Cherry Lime Rickey and Tofu-Fried Tofu, or Second Breakfast #11
Hello! This is Meghan McCarron, and you're reading my newsletter, Second Breakfast. If you no longer want to receive it, you can unsubscribe here.
Back in September, I spent a week in New York, and thanks to the recent luncheonette boom, had a lot of great meals in the middle of the day.
Over a cherry lime rickey and turkey Flatiron Delight at revamped classic lunch counter S&P, a friend and I conspired (and commiserated) about the next phases of our media careers. At Salty Lunch Lady’s Little Lunchonette in Ridgewood, I downed the Chicky, a sandwich made with a “giant smashed herby chicken meatball,” and a slice of nutty black sesame cake. Sitting in Tompkins Square Park with another friend, we shared a Tofu-Fried Tofu from neighboring Superiority Burger while catching up in a place where we spent a lot of time together (yikes) 20 years ago.
Maybe Superiority Burger is too big to class as “luncheonette,” but for me it scratched the same itch —the approachable, cool diner with food better and weirder than it should be. Dense and exciting where suburban diners are all sprawl.
All those ambitious desserts and smart comfort food made me think of Meme’s, a fervently queer Brooklyn diner I visited maybe twice but loved with all my heart (and made a video about), before it closed in 2020. Like a lot of weirdo suburban kids, I lurked in diners, eating French fries and drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. But I never felt like they were for me. Meme’s was for me. Because it was queer, yes, but also because it was a really good diner. I remember wondering why there weren’t 20 restaurants like it.
Well. We’re not at 20 yet, but I believe New York City has the ability to get there.
An impression I’ve formed over the years, maybe uncharitably, is that a significant subsection hot new New York things are old news in LA. Watching through the dim portal of Instagram, it seemed like a regular procession of viral foods, from avocado toast to birria to Din Tai Fung, popped up back east and got swarmed with attention six months to two years after they had taken off here.
But there is no luncheonette boom in Los Angeles. How could there be? It’s a New York thing, built on New York institutions. Hell, everyone I know in New York got excited about this six months to a year ago. I’m the one who’s late.
Non-New-York readers, if you are headed to that grandest apple, could I suggest a little lunch crawl? New York readers of this newsletter, please sit at a counter and order some pastrami for me.
As someone who writes about food for a living, it is my sworn and solemn duty to say something about Thanksgiving. Here it is: A turkey is a big chicken. The best way to make the turkey is to scale-up your favorite chicken recipe. If you don’t believe me, believe Samin Nosrat.
I had the bright idea to write a novella longhand, something I thought would take “a couple of months, tops.” A year later, I finally finished it! Now I have to… type it up. Hmm.
During a weekly writers’ call where I am an infrequent guest, the older cohort was talking about how much word processors had changed things for the better. White-out, apparently, was a scourge.
One writer said that in the bad old typewriter era, he used to write fewer drafts. Here is a thing I keep thinking about, though: Has the many-drafts culture made creative writing better? Novels and short stories spend years being rearranged, line edited, generally messed with — I am the number one offender — which results in less output and maybe even less learning about what works and what doesn’t.
Writing longhand started out as a way to think differently about my fiction, and maybe unlink its voice from all the journalism I’m composing on a screen. Tinkering wasn’t an option, so I plowed forward. What a relief that was.
But I am dreading the typing. Is that dread about re-encountering my unhelpful perfectionism? My bad handwriting? The boredom and discomfort of pressing all those keys? I’ll keep you posted.
Since May, I’ve been working on a series of stories about the roles kitchens play in communities across in greater Los Angeles for the Headway desk at the New York Times. All three are now live, and I’m thrilled to share them:
How Fugetsu-Do Survived the Evolution of Little Tokyo
Meet the New Home Kitchen Business
How Brunch Came to a Backyard Farm in Compton
I also interviewed the director Alonso Ruizpalacious about his provocative new film La Cocina for Galerie
I totally get not wanting to read pre-election content now that it’s over, but for Bon Appetit I wrote about how Kamala Harris did campaign trail eating like a celebrity chef. She really did approach eating in public in a new way, and I’ll be curious if it continues.
Much of my “reading list” these days is research for pitches and stories, but here’s what made it through beyond that:
“The tablescaping around a Stouffer’s lasagna was insane”
The immediate post-election vibe shift about the L.A. Olympics
On all the ways to be a pal & a profile of a legendary scammer (paywalled, consider throwing Flaming Hydra some bucks tho!)
A thing I’ve learned creating these reading lists is that I will always read about new archeological discoveries
Wow I am already at the parent stage of tearing up over kids’ sports
Related: How to watch the baby
A weird thing about L.A. is how often we forget that the beach is right there
Jaya scoop: Carbone sent a cease-and-desist to an account that claimed they used seed oils
I am embarrassed and maybe a little disturbed that I found out Neko Case has a memoir coming out through a Strategist list but that is why writers do these lists!
That’s it! You made it to the end.
I’ve been on Bluesky for awhile, but I wasn’t posting because sometimes I believe all posting is bad. Right now I’m in a “but what if posting is fine?” phase, so please come hang out with me.
—M.