traffic. And then, suddenly, there were steps down to the canal where a willow drooped its branches until they touched the water. A couple kayaked under a cloudless sky. A houseboat, covered in solar panels and pots of rosemary, bobbed gently. A man in a high vis utility suit, perched like the little mermaid at the bow of his industrial barge puttered by until he disappeared under an arched stone bridge. 

I discovered Towpath sometime early in the pandemic when I was at home, like we all were, travelling through podcasts. Through one of my deep dives I found Towpath: Recipes and Stories,² a four part podcast series hosted by owners Lori De Mori and Laura Jackson. The episodes tell the story of this little place along the canal where, as they say in the episodes, “four little kiosks, a kitchen, a bar, a seated area and a larder come together to make up our restaurant.” 

We lined up against a low wall, behind a woman with a stroller, three friends chatting, a couple on a date. The water was like glass. 

Betsy has been a food mentor of mine for as long as I can remember. She ran a cooking school from her London basement kitchen. She introduced me to Books for Cooks. She can run a paring knife along a baby artichoke until the tender green heart is exposed, with her eyes closed. And when you’re sick with, say, food poisoning from eating bad oysters after a big night out with your friends when you’re just 22, she will feed you warm pheasant stock. 

Betsy, almost 84, had never been to Towpath, and was thrilled to trek from her home on the other side of the city for this experience. “I can’t believe this place!” she said, clasping her hands together as we were seated at a bright green-topped table crowned with a bouquet of dahlias, chives and floppy fennel fronds. I stood up and took a picture of the menu board then sat back down, expanded the image and together we poured over the selections. “How clever to take a picture,” she said. Everyone needs a Betsy. 

We ate chopped herring on toast. Poached leeks topped with a layer of grated egg so airy it looked like parmesan. Smoky merguez sausages. Tender beef brisket on a bed of basmati studded with matchsticks of… poached quince? 

Beside us, just a metre away, white beaked coots bobbed below the surface, popping up slick and dry. We saw a few coots earlier in the week in Green Park, wading into the water. We stopped to look at their funny toes, long and articulated unlike a duck's webbed feet. Our server told us that at night when Towpath is closed, you can see giant coots painted on the drawn kiosk shutters - a nod to the neighbours that keep them company everyday down here along the canal. 

The queue grew as we sat and ate our lunch. A flaxen-haired woman in a blazer and long, printed skirt walked over to the menu board. “I’m on my own,” she told the server, glancing over her shoulder at the long queue snaking down the wall. “Can’t I just join an empty seat at a table?” She was graciously directed into the queue with the words, “many people are on their own, but not to worry, it won’t take long.” If you don’t wait for a table, you’ll miss the drooping willow, the coots, the kayakers and the man in the high vis utility suit, sitting like a mermaid. It’s part of the meal. 

We walked back to the tube, this time via the canal. A dog on a long leash wrapped itself around my legs. I unravelled, spinning between a passing cyclist and the edge of the water. There’s a balance to this place. 

PS - Ten minutes have long passed. It’s time for lunch. I’m going to make a Towpath inspired grilled cheese sandwich with quince jelly. Balance in all things. 

PPS - Happy Canadian Thanksgiving to those celebrating. I’m going to try and make Violet Bakery’s Tequila-Marshmallow Pumpkin Pie. Wish me luck!

1. Craft Talk: We Are All Still Here

2. Towpath: Recipes and Stories - Listen Here