A postcard from Edinburgh

Featuring castles, cobblestones, and courgettes

On The Cusp is about becoming the next version of ourselves. That means experimenting with the breadth of our interests, exploring the depths of anything that captures our imagination, and learning to embrace uncertainty along the way.

Welcome! This is letter #63.

Edinburgh skyline, captured on Kodak Portra 400 film

After fifteen hours of travel across eight time zones, we knew we couldn’t succumb to the urge to sleep for another few hours. Still, we were eager to leave the Edinburgh airport and settle into our home away from home.

Baggage claim had other ideas.

Like our fellow travelers, we’d been trained to wait patiently for ten, maybe fifteen minutes as our luggage got bussed from Point A to Point B, then flung unceremoniously onto an awaiting conveyor belt.

But as the minutes ticked by—thirty, sixty, ninety—without the arrival of a single suitcase from our flight, unrest was building. Ours had been the last inbound international flight of the day, so we were the only few dozen people left in the international terminal. There wasn’t a single airport employee to be found.

Our time in Scotland was off to an unpromising start: we were trapped in baggage claim for two hours (and, collectively, considering mutiny) before the conveyor belt finally creaked into motion.

As we drove into the city, all was forgotten. We were too busy gaping at Edinburgh’s stone buildings with their distinctive rooflines—and being unnerved by the traffic whizzing by on the wrong side of the road. Plus, we were puzzled by the preponderance of signs reading “TOILET” with the I missing. (We quickly figured out that “to let” was the UK equivalent of “for rent.”)

I knew that Edinburgh Castle was the one tourist attraction we’d be duty-bound to visit; still, nothing prepared me for the moment when we slid out of the backseat of our Uber, craned our necks toward the top of an extinct volcano, and found that landmark castle towering over us.

Over the course of our next three weeks in Europe, we stayed at two fabulous hotels and two Airbnbs that made us decide that—whenever there was another option—we wouldn’t be choosing Airbnbs anymore. Reading Brenna’s essay on aligning your accommodation to your values played a part in that decision, but in the end, it was mostly the cold showers I took in Edinburgh that did the trick.

“I’ve been picking Airbnbs because I thought you needed extra room for your home office,” I explained to my boyfriend through chattering teeth after my third abortive attempt at personal hygiene.

“Oh, I don’t need anything bigger than a hotel desk,” he replied. “Honestly, I’ve just been going along with the Airbnbs because I thought you liked them.”

And just like that, we became hotel people.

One thing Airbnbs have going for them, though: on some level, they let you engage in the self-deception that you’re a local.

I threw myself into that fiction with alacrity, going for runs through Dean Village and down into the sunken, tree-lined Water of Leith Walkway like it was a part of my daily routine. I settled in for expertly-brewed espresso at Cairngorm Coffee with a wonderful friend—Dr. Mariana Calleja Ross, someone I met in person for the first time in Scotland but who felt like the kind of confidant I had years of history with.

And I wandered the aisles of Boots Pharmacy, my new favorite drugstore chain, whose outposts seemed to answer the question what if Walgreens and Sephora had a baby?

I’d been tearing through my vacation read, Glynnis MacNicol’s I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself, an account of the author’s hedonistic post-pandemic residence in Paris, when I found myself underlining this observation: “Having prosaic things to do in an operatic city is one definition of what it is to be European.” This only served to enable my obsession with Boots.

But as tourists in Edinburgh, our first order of business was walking the Royal Mile, the steep stretch of Old Town connecting Edinburgh Castle with the Palace of Holyroodhouse.

Unsurprisingly, just about every other visitor was there too, along with an assortment of stores that sold all the stuff you’d want to buy when in Scotland: tartan and wool everything, tins of shortbread, amber bottles of peaty whisky.

But it was well worth it to gape at the architecture, slip into the quaint alleyways that Scots call closes, ditch the crowds for eggs Florentine at the Edinburgh Larder, and admire those intrepid few who’d decided to climb Arthur’s Seat. We followed the long curve of Cockburn Street and the exuberant rainbow storefronts of Victoria Street, where I stopped to buy a pair of sunglasses (we got lucky with the forecast).

Our home base in New Town was ideally situated for walking—and getting deliciously lost—just about everywhere in Edinburgh: the Royal Mile, Haymarket for our Palmerston pastry fix, and Stockbridge for our Lannan pastry fix. I fell in love with Stockbridge’s density of adorable shops and the sweet normalcy of parents walking hand-in-hand with their kids dressed in school uniforms.

It was Stockbridge where I spent an hour combing the shelves of Rare Birds Book Shop, the bright little store championing female authors (their motto: “We’re serious about reading for fun”) and where I had my first standout meal of the trip, a late lunch at The Pantry.

As I sat in The Pantry’s dining room, the sun slanting through the window behind me was so hot and bright that I worried absentmindedly about leaving with a sunburn. Then my server arrived with a plate of poached eggs, fried halloumi cheese, and a gorgeous assortment of vegetables on a bed of spicy red sauce: spears of sweet potatoes, flat oblong slices of grilled courgettes (zucchini!), half a tomato, smashed avocado.

The sunburn risk was promptly forgotten.

The Pantry offered vegetables to lust after, much like the broccoli salad I had at Dishoom.

Dishoom is a small and beloved collection of Indian restaurants scattered across the UK, and it was easily the most special dining experience of our time in Edinburgh. Our lunch table was full to the brim, and so were we: of crispy chili chicken marinated with garlic, ginger, and soy, a black daal that had been simmered for a full day, tender braised lamb, the aforementioned broccoli salad studded with dried fruit, soft roomali roti to scoop everything up, minty yogurt raita to serve on top. Before we left Edinburgh, I returned for a solo dinner—eaten outside, shivering but happy that I’d avoided the hourlong wait.

The pizzeria Franco Manca lured me in with its gigantic message proclaiming “SOURDOUGH PIZZA”—displayed so clearly through its floor-to-ceiling windows that I spotted it from across the Water of Leith—just as The Voodoo Rooms bar drew me in for cocktail hour with its impossibly ornate gold-trimmed ceiling and tufted leather booths. And Spry Wines drew me in with a spare, curated setting ideal for an afternoon spent reading I’m Mostly Here to Enjoy Myself while sipping orange wine. (Glynnis would’ve been proud.)

By the time the typical Scottish gloom descended, it was our last morning in the city. I nestled three tins of baked-to-order House of Edinburgh shortbread under my arm, grabbed my suitcase, and steeled myself to drive on the left side of the road toward the Isle of Skye.

Are you following along with my year of pizza on YouTube? Here’s the latest installment of the In Depth Cookbook Club! ⬇️

Step into my kitchen, where I’m making the Roasted Broccoli Pizza with Tomato "Butter" and Olives (p. 109) and the Classic Chopped Salad (p. 111) from Alexandra Stafford’s wonderful cookbook Pizza Night.

As always, I’d love to hear from you. What’s captured your imagination lately?

Warmly,
Maddie