A Day in the Life: Courtney Brandt.
Behind the scenes of your favorite food writer. 🤓
Maybe you woke up this morning and wondered, ‘What does Courtney Brandt do all day?’ Well, friends, today is your lucky day! Basically, I’ve seen a few versions of this topic on other blogs and Substacks and enjoyed the insight, so here we are. Naturally, I’d be equally curious to see what all of you are up to in a given week.
As I’m sure it’s the same situation for you, my weeks are the same but different (such is life, yes?). While I go on press trips — often booked last minute (no complaints) — for the exercise of this post, I’ll focus on what a good/ideal week would look like for me in Dubai. For the record, in a perfect month, I would have 3 weeks at home and 1 week (or part of a week) on a trip (vacation or press).
Do I hit my goals every week? No, but I’m forever trying. With the world sort of falling apart around us, I think we’re all just doing our best.
Officially, I only try to dine out once during the week and once on the weekend. An ideal week would be no dinners and a lunch review — why? Natural light and less traffic. Another perfect week would be a DIFC tic-tac-toe, where I would do something of a progressive dinner and hit multiple venues in the same evening (and maximize my time in the area). Still another great week would be overnight at a hotel, where I could maximize multiple locations at a property.
Overall, unless specifically invited, I try not to visit restaurants during peak/busy times. As a non-paying customer, I don’t feel it is right to take a table away from someone who brings actual revenue to the venue. Since 2020, I don’t specifically pitch restaurants. Instead, I wait for an invitation from the chef, kitchen, or PR team. Post-COVID, I realize the F&B industry doesn’t need extra people asking for free meals. If an outlet or property wants to invite me, that’s their choice, and I am forever grateful for the opportunity.
In a later post (if there’s interest), I will go into the whys and whys of my personal approach to accepting invites.
Finally, in the spirit of honesty and transparency, my screen time is around four hours daily. Do I love that number? I don’t. However, part of my job involves running social media for a two-Michelin-star restaurant, so it’s literally my job to be online.
6:30 AM - 8 AM
In case you (somehow) weren’t aware, I have a desert rescue from K9 Friends, Poppy, and my first job of the day is her morning constitutional. If it’s the winter (i.e., reasonable temperatures), I can push her walkies to 7:30 AM or later. If it’s the summer (i.e., living on the sun), we’re out the door no later than 6:30 AM. Honestly, I don’t mind the early wake-up because I tend to wake up naturally around this time. As many of you will know, I much prefer an early night, and that’s because regardless of when I go to bed, I’m still up early. Tell me you’re in your 40s without telling me you’re in your 40s.
8:00 AM - 12: 00 PM
Once my beloved doggo has her 3-course breakfast — I wish I were kidding — I make my breakfast. Letting go of executive function, I have the same daily brekkie: a cup of tea, half a bagel with cream cheese dusted with Everything but the Bagel seasoning, and my vitamins. Most days, I’m at my computer by 8 AM, where I whizz through my social media platforms and then do the same for Tresind Studio. Once I’ve got a cup of tea in my system, it’s time to scroll through the F&B websites I monitor to find the best and most interesting links for my newsletter. Once I’ve triaged my inbox, done my best not to add anything to my proverbial online cart, and discovered my links for the day, I spend time working on my current manuscript, which could be editing or writing.
During this time, I’ll monitor e-mails and action things accordingly. If there’s posting from a meal the previous day that needs doing, I’ll (most likely) jump on the treadmill and get active on Instagram.
I definitively work best in the morning, so I try to use my active brain between the hours of 8 and 12. If at all possible, I try to hold one day of the week when I don’t have to leave the house. Genuinely, I like a very flexible day to accomplish things. I want my mornings to be unstructured, which also applies to appointments. I haven’t worked in a traditional office in over 8 years, and I don’t miss a second of that life. While working with Tresind Studio is a 7-day-a-week job, it doesn’t feel like that, and I would much rather my current lifestyle than anything I did in my 30s. Also, in today’s world, as a known entity in Dubai, I can be approached on nearly every platform, so being online means that my WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Instagram, and e-mail accounts are all under constant approach from someone about something.
12 PM - 4 PM
Weirdly, I like to switch “locations” in the afternoon. In the morning, I’m attached to my desk, but in the afternoon, I’m somewhere else in the house. I also prefer calls and meetings in the afternoon. Call it executive dysfunction, but after almost 45 years on Earth, these are my habits. With everything ticked off in the morning, I focus on other activities. This includes other chores, editing posts for social media, working on future posts for Substack, pitching articles, working on articles, preparing press releases, research of any kind, invoicing, tracking payments, thinking about exercising (and maybe doing something about it), monitoring anything related to Tresind Studio, my daily Duolingo lesson, and reading (I fundamentally believe reading is imperative to writing). If I’ve got an upcoming press trip, I’ll be packing.
4 PM - 8 PM
I’m not quite a 1950s housewife, but I try to keep a (somewhat) tidy house and get meals prepared in the house. I also find that I’m not at my peak mental performance later in the day, and I basically try to honor that knowledge by not committing to any “new” writing or intense editing. This is also a time to watch TV and movies and catch up on our days once Hubs is home from work. If I do have a restaurant review, my husband rarely joins me — mainly because I’ve been in this food writing space for 8 years, and he’s been a +1 enough to enjoy it once a month or so, but otherwise, he’d rather be at home after working all day (and I can’t blame him).
8 PM
Time to read again! Some nights, I mindlessly (doom)scroll through social media, but genuinely, if I have a good book to read, I try my best to get some pages read. As a fiction writer, it’s imperative to know your genre; plus, I genuinely love reading and getting lost in another world.
9:30 PM
Yes, I really turn the light off. I’m not a naturally great sleeper, so I might not fall asleep for a bit (hence my love of podcasts). Also, with a 10kg dog in my bed, I’m bound to get up at some point during the night. My earlier (than most) bedtime is why late reviews, events, and dinners mess with my schedule. I realize most restaurants aren’t going to cater to what I think is the perfect start time (5 PM — late breakfast, skip lunch, and be done with dinner at the latest 9 PM — fight me), but I’ll forever choose the earliest acceptable reservation (Dubai traffic be damned).
The above schedule is mostly how I work without meetings, lunch reviews, activations, or other events that take me out of the house. Additionally, for the past nine 9 years, I’ve also given one day a week to volunteer at K9 Friends (become a member here). It’s how we found Poppy, and for the record, it's not always easy work. While overall, the experience is incredibly rewarding, there are a lot of people who will abandon a dog without a second thought. I’m usually emotionally spent on these days and have low energy when I get home.
So, Courtney, what About the Weekends?
Whenever possible, I try to keep at least part of my morning schedule in place. What can I say? I’m a creature of habit, and — in case you haven’t guessed it — I love being productive. Otherwise, a long walk with Poppy, an occasional brunch, meal prepping, getting together with friends, or hanging out at our pool is pretty much all I want to do. Overall, I’d rather have one day on/socializing and one day of the weekend “off” (i.e., no cars and no interactions — my inner introvert needs her recharging).
So, what’s your week like? Do you have the same schedule every day? How do you work best? In the office or at home?
