What is your name and where are you currently?
I’m Gabriel Pryce and at home I’m in London.
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Are you where you normally live?
Right here, between these few walls, in Bethnal Green.
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What are you currently reading?
I’m slowly pushing through The Feral Detective, but it’s not really kept me locked in. It hasn’t really made me care about anyone in it. So mostly left wing news papers and the gossip columns of right wing click bait arsehole websites like most people.
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What are you currently watching?
People Just Do Nothing, Drag Race and we finished all of Normal People just like everyone else. Using Mubi and Cuzon for films, stand outs being Bacurau, Biutiful and Capernaum.
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What are you currently listening to?
NTS radio a lot. Pretty much every morning for Charlie’s show, and always the monthly Fervent Moon show. One of the best and most knowledgeable people I know, Max Barbaria, makes playlists for Supreme and he’s making them all available on Spotify so you can listen to them all. His knowledge is deep, and I’m sure he would appreciate that I make it clear that he has to make these with what is available on Spotify. So they’re amazing , but there’s more where that didn’t come from if that makes sense.
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What have you been eating the most? Do you have a recipe to share?
I’m lucky that I’m a chef in lockdown and I have a very good local store and my girlfriend and I love all kinds of food so there isn’t really something we’re eating more than anything else. But we always have fresh corn tortillas in the fridge and a lot of Valentina on hand. We make a lot of Mexican dishes.
I have a simple recipe that I like sharing that I used to eat at a Cuban/Dominican spot in Brooklyn with my brother when we lived together there many years ago. It was a breakfast plate of rice, black beans and sweet plantain.
I don’t really need to write a full recipe but essentially:
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Cook any rice how you like it.
Cook black beans how you like them (I advise cooking in chicken stick with a bay leaf and some dried chile)
And then the sweet plantain. Take a nicely over ripe yellow skinned plantain, peel it, chop into chunks and fry in vegetable oil until golden brown.
Plate this up and eat with lots of hot sauce. Add a fried egg maybe I dunno, could be nice.
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How are you moving your body/exercising?
From my years of cheffing plus now two years of running our cafe/bodega/wine shop/take out spot where I am not in the kitchen as much but still act like a chef (and don’t take care of myself enough) , I have a compressed disk in my right side. Stretching. A lot. I’ve been doing flexibility exercises almost daily and I can now touchy toes. Shout to Ben Freeman for the inspo.
If you’re buying anything, what is it?
Ingredients and movies. I guess that sums me up really, a chef that went to film school/ used to make films. oh and a bike, my back wheel came off my piece of shit rust bucket while I was on it and I’m over it, got me a good road bike and it needs to arrive soon I want to ride my bicycle!
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What’s one new thing you started doing big or small since this all happened? (Like a new skill/a hobby or even habit)
I have very slowly and not very surely started writing again. I have 3 pages of a script and so far nothing happens in it. Feels like the old me!
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Tell me about your evening routine! And your morning one too!
Cooking dinner pretty much every night is very therapeutic and a reassuring, nice part of the day. We sell wine so we have quite a few really beautiful wines to hand which has been really nice, not drinking to excess at all but really getting to know our wines and their producers has been great. And I like walking around the neighbourhood in the evening. But to be honest I’m not really a creature of habit and I find routines get monotonous.
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What’s one way big or small that you’ve been helping others?
Early on I did my utmost to responsibly support and be there for members of my family when they got sick. Everyone is fine and healthy now but it was a scary time and that took most of my attention.
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Do you know of any good charities or causes people could donate to?
Anything you can do to support those saving lives is invaluable. We will never be able to do enough for the NHS who have been completely gutted and fucked over by our government.
Thousands of people struggled every day to get by in this city even before the pandemic.
The Trussell Trust supports food banks across London helping people locked in poverty and anyone that can not afford to feed themselves, and campaign for change to end the need for food banks in the UK.
https://www.trusselltrust.org/
I also think it is incredible how the homeless have been left out of this conversation by so many. They are more vulnerable now than ever and they need our support.
Crisis is a charity that is very close to my family and they do amazing work.
Those are UK based charities. Anyone reading this in the US donate to CUAPB.ORG
Communities Against Police Brutality based in Minneapolis.
The UK is not free from this problem, and we all need to be involved in eradicating institutional racism deeply rooted in the police forces and now ruling political parties in our countries, in any country. In any part of any country. NOW!
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What keeps you sane?
I wouldn’t know, but making sure I avoid the pressure to learn how to speak Dutch or bake a perfect sourdough loaf by the time this is over is probably healthy.
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What one thing can’t you wait to do?
I want to swim and I want to hug my parents.
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Who has been the most interesting/unexpected person you’ve spoken with since this started?
Probably this to be honest. I tried using that house party app but it gave me anxiety. Not that I don’t want to talk to my friends! I do miss them.
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What’s one thing you’re grateful for?
A very understanding person to share my lockdown with.
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Anything else to share?
We are in this mess because our governments were not ready. They were not ready because they chose to not be ready. They knew this was coming. They chose to not prepare, they chose to not spend money to protect people and to save lives. Ours spent money on Brexit and yours spent money on a Space Force. Without big change there is no fucking hope. Watch movies, listen to music, bake whatever you want however you want.