Emily Sundberg’s Grub Street Diet

The No. 1 thing that Emily Sundberg, the writer behind the suddenly everywhere Substack Feed Me, gets asked is what a day in her life is like. She usually avoids the question: “My day is really different every day, and I’m really overwhelmed, and if anybody has advice on how to streamline anything, have at it.” If you read the newsletter, you know she’s quickly become one of the busiest people in New York City — popping from event to restaurant to meeting. Her schedule demands near-constant city-traversing — from midtown to South Slope and back, over and over. This week, she managed to eat in three boroughs (plus cookies from home on Long Island). Sundberg sees dining out as an essential to her newsletter and has found herself reveling in the details at restaurants — from what paper a menu is printed on to the kinds of speakers at a new bar. 

Tuesday, February 17
My husband and I live about a one-minute walk from a Mr. Kiwi, and we go almost every day, which means we’re always stocked up on bags of Lavazza. We have a Moccamaster, and whoever’s up first makes the coffee.

I put regular milk in my coffee now — organic whole milk. I used to use a soy creamer, but it wasn’t for me because of all the extra binders. Whatever the sweetest coffee creamer is in the vicinity is what wins. If I’m at a 7-Eleven on Long Island, it’s going to be Coffee Mate. When I go out for coffee, I’m always ordering a latte, which is just milk, as we all know. I plop in sugar from a little jar that was a wedding gift from an aunt — it looks like it’s from a craft fair in New Jersey based on this specific aunt’s shopping habits. They’re not really sugar cubes, more like rocks. They sort of self-dose — you either get a medium-size sugar rock or a small one. I like getting to test my luck on how sweet my coffee is each morning.

I go to my office in Fidi and have lunch at Pho John Street. I go there all the time. It’s my first time being a regular somewhere since moving into this office. They have this stunning skylight in the back — it’s like a $10 lunch, great food, all these indoor plants. There’s something very charming and relaxing about it. I’d been taking people there for work meetings, and then I brought my husband one night. He was like, “You know why people go to sushi for work meetings, right? It’s very easy to eat sushi in a meeting. Eating a huge bowl of noodles in front of a stranger isn’t the easiest thing.” That never occurred to me.

I write my newsletter from the office and finish up shooting an ad. Then I have a meeting in midtown at 22 Vanderbilt — my first time there. It’s all finance guys in vests. They have a very generic-looking coffee place and a very generic-looking bar that is sort of like when you go to the fancy new restaurant in a new terminal of an airport. I get a lemon ginger tea.
I come home to Brooklyn briefly before dinner in Manhattan. Nobody ever wants to take a coffee meeting in Park Slope. So going to Manhattan, back to Brooklyn, back to Manhattan, and back to Brooklyn is not a totally unusual thing for me. I’m used to it. I budget in time to do things on the train. I don’t know that I technically classify as a bag lady, but I always have a really big bag with me, my laptop, and a bunch of chargers at all times.

When I get home, I have a peanut butter cookie from my mom. She sent me home over Valentine’s Day weekend with them — they’re sort of her signature thing, we gave them out to all the guests at my wedding last year. The trick is you can’t use healthy peanut butter. You have to use Jif, because there’s extra oil in it that keeps the cookie stable and holds its shape. She’s really careful about all of that. She sets timers. I don’t do that. When I bake, things either come out burnt or raw.

Then I turn back around and go to the new Ambassadors Clubhouse in Nomad. I go with my friend Gabby, and my husband, Jake, comes after work since his office is nearby. It’s a huge two-story restaurant. Big interiors budget: carpets, curtains, lighting. It has the same richness as a Casa Cipriani, Chez Margaux, or Polo Bar. There’s a crest stamped onto many surfaces. I love that so many of the press pieces about it have been like, “It’s in the building that A24 is in,” because it’s a pretty standard Nomad office building, but A24’s offices just happen to be in there.

We get seated facing this private room of seven finance guys, and they are so on display that it almost feels intentional. I notice they order the atta chicken, which is served in a big puff pastry shaped like a chicken. They’re here for the theatrics.

We let the chef choose our adventure: a shrimp, a rice, a lamb, and two desserts. The lamb is incredible, super tender with all these greens — spinach and everything — blended into it, almost like a saag, and very spicy. We don’t order the chicken — flattened thighs, super buttery, almost like lollipops — but they send it over. I’ve never seen it presented like that. I think we have two martinis and two glasses of wine, and I promise I didn’t order two of each. We finish with this incredible banana pudding with gold-dusted peanuts on top.

On our way out, Jake is handed what looks like sprinkles — candy-covered anise seeds. They taste like licorice. Someone at the front desk puts them loose in his hand. Very “Jack and the Beanstalk.”

Wednesday, February 18
Coffee, various-size sugar rock. I also have a lemon-lime Liquid IV, because my delivery of LMNT hasn’t shown up yet. I prefer LMNT — it’s a little sour, I really like citric acid — but the Liquid IV does its job well enough. I mean, nothing really works. I’m 31. It’s hard to do my job hung-over. I always say that a slow news day is not the worst thing for my newsletter — it’s a hangover. I have a peanut butter cookie and a vanilla Siggi’s for breakfast while I write the newsletter from home.

I go into the city for a meeting, then get ashes for Ash Wednesday at a sort of woke church two blocks south of Union Square. They have all the pride flags outside. A woman gives me the ashes, which I have never had before — kind of cool. She waits outside all day in a cloak and a bonnet, almost like she’s about to be in a play about the witch trials. I don’t even have to go inside. Last year, I sat through a whole mass, so I feel a little guilty, but I am also happy I could just swing by and get it like a vending machine.

Since I am close to Citarella, I ball out and stop by to get stuff for dinner. The fish guy is in such a good mood. I also grab chips and their house-made guacamole. I used to always get the premade guac at Union Market, but they started putting some kind of preservative in it. I don’t blame them, but it changed the taste.

I go home and eat the chips and guac while I make dinner. I’ve been trying this TikTok technique for restaurant-style crispy salmon, where you sear it first on the stove and then finish it in the oven, so you get that super crispy edge without doing the whole thing on the stovetop. I cook it very simply, with lemon, salt, pepper, rice, and broccolini, and have the last peanut butter cookie for dessert.

I try to get a head start on the next day’s newsletter. If I am home at night and have the opportunity to get the ideas flowing before the morning, I take it.

Thursday, February 19
I have therapy on the Upper East Side at 7:45 a.m. This slot is incredible because you have no time to decide what you want to talk about — you just start talking. I used to go at 6 p.m. on Thursdays, and that was bad because you have the weight of the whole day on you, and you know exactly what you think you want to talk about. My therapist’s office is next to a Le Pain, so I get a coffee first.

I go to the gym and walk on the treadmill at the Prospect Park YMCA. I love my YMCA. I love that there’s a track because you can walk around it. I love that on cold, snowy days, people can take their families there. Some dads have come up to me there and told me they read Feed Me. I think a woman would know to never do that to someone at the gym. I go home, finish the newsletter, and eat some leftover salmon and rice with chile crisp on top.

Dinner is at Dawa’s in Woodside with Jason, who hosts Feed Me’s podcast, Expense Account, and our friend Arjun — he suggested the place. The place is a very cozy family restaurant. Some tables are girls who look like teenagers; others are older couples. I love eating with Jason because he’s made me appreciate all of the mechanics and theater that go into restaurants. He picks up one of the napkins and marvels at it: “This is a beautiful piece of fabric.” The dishware are gorgeous ceramics, and the whole room has tapestries on the walls. The menu has two sides — one Himalayan, one more standard. We get a kabocha stew, noodles, chicken dumplings, citrus salad with avocado and yogurt, and a surprisingly incredible kale salad with toasted nuts and some cheese. I assume the kale salad is not from the Himalayan side. It’s a beautiful, balanced meal. Dessert is a chocolate soufflé with whipped cream. Arjun and Jason drink wine, but I get a lemon ginger tea.

After dinner, we go to Nightmoves because our friend Delia Cai is having her tenth-anniversary party for her newsletter. They are serving Jell-O shots and cake, but I leave before the cake is cut and don’t have a Jell-O shot.

Friday, February 20
I wake up early. I make coffee — sugar rock, all that — and head to the Frick with Chloe Malle, whom I’ve met a few times but never really spent time with. She invited me, and I’m excited. I’d been for a press preview when it reopened, but there’s a new Gainsborough exhibition that opened right in the middle of Fashion Week, which is kind of fun because all of the paintings are super fashion-forward.

We get coffee at the restaurant inside — I’ve been dying to go. It’s small but adorable. I get to the bar and get a latte, and we’re sort of wrapping up, but there are these two maybe 80-year-old men sitting next to us talking about what to order, and it’s probably like 11:30, and one of them is like, “Should we get the cheesecake?” And the other guy is like, “Oh, I was thinking more like the bread basket.” They get both.

I walk uptown to Bergdorf for a stroll — it’s a little bit depressing because everybody’s on their phone. I’m trying to pick up something for a friend’s birthday party tonight. She’s a social-media manager, so I want to get her those fun eye masks that you put under your eyes because she’s probably always tired; she works so much. But they’re out of them. So I walk over to Bloomingdale’s and get her eye cream.

I have a lunch meeting with my friend Paul Needham, who is the CEO of the Infatuation, and we go to its new office at 270 Park. It’s beautiful. It’s insane. They have a private Sweetgreen, a private Daily Provisions, but what’s been getting all the attention is this pub called Morgan’s. It’s like 30 seats, and everybody’s trying to get on the wait list. They serve Guinness, whatever. We both order burgers, but Paul really wants to try the fried-chicken sandwich, so we both get a burger and split the fried-chicken sandwich. I do want to acknowledge that I shouldn’t have eaten red meat during Lent, but I did, and I know that, but I think it’s going to be okay.

The burger is great. They don’t serve alcohol until 4 p.m., which is probably responsible, but you can have a little cheeky 4 p.m. drink meeting. I think the food in there is slightly subsidized, or at least, it should be subsidized.

I go home, reset, get dressed, and head back uptown. My constant back-and-forth from Manhattan to Park Slope is a bug, not a feature. I’ve lived in my apartment for over seven years, and it was cute for a while when I didn’t have meetings all the time. You almost wonder — if you removed some of that friction, how much better could life get? There are people who are probably reading this who say, Emily cancels, or bails, or changes plans last minute. And I do. I’m sorry. I’m sorry to those who I’ve fumbled plans with. I’m trying my best.

Sasha’s birthday party starts at 10 p.m. — that’s bold, asking people to come to the Upper East Side at 10 p.m., for me, somebody who likes to go to bed early. My friend Charlotte Klein wants to get dinner beforehand, so we go to Match 65. It’s a cute French bistro a few blocks from the park. We get calamari and their artichoke vinaigrette to start. I get a Diet Coke — I want to extend the night as long as I can. If I drink too much, I get tired, and I know the party starts at ten, so I need to last until at least 11:30. I get their salmon; Charlotte gets their mussels with fries, and I have a few of her fries. It’s great.

The party has these great bartenders who make a really nice gin-and-tonic, which feels like the move for that night — I sort of nurse it over the course of an hour and a half. Sasha also got these adorable blinis for the caviar; she makes a little speech where she says they were handmade.

Saturday, February 21
I make coffee at home with my sugar rocks, and then Jake and I do the big loop around Prospect Park. We start at our house and walk up to Grand Army for the farmers’ market. There’s a tiny little farmers’ market farther south near me on Wednesdays and Sundays that only has like four stands — vegetable, fish, beef, and eggs, and an information stand where they hand out pamphlets. I go there pretty often, but the Saturday Grand Army one has all the good stuff, like Lost Bread Co. I get an oat bar for breakfast, and we get a pretzel shortbread for our friend’s birthday party that night as part of his present. We also grab vegetables, apples, and chicken.

We go home and decide we’ll make dinner instead of trying to find a reservation before the birthday party in Williamsburg. I’ve been traditional-Chinese-medicine-curious lately — warming foods, soups, teas. I’m trying to offset the mania of my schedule with healing modes of movement and consumption to the best of my ability. So I make a big pot of tea with cut-up apples, lemon, and ginger, and let it cook for about 30 minutes. Jake and I each have a big cup.

I have a bunch of random ingredients and didn’t exactly know what I would make, so I Google “ginger scallion chicken” and end up making a poached chicken from Woks of Life — I’d never used the site before, but the recipe is great. I also make a big pot of rice in our rice-maker that plays cute little songs.

Then we take an Uber over to Williamsburg for our friend’s birthday party at H&H, which is diagonal from Kellogg’s Diner. They had something on the menu called Fancy Bitters and Soda — I get two of those. I think what makes it fancy is maybe a splash of lime, but it comes with a sidecar of Topo Chico, so you’re walking around with a glass cup and a little glass bottle to keep filling it up as you take each sip. Obviously $6. A lot of people grab hot dogs from the Dog Day Afternoon outpost inside, which is fun.

When I get home, I have half a cookie-dough David bar. I don’t like them very much, but it’s there, and I need a snack — plus a spoonful of almond butter. When I eat really good-quality nut butter with a spoon, something happens in my brain where it turns into a pudding. There’s almost a mantra that goes along with it that rationalizes it somehow. After repeating my mantra, I tell myself I need to go to bed.