Illustration: Margalit Cutler
Patrick Radden Keefe’s journalism has taken him into the unscrupulous world of big pharma, back in time to the land of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and, in his latest book, London Falling, deep into the city’s criminal underground. But one of his very first published pieces was about food — specifically the rise of offal in upscale restaurants at the time — and, he says, “there probably could have been some happy alternative career path in which I became a restaurant reviewer.” Living in Westchester County doesn’t allow for many culinary expeditions these days, but he enjoys the quiet, especially as he’s in the midst of closing another piece for The New Yorker. “I’m surprised by how much the suburbs agree with me,” he says. “I’m a monk. A monk with two teenagers and a yard.”
Friday, March 20
As soon as I wake up I make a double espresso and fizz a bottle of cold seltzer. Breakfast is half of a little jar of White Moustache yogurt. I’ve been evangelizing about this stuff to anyone who will listen; all other yogurt pales by comparison. It ain’t cheap ($7 a jar, depending on where you get it), but it is delectable. I buy it once a week and make it last over two days. Today I’m having the date flavor with a little Gatherer’s granola. I’m solo with the kids (my wife, Justyna, is in London for work), so I make them lunch and get them off to school.
I should disclose that I spend more time than is probably healthy thinking and talking about food. My parents were big on family meals when I was growing up, and friends would sometimes point out a tendency of ours to mark the end of a nice lunch by immediately launching into an intense discussion about what we should have for dinner.
The catch is that I live in Westchester County. To quote Lara Flynn Boyle in the movie Happiness, “None of my friends can believe I live here. But that’s because they don’t get it: I’m living in a state of irony.” There is food I love in Westchester, but you’re mostly grading on a curve. An exception is O Mandarin, a fantastic Northern Chinese restaurant in Hartsdale. (It’s in a strip mall next to an H Mart. Always a good sign.) About once a month I meet up with my friend Mark, a screenwriter and serious foodie who also lives up here, for a decadent lunch at O Mandarin. We’ve been doing this for many years, and it’s a ritual I love.
Today, we order an ungodly amount: Chengdu fish soup (our favorite, sour and spicy and very funky), toothpick lamb, Chongqing chicken, Sichuan seafood in a clay pot, duck fried rice. We talk about writing and books and movies and the food even as we’re eating it. There are copious leftovers, which we take to go.
My older boy, who is 16, has signed up to run a half-marathon in Prospect Park on Saturday morning. So later I drive him and my 13-year-old to Brooklyn to spend the night at the home of our friends Michael and Mandy. We needed a reservation at the last minute, and we end up at Sociale in Carroll Gardens for dinner.
The gamification of restaurant booking in New York is a cursed phenomenon that I have opted to sit out entirely. I won’t go to inordinate lengths to secure a table in a restaurant, logging onto Resy at exactly 10 a.m. two weeks prior to the night I want to eat. This means there are any number of terrific spots I’d love to try but haven’t. It also means I’ll often end up at random places like Sociale. I have spaghetti carbonara, which is quite good. The kids have suppli al telefono (giving me an excuse to explain — for the hundredth time, like a dad — why they’re called “al telefono”), then pizza and pasta, followed by tiramisu. In addition to Michael and Mandy, another friend named Michael joins us (if you’re keeping track, I only befriend people whose given name starts with M). Rather a lot of wine is consumed.
At the end of the evening, Justyna arrives from London, with her suitcase, and informs us she ate at one of my favorite London restaurants, Honey & Co. I’m jealous.
Saturday, March 21
I first moved to New York City in 1995 to go to college, and one of my favorite sense memories from that period was the humble hangover breakfast, usually acquired at some greasy, impersonal deli, of a bacon-egg-and-cheese and a weak coffee with plenty of cream and sugar. Always to go.
This morning, after dropping Justyna and the 16-year-old at race registration, my younger guy and I drive around to find a parking space, then pop into a deli and get bacon-egg-and-cheeses, and a tea for Justyna, and we stroll back along the park, eating as we walk, the morning sun warming our faces. Bliss.
When it comes to athletics, I represent the shallow end of the gene pool, but my boys have inherited their mother’s sportiness, and my son finishes the race in 1:37, which seems blindingly fast to me. He gets his medal and rolls his eyes when we insist on photos, then we all drive into Soho. Michael (the second Michael) has a son Misha (I wasn’t kidding about the M’s) who has a part-time job at Upside Pizza on Spring Street. So we roll in and Misha hooks us up with slices (spicy vodka at his suggestion; Justyna gets a Sicilian slice with pepperoni). Upside does a sourdough crust, which is excellent, and it’s fun to watch Misha in his element.
When we get home, dinner is leftover O Mandarin from the day before (the kids aren’t complaining; they love O Mandarin) followed by navel oranges and chocolate. Justyna has a sweet tooth, and our house is equipped with an inexhaustible reserve of chocolate.
Sunday, March 22
Breakfast is the rest of that date yogurt (and espresso, always espresso).
Later, I make a simple omelet with some zhoug for lunch. I have a thing for tangy-spicy green condiments, and I’ll add zhoug to almost any savory dish; it also makes an amazing marinade for meat or fish. Purists make their own zhoug, but I am lazy and buy it.
My wife and I have an arrangement where I do all the cooking but then I do all the dishes. Justyna bakes — she makes first-rate scones and a mean carrot cake — but she doesn’t take any pleasure in cooking dinner. She’s also busy, running a nonprofit that does important work, and her schedule isn’t flexible in the way mine is. On Sundays I like to cook things that take a while and make the house smell good.
Dinner today is penne bolognese, which I prepare in the afternoon and let cook for several hours. My recipe is pretty traditional, but I like a very deep concentration of flavor — not too saucy — so I simmer the hell out of it to unleash the funk.
There’s a specific, almost mythical loaf of bread that my whole family is obsessed with, which a Scandinavian bakery inside Grand Central used to make. The bakery closed during the pandemic, sadly, but we all still talk about this bread, because it was — bold statement, but here we go — the single best loaf of bread in New York. It was a round wheat sourdough, slightly nutty, with a crisp crust and an interior that was incredibly spongy, almost springy. This type of bread is apparently called Öland, and I recently learned that Ole and Steen makes a version of it. Theirs is not quite as good but still wonderful. I’ve got half a loaf left and I use it to make garlic bread, which the kids are into. On the side I serve some roasted broccoli that I’ve tossed with peanut oil and yuzu koshō (another favorite spicy green condiment).
To drink, we each get one (only one) Topo Chico. In addition to chocolate, Justyna is a fanatic consumer of Topo Chico, the king of fizzy waters. It’s not merely the appealing design of the slender-necked bottles, it’s the just-short-of-hostile sharpness of the carbonation. A friend described the bubbles in Topo Chico as “square.” When we are down to our last bottle, Hunger Games–style fights can occasionally ensue. America is reportedly confronting a Topo Chico shortage. It may secretly be caused by my family.
Dessert is Cadbury’s chocolate eggs. ’Tis the season.
Monday, March 23
I was supposed to be on a plane to New Orleans this morning and was looking forward to regaling you with tales of that city’s amazing eats. But in the trial I’ve been covering, the jury came back with a verdict sooner than expected, and the whole TSA situation is farkakte, so I’m staying home and doing a city day.
No breakfast today, too much of a sprint getting the kids and then myself out. Two double espressos at home, another once I get to town. I go to The New Yorker and see my editor. Justyna is giving a talk downtown, so we meet up after for a sneaky lunch date: handrolls at KazuNori. Delish. I then walk out, say “good-bye” to Justyna, make a call for work, and stroll about 20 blocks, immersed in conversation, before realizing, idiot that I am, that I have left my backpack — with my laptop and a notebook full of sensitive work stuff — at the restaurant, hanging on a little hook beneath the bar. I sprint back and burst in, wild-eyed and panting, and the kind staff casually retrieve my bag from where they’d securely stored it. I try to stifle my self-recrimination by concluding that other customers must do this sort of thing all the time.
When people talk about improvements to New York City life over the past decade, they might invoke the profusion of Citi Bikes or the benefits of congestion pricing. To me it seems indisputable that the single greatest improvement during this period has been the dramatic expansion of the restaurant chain Los Tacos No. 1. I’ve been an ardent fan since there was just one location, in Chelsea Market, and used to contort my schedule to accommodate a detour to the West Side (adobada on flour, con todo, is my order; two or three, depending on my appetite). Now, new locations are popping up across Manhattan and (a little research tells me) this is driven not by some toxic infusion of private-equity money but by organic growth of the company. It seems to have sacrificed nothing in terms of quality even as it has expanded, and with loud music and long lines and ravenous people getting messy with their tacos, stopping by always makes me happy. Plus, there’s one right next to Grand Central. I duck in before grabbing the 5:57 home.
Tuesday, March 24
Home day. Lots of writing to be done. Breakfast is a humbler but still excellent yogurt: Trader Joe’s honey Greek with just enough tartness to not be too sweet. Some blueberries to keep things interesting. My brother, who is an urban farmer in Dorchester, the neighborhood where I grew up in Boston, is quietly appalled by the quantity of out-of-season fruit my family consumes, and I recognize there’s a whole dubious economy involved in getting blueberries flown in from Chile for me to eat in New York on a freezing March morning. But this is bourgeois consumer life in the 21st century: I can’t even get through breakfast without a low-key moral compromise.
Life has been coming at me a little too fast this year, with a bunch of different work commitments, so I’m flat out all day. Lunch is a PB&J slapped together in 30 seconds and wolfed down, standing over the sink, in another 30. Most days I drink four double espressos at judicious intervals. Today, it’s five.
When I’m nearing the end of a big article, everything else falls away, and as previously mentioned, Justyna is not going to swoop in and make dinner. Tonight we order in — Peruvian. If we have given anything to our children, it’s decent taste in food, and they love Peruvian ceviche. They’re more iffy on Peruvian chicken (which Justyna and I love). But on aji sauce, we can all agree.
See All
