Everyone of a certain age had that book growing up, a collection of cartoons or jokes that was somehow just there in the house. Maybe it was a “Far Side” anthology, or a collection of Letterman Top Ten lists. Asher Perlman’s new collection of cartoons, Well, This Is Me, could be that book. Though he’s also a writer on the Late Show With Stephen Colbert, Perlman largely avoids the news in his cartoons to aim for jokes that are more timeless. (One example: A dog lays a stick down in front of a genie. His comment: “I mean, I can throw it a third time.”) “A cartoon really is just a joke with a slightly different skin,” he says of the difference between the show and cartooning. “But if I keep it sillier, it gives it a chance to live beyond the day I post it.” He spent a lot of time cartooning recently while on hiatus from the show, while also drinking … a lot of milk? “I don’t eat meat and I wasn’t getting nearly enough protein so I experimented with different options,” he says. “For a while I was eating a lot of plain, nonfat yogurt — I felt like an annoying, outdoorsy person talking about how food is fuel.”
Saturday, July 27
I drink 52 ounces of milk every day. I considered concealing this fact, but I ultimately decided that doing so would betray the very premise of the column. Once I fudge one fact, there’s nothing to stop me from fudging another, and another, and before too long, you’re reading the fictional journal of an aspirational Asher avatar who has a “favorite place to get a cortado” and dines each night at a new Brooklyn hotspot that serves deconstructed bao or whatever the fad food du jour is. And I don’t want to do that. I am, as the youth might say, in my Vulnerable Era, and I am determined to always tell the truth. Which is all just to say, breakfast is milk.
After drinking my liter of dairy, I walk the dogs, Maya and Louis. Maya and Louis love walks and I enjoy the structure they give my day. Each walk is like a chapter break, and, without them, my waking life would feel like one run-on sentence.
Once I’m home, I begin chapter one: my morning routine. Today is special because it marks the beginning of a two-week hiatus from The Late Show With Stephen Colbert, where I work as a writer. While my colleagues are all busy jetting off to visit family and enjoy much-needed relaxation time, I know the secret to a truly great vacation: more work and self-imposed creative deadlines.
My morning routine starts with ten minutes of meditation, a daily practice that I practice monthly. Next up is morning pages (shout-out to all my Julia Cameron heads out there). After I’m properly aligned and settled, I undo all of that by chugging an energy drink (today’s poison: Celsius, Tropical Vibe flavor) and delve into the actual work of the day: cartooning.
My second job is as a cartoonist for The New Yorker. Each week, I submit five to ten cartoons, which is hard to do when I’m working full time, so I use these hiatuses to bank as many as I can. While I draw, I graze on a litany of snacks, including:
• One banana
• A Trader Joe’s brand strawberry fruit bar
• Half of a vegan snickerdoodle cookie from Clementine Bakery
• A full bag of Lesser Evil Power Curls, which they market as a healthy alternative to Cheetos, but that I use as an unhealthy alternative to vegetables
Needless to say, after all that eating, I’m absolutely starving, so at noon I emerge from my office to coordinate lunch with my incredible wife, Nikki. Nikki might like walks even more than Maya and Louis, and she’s nearly always pitching that we take a stroll for lunch. Today, the destination is Ciao, Gloria, where I order a decaf latte and their AVEC egg sandwich. I love this sandwich because it has a variety of textures, and I’m a sucker for anything that’s both mushy and crunchy. Nikki gets the Insalata Mista (no croutons, add chicken), which she reports is “quite good.”
Later that night, Nikki has a show in Queens, so we bike up there and plan on getting dinner afterward. Nikki crushes, she’s a star, but the curtain comes down a little later than we expected and the restaurant we were planning on visiting (Locanda Vini & Olii) is closed, so dinner ends up being two Chobani Flips (Pumpkin Harvest and cinnamon French toast) slurped down on the couch before bed.
Sunday, July 28
Breakfast is milk. After that, I drink another Celsius (Kiwi Strawberry this time), which fuels me through a familiar set of activities: walking Maya and Louis, meditating, morning pages, and cartooning.
Then it’s time for basketball. I play in a pickup game on Sunday mornings, but it’s comprised exclusively of comedy guys in their 30s and 40s, so no matter what game we end up playing, the real competition is ultimately each of us against our own failing bodies. I emerge miraculously without injury and eat a simple lunch at home: tofu scramble with broccoli and potatoes. After that, I graze:
• Banana
• Two more Chobani Flips (Key Lime and Peanut Butter Delight)
Nikki and I then go check out an apartment. Our lease is up soon, and we are currently exploring the possibility of moving. This is an annual tradition of ours. It begins with us energetically scrolling StreetEasy, and sending countless listings to one another, then ends with us crumpled up on the sofa, softly weeping as we re-sign our current lease.
But we’re still in the first phase for now, so we dash off to check out a “sprawling unit” nearby that offers “peace and tranquility.” By the end of the tour, we both sense that we are about to enter phase two of our annual tradition.
Post apartment-hunting, we decide to buy something for the dopamine boost and end up at Bklyn Blend. Nikki goes with the seasonal selection: a juice called “Fort Greene Park,” which is made of watermelon, cantaloupe, lemon, mint, and agave. They’re out of watermelon, though, so she bails. I go with the “Prospect Park Power,” which is a pretty standard smoothie blend of strawberries, banana, pineapple, and vegan protein powder. They’re also out of the vegan protein powder, but offer to sub peanut butter, which I gladly accept. The truth is, I was going to add peanut butter anyway and I don’t need the protein (see: milk).
The rest of the afternoon is standard Sunday fare: gym, cleaning, drawing.
For dinner, we select our favorite nearby Thai restaurant: Thai Holic. I go with my usual entrée, Vegetable Delight with tofu, and bravely select two appetizers: scallion pancakes and crispy tofu with a crushed peanut sauce. Nikki gets Broccoli Delight with tofu and no appetizers, like a coward.
As bedtime approaches, I’m not quite tired enough so I prepare a mug of Calm, which is a magnesium supplement that knocks me out like NyQuil but, unlike NyQuil, doesn’t give me nightmares.
Monday, July 29
Breakfast is eggs Benedict with homemade hollandaise, a bananas Foster Belgian waffle cooked to golden perfection, and raspberry pain au chocolat overnight delivered from my favorite Parisian pâtisserie, Boulangerie Utopie. Just kidding — it’s milk.
Now, here’s where things take a turn. My plan today is to meet my friend and fellow Late Show writer Eliana for lunch. Eliana lives in Manhattan and is a bit more plugged into food culture than I am, so I tell her to pick a spot. She selects Superiority Burger, mostly because it’s plant-based and she’s sensitive to the fact that I’m vegetarian. We are to meet at noon, nosh, gab, and depart sated on both food and company.
So, that’s the plan.
Here’s the reality: I wake up feeling a little lousy. Given the times we live in, I do the responsible thing and take a COVID test just to be safe. After waiting 15 minutes, I peek at the results window, and, you guessed it, it’s negative. Then I realize the test expired last October, so I use Shipt to order more tests from Walgreens, and, long story short, yes, I have the coronavirus. Immediately, I dash off to the bedroom to isolate myself.
Now, quarantine isn’t exactly conducive to exciting culinary adventures, so you’re probably wondering what this development means for my precious Grub Street Diet column. Well, after much consideration (and a quick nap), I decide that I will plow ahead but with a new commitment: For the remainder of the week, I will document both what I actually eat each day as well as what I would have eaten had SARS-CoV-2 been more considerate of my writing deadlines.
With that in mind, here’s what I would have ordered had I in fact met up with Eliana for lunch: an iced tea and the “Superiority Boat,” which sounds like the title of a Russian bootleg DVD of Titanic, but is, in fact, a bowl of Koda Farms organic brown rice, tofu, cabbage, and sunflower crunch. Eliana tells me she would have gotten the Superiority Burger, an Arnold Palmer, maybe a burnt broccoli salad, and gelato for dessert. All of that sounds pretty good, which is why you should have sympathy when I tell you what I actually eat for lunch: a pouch of dry-roasted pistachios, an entire box of Special K with Red Berries (cereal is my comfort food), and another bag of Lesser Evil Power Crunch Curls.
I also have some nice dinner plans that now have to be scrapped. My buddy Joe Campanale is a restaurateur, and he’s such a nice guy that I’m almost willing to forgive him for the fact that there is no n in the word “restaurateur.” Nikki and I were planning on starting tonight at Joe’s Prospect Heights favorite LaLou. Had that plan come to fruition, I would have gone with the She-Wolf sourdough with Normandy butter, and followed it up with the salad described on the menu as simply “endive, orange, castelvetrano olive, hazelnut.” My guess is that Nikki would have picked the similarly unnamed “black bass, black lentils, sauce verte.” And my god would we have enjoyed them. Then we would have walked to another one of Joe’s restaurants, Fausto, which is a short, pleasant trek from LaLou, and shared the little gem salad (red onion, marcona almond, wildflower honey, sheep feta) and green zucchini (whipped ricotta, pickled mustard seed, pine nut). Then, I would have ended the night with the fettuccine with tomato sauce and Calabrian chile. Before the entree hit the table, I would have declared that I was just going to take a bite and bring the rest home, and then as soon as it appeared, I would have wolfed it down like a starving castaway who’s just been rescued. Nikki would have gotten the roasted chicken, along with patty pan squash, corn, and almond. My guess is that she would have been more reasonable and merely tasted hers before requesting a doggy bag, but honestly I could see her following my lead and scarfing it down. (We were meant to be!)
Instead of all that, Nikki and I order delivery from Just Salad, a restaurant name whose inflection changes depending on my emotional state. If I’m feeling happy and craving some clean eating, it’s (happy) Just Salad! If, however, I’m feeling dour as I am today, it’s (defeated) Just Salad.
After dinner, I play Wingspan with my mom (online, social distanced, I’m not a monster) and read a bit of White Teeth by Zadie Smith, which is the current selection for my book club. It’s actually a rather pleasant night if you don’t take into account the fact that I am full-on depressed.
I consider taking more Calm to help me sleep, but I’m congested enough that I decide I need the real deal: I pop two NyQuil tablets, and proceed to have 4,000 nightmares.
Tuesday, July 30
I awake feeling just as sick as Monday, but with a new intention: I’m going to be happy! Your mood is a mindset, I tell myself, and all or these sensations you’re feeling don’t have an inherent positive/negative valence. They are merely stimuli which I can choose to observe neutrally without assigning value, and then move beyond them to an emotional state of my choosing.
Anyway, I’m clearly still depressed.
Breakfast is milk with a side of Special K (full box). Honestly, this is likely what it would have been regardless.
I’m feeling well enough to get some work done, which I do triumphantly at my desk! That’s right — he has emerged from the bed! My desk is still peppered with yesterday’s COVID tests, which serve to remind me of all I’ve overcome to be here. I also have three fans pointing at me because, and I’ve forgotten to tell you this so far, the air conditioner is broken.
For lunch, my plan was to meet my friend Ryan, who I met when I first moved to New York to write for The Opposition With Jordan Klepper seven years ago. Comedy Central canceled the show after nine months, but I’m proud to announce our friendship keeps getting renewed season after season. Ryan suggested we meet at Che, a wine bar in historic Stuyvesant Heights. I’ve never been, but perusing the menu, I’m fairly certain I would have gotten the egg sandwich (brioche, hazelnut-romesco sauce, soft scrambled egg, arugula, fried shallots, and pickled onion). I’m not sure what Ryan would have gotten, but I bet he would have started with an iced coffee because it’s so hot outside. Also inside. So, so hot. Unbearably, unrelentingly hot. Unforgivingly, oppressingly — sorry, the fans really aren’t cutting it.
For dinner, I was going to meet my friend Aaron, who I also know from the aforementioned canceled show. We hadn’t decided on a location, but I would have tried to strongarm him into something close to Central Park’s North Meadow Field 2, because tonight I planned on representing The New Yorker softball team in our matchup against our bitter rival, Vanity Fair. Afterwards, the squad would have dropped by a nearby bar, likely a New York institution that everyone but me has heard of, and ordered pizza to be delivered to the front patio where we would dine al fresco into the wee hours of the night.
Instead, I order Just Salad again and FaceTime with my brother (and very funny New Yorker humorist) Reuven.
Clocking my misery, Nikki suggests that I move to a hotel with working AC for a few nights, but I decline, explaining that the only thing that could make me more uncomfortable than sweltering heat is needless spending.
Two more NyQuil down, and I fall asleep in a puddle of sweat.
Wednesday, July 31
I awake from my nightmares at 5:03 a.m., 6:11 a.m., and 7:50 a.m. before I finally decide to stay up. As the latest dream retreats from consciousness to cede space for reality, I suddenly remember what today is: the last day of my Grub Street Diet!
I skip breakfast, and you probably already know what lunch is (Just Salad, sad inflection). But what you don’t know is what would have been. For my grand finale, I had two meals planned:
I was going to start with lunch at Monkey Bar with my agent, Julie, where I would have ordered the butter lettuce salad and a St. Agrestis Phony Negroni (a mocktail that’s become a big hit in my house). Julie tells me she would have gone with the bibb lettuce salad and French fries for the table, which she describes as a “classic midtown lunch move.”
For dinner, I had reservations with Nikki at Public Records in Gowanus. The entire restaurant is vegan, so it’s one of the few places I don’t have to be careful. It’s also sharing friendly, so here’s what I think we would have ordered as a pair: hibachi grilled tamarind jewel yams, smacked chile cucumber, cantaloupe crudo, watermelon tostadas, and smoked harissa maitake ragu. My guess is that they would have successfully talked us into dessert, and I would have let Nikki pick.
It would have been such a nice night.
But instead, here I am in my quarantine sauna, living vicariously through my past intentions. And that’s when it hits me: Despite my explicit promise to you at the beginning of this piece, in a sense, this whole thing did in fact end up being the fictional journal of an aspirational Asher avatar.
Anyway. Dinner is milk.
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