Andrew Sean Greer’s Grub Street Diet

Food is very present in Andrew Sean Greer’s new novel, Villa Coco, but not necessarily in the ways you’d expect. One character removes his hat to reveal “the single blond lock that clung to his otherwise bald forehead like a price sticker to a melon.” The protagonist, a young man who moves to Italy, has a strangely romantic night in a village known for its eels — and whose restaurants seem to serve only eel, “marinated and grilled; as carpaccio and in a soup … smoky and tangy and tender and sweet.” The book is a comedy, but it’s also what Greer calls “a charm novel”: light on its feet and meant to bring its reader no small amount of pleasure. Just before his book tour, Greer bid adieu to a series of family and friends in his home of San Francisco over Irish coffees, lemony frisée, and Tater Tots before heading to New York. His advice for eating on the road is simple. “Caesar salad or turkey clubs everywhere you go,” he says. “It’s the saddest thing, but you’re not taking any chances. You can’t burden yourself with stomach problems.”

Thursday, June 4
I begin each day like an angel: overnight steel-cut oats, chia seeds, ground flaxseed, and walnuts with a shot of kefir. I somehow believe, every single morning, that my day will be full of fiber and good deeds.

Occasionally, I go for a morning swim with my friend Daniel in the San Francisco Bay. Today I pick him up at 7:30, and by 8 we are in the water — freezing, by the way. The body numbs to it, and one is merely a mind on an endless frozen ocean. A seal pops up — time to turn back. You don’t want to play with seals; they’re better swimmers than you. The talk in the sauna is of raccoons in the ceiling, and Daniel says there must be one or two raccoons on the swim club’s board. Half the sauna does not understand it is a joke. He says they voted to never take out the garbage. Still no understanding.

I’m a week out from my publication date, so it’s back home for an interview. This one is with a lovely man from Albany, though his internet cuts out before we finish. I write to him saying I have to head out: Enrico and I are selling our clothes at a consignment store I frequent. I spent much of the previous night on stain removal and steaming. It is a very picky store — but I am delighted to say they take everything we have!

Feeling rich (though the items have to sell before we get paid), we sit down to a hearty lunch of avocado toast. Enrico always makes me an avocado toast. I think, for him, real avocados are a wonder that never ends — perhaps like my feelings about Italian tomatoes. He could have avocado toast every day. He loves it almost as much as his true love, who is not me; it is Julia Roberts.

I finish an essay on moving to Venice. Then I realize I have to start packing for a month and a half on the road. This, of course, involves me taking pictures of myself in various outfits and sending them to a trio of friends who respond with thumbs-up and thumbs-down. It is a book tour, yes, but I will also be opening for David Sedaris for two weeks in the U.K. And that requires some seriously nutty outfits.

Tonight we head to Julian Lopera Delgado’s book event for his new novel, meeting a friend beforehand for burritos at Pancho Villa in the Mission. I lose my nerve and order, in English, a green chicken burrito, no rice. I get something not very close to that: a grilled-chicken burrito with rice. Serves me right. Julian is fabulous — there are two drag performances, one by a friend of mine, Kochina Rude, and two readings by other writers. The interview is done by Drag Race alum and local politician Honey Mahogany. An only–in–San Francisco event!

I have a beer. Then, afterward at Casanova with writer friends, I have a rye Manhattan. Then the bar fills with what seems to be a work meetup for the most boring people on earth and we hightail it home. Also a San Francisco experience. Don’t let people tell you homeless people are the terror of San Francisco: It’s the young people who only talk about open source and AI. What ever happened to going to a bar to talk about sex?

Friday, June 5
Oats. Chia. Flax. Kefir. A final swim in the Bay before book tour, and it’s glorious out. Yes, there’s a swim warning from the Coast Guard, but what do I care for such things? Okay, it is a bit bouncy out there. I decline to venture farther than the buoy line.

Avocado toast. I read a bad review and nearly order DoorDash but realize I would only get expensive avocado toast and resign myself to the more delicious kind Enrico makes. He got the bread from Thorough Bread bakery down the street. There’s fresh sheep’s-milk cheese. And an egg. It may be my last avocado toast for a month and a half.

I have a group of friends who have been going out for beers every Friday for 20 years or so. It is at Thee Parkside, a classic bike-and-beer bar in Potrero with an outdoor patio and awful bands and awful food. In a month, it is to be torn down and turned into expensive condominiums. This is happening to one after another of my favorite bars: Lucky 13, for instance, which closed years ago, though no condos have ever arisen. There are rumors they never will and that Lucky 13 will rise again. Perhaps also with Thee Parkside. But we go and pay our respects nonetheless. I drink three Western Addition pale ales and eat something called Carnitas Over Tater Tots; this is precisely as it sounds. Three beers is enough, and I bike home and try to advise Enrico on packing for New York, my first stop on book tour. “Not black,” I say sleepily. “It’s summer. It’s a party.” But I am asleep before I find out what he has packed.

Saturday, June 6
What is breakfast? No, I mean what is breakfast? Is it perhaps prepaying for eternity so we may be spared steel-cut oats and kefir in the afterlife?

I wake up early and kiss Enrico good-bye; he is headed to the airport a day ahead of me because flights were cheaper. And I am off to Aquatic Park, home of the Dolphin Club, where I go swimming, to watch my friend Soo whale-boat racing from Alcatraz. Alas, her team comes in second. We head to nearby Buena Vista and all have Irish coffees while I hear about the bouncy waves and the team drama. We get four more Irish coffees to go so we can watch the men’s race; “to go” means a cup of creamed-and-sugared coffee and a little bottle of Tullamore Dew whiskey. “Don’t open the whiskey until you get outside,” commands the bartender in his white apron. We wait until we are on the open-air concrete steps of Aquatic Park and then pour them in. We also know some people on one of the men’s racing teams, and they come in second as well. Then I am off to see my mother and my twin brother, Mike. It is a day of seeing everybody before I’m on tour.

Mike and my mom both live in Marin County, but we usually gather at his house because it’s big and full of sun and has an outdoor dining table. I bring a to-go Irish coffee for Mike’s wife, Kaliel, who eagerly pours the whiskey in.

The impromptu lunch Mike has made is wonderful: a salad of white beans, oranges, and spicy sausage; another of lemony frisée; and fried bits of chicken with a gochujang sauce. Kaliel and I hit the white wine. I notice my 16-year-old nephew is gone from the table and I ask where he is. “He finished lunch and left,” Kaliel says. “He does that.” I tell her to bring him back outside. “There’s a more charming way to leave a table,” I tell him. “You say, ‘I love talking with you all, but I can’t wait to get back to my book, so I’ll say my good-byes.’” He rolls his eyes and repeats it. He does want to get back to his book, which we can all respect.

Packing for a month and a half of being onstage, in weather ranging from Arizona in the 90s to Edinburgh in the 50s, is an intellectual and logistical challenge. Especially if you can only bring carry-on. So my upstairs neighbor Eve comes down to keep me company. We have known each other since we were 12 years old and we bought this house together from her uncle in 2003. We chat and gossip while I decide which ridiculous jacket goes with which ridiculous shirt. When I’m done, I tell her I am off to dinner with my swimmate, Daniel.

Daniel makes Boulevardiers and we all talk writing and books. Other writer friends arrive, and Daniel discreetly pours more Boulevardier into my glass as I snack on fancy Corn Nuts. Daniel says for dessert he is making Floating Islands for the first time in 15 years. I tell him and his wife, Lisa, about my nephew, and Daniel says he often teaches young people what to say when asked a too-personal question: “Oh, darling, let’s talk about you!” Dinner is pinto beans and a salad and a Spanish tortilla made from yellow and purple potatoes. The wine is Lambrusca. All delicious. The Floating Islands, however, have sunk — but even berries in creme Anglaise is delicious. I stand up: “I love talking with you all, but …”

Sunday, June 7
Farewell, fiber bomb of my mornings. By 6:30, I am at San Francisco International Airport, and by 7, I am in line at Bun Mee for a Vietnamese classic-combo sandwich to take on the plane. The flight is memorable only for a territorial dispute over an armrest and leg room. This often happens with big straight guys on planes, who like to spread out, but they are not counting on the fact that I am much more comfortable with bodily contact with men than they are. They always back down. I watch a documentary about Gucci. I read some Beryl Bainbridge. I watch a documentary about Versace. I read more Bainbridge. Then we are in Newark.

Enrico is already at the hotel. There is nothing nicer than to have someone waiting for you in your hotel after travel. And I make a grand decision: I’m not leaving. We’re having dinner here and going to bed. Dinner at the Walker is … wait, let me read the menu: “Organic Chicken: Spring Legume Spaetzle, Tarragon, Morrel Farce, Jus Gras” as well as a side of spring peas, “Ramp Tempure, Charred Onion Aioli,” and a Monkey 47 Martini, because I need one. Enrico has the striped bass (“Bass is a fish, yes?” “Yes, it’s spigola”) and half of my chicken because I’m too nervous about the start of my tour to finish it. Enrico wants dessert, but the only options are tiramisu (impossible for someone from the Veneto, the birthplace of tiramisu) and something called “S’mores Bread Pudding” that gives my husband a heart attack just envisioning. “Don’t they just have chocolate? Every restaurant you can ask for some chocolate.” I tell him this is unlikely to be true in this case.

We do, in fact, leave the hotel: for chocolate. We go across the street to Lincoln Market and find his heart’s desire: chocolate with hazelnuts. Both gianduia (a mixture) and a little bit of nuts. In his frenzy, he buys three varieties. We take them back to the hotel room, turn on the television, and there, on the screen, his heart’s desire is fulfilled; in a scene from Ocean’s Twelve, it is Julia Roberts.

Monday, June 8
Nothing to do but interviews, interviews, oh, and yes, a television show. Breakfast is at the hotel: smoked salmon on toast with pickled onions and capers, and a coffee. I walk to my first interview, which is with Why We Write. It’s an hour and 40 minutes talking about techniques of writing; my favorite. All in an old house in a West Village courtyard. In the ’90s, I went across that street to vote for Bill Clinton at the schoolhouse. Oh, fleeting hope and youth!

Next is signing at Three Lives bookstore, the most wonderful bookstore in the Village. I remember when I used to visit all the time, and they still remember me. I even sell three copies of my new book to a customer — a day before publication. Is this legal? I suppose there’s no law!

A quick lunch back at the hotel: soup and salad. Spring onion and watercress soup, mixed green salad. Enrico arrives (having met with the head of the Italian Cultural Institute) and then we are off to one of the two big events of the day: Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen! I am the show’s guest bartender; the celebrity guests are Emily Blunt and Colman Domingo. Though I am well aware my role is to stand in the background and wave, I have prepared by watching a season of Ladies of London and a bit of The Real Housewives of Rhode Island. My friend Thomas has told me to ask Andy to renew Rhode Island and to wear brown slacks and a sexy top. I sent him four options and he chose one that makes me look like a fatherly Charlie Brown. I’m going for sexy dad at a cookout. You’ll let me know how it went … because I remember nothing.

That’s because they serve me three Aperol spritzes in a row. That’s the theme of the show, apparently: drunken havoc. The two actual guests, I notice, don’t drink their cocktails at all, but since I have nothing else to do, I quietly sip mine and it is replaced every commercial break with a fresh one. This gets me a little loopy. The first time Andy calls out my name, I shout, “Only if you renew Rhode Island!” and he says it’s already done. The second time he calls out my name, I am in space somewhere. Apparently, he has asked me to describe my novel. Colman Domingo asks how many cocktails I’ve had, and I protest, “They keep refilling mine!”

At the next break, Emily and Colman, to my shock, turn to me and ask me about writing. For quite some time! They are both wonderfully kind, as they are when the show is over and we must say good-bye, then again when we do a photo shoot and Emily says, “Andrew must be in the middle!” I am certain that photo shows me under the full influence of celebrities and spritzes. I have no need ever to see it.

Then it is over. A black car awaits to take me and Enrico back to the hotel. He was in the audience, front row, white sweater, always on-camera whenever there is a shot of the crowd. He turns to me in the car and says, “That is the most American thing I have ever seen.”

The actual big event of the night, the book party, is at Via Carota, my absolute favorite restaurant in the Village. We have invited a heady assortment of people, some of whom (alas) have to cancel because they are on a TV interview show that is running late or (I suspect) are too hungover after the Tonys the night before. No matter; Amy Sedaris is already at the restaurant in a cute plaid outfit.

My agent, Lynn Nesbit, arrives in a lavender suit. My editor Lee Boudreaux is in a fabulous white dress with blue stitching on it like Bemelmans drawing. And here comes my cooking hero, the one whose dishes Enrico consistently adores: Andy Baraghani. A real celebrity in a cream cashmere sweater. He comes up and gives me a hug like we have known each other for ages and it is such a comfort; I understand he knows about book publication, and expectation, and nerves. He knows the best thing to do is put everyone at ease. There are Campari spritzes to begin with gold pug swizzle sticks. Then the famous salad, layered with prosciutto and fresh peas, anchovies and butter on bread, and burrata as well. Then the primo: pasta cacio e pepe and pappardelle with wild boar ragu (very, very Villa Coco). Then fish and chicken. Before I know it, it is time for dessert: tiramisu and berries in cream. Enrico will not eat tiramisu in the evening; he is afraid it will keep him awake. But I dig in! Delicious. As good as Enrico’s mother’s? How dare you ask a question like that! A decaf espresso, and the evening is over.