The East Coast in Three Fishes, or Second Breakfast #16
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.
If you live in Los Angeles, my conversation with John Birdsall about his new book, What Is Queer Food?, at Now Serving has been rescheduled to July 10th. Come join us!
June in Philadelphia is hot, sticky, and lurid green. After I got off the plane from L.A., I marveled at the profusion of oaks and maples along the highway. When did my hometown become a lush jungle? By the time we got back to my mom’s, I felt a little drunk on the abundance.
I spent a week traveling up and down what my California-born partner always calls, waving her hand vaguely, the Eastern Seaboard. There was tons of lovely family time. And I ate a lot of fish.
After sneaking up to New York for a day, I convened with a few old friends at Sabry’s in Astoria, where we ordered little fried sardines and a grilled porgy drenched in garlic. I missed my 20 year college reunion back in May, but that day I did what I love doing best with my college friends — walk endlessly and stuff ourselves silly at a new restaurant.
Later that week, I went down the shore, where my aunt and uncle have a house. One night, we got takeout from the local seafood market that’s been there forever. The menus at Sabry’s and Avalon Seafood are strikingly similar, operating on the deep logic of seafood joints — you want steamed clams? You want your fish broiled or fried? You want french fries?
I got broiled flounder, which was tender and buttery. It came with a side of super-sweet coleslaw I associate with summer. Someone ordered a half dozen oysters, a move I was deeply dubious of, but they came in their own charming bed of ice inside a styrofoam container.
On my last night in Philadelphia, I had dinner at Little Water, a buzzy and beautiful seafood restaurant in Rittenhouse Square. My L.A. acculturation kept popping out; most embarrassingly, I was sure they would have valet. (No one in L.A. would open a restaurant of this caliber and price point without valet, I swear!). While perusing the menu, I wished for more vegetables.
But dang, the whole snapper, lightly fried and expertly cross-hatched, over a bed of peas and greens? A delight. And an even bigger delight to share it with my sister and brother-in-law.
It’s hard living far from family and friends who are basically family. This July marks ten years in Los Angeles, and fifteen since I left New York for Austin. I’m still sad every time I leave the Eastern Seaboard.
But then I got back to California, and after a week of rushing through deadlines, picked up salmon from my favorite fishmonger and made teriyaki. Served over a bed of brown rice with a little tomato salad, it tasted like home.
It was a busy month — I published three stories in the New York Times, two of them in one week. I wrote about the taco trucks serving recovery workers in the Pacific Palisades; a local hospitality organization pivoting to manage crisis after crisis in Los Angeles’s long 2025; and, inspired by the return of The Bear, what changes when a small, independent restaurant nabs a Michelin star.
Some reading from a month where I was chasing a toddler around and/or on deadline for much of the time:
A book recommendation: You Dreamed of Empires, a Borgesian novel about Cortez’s arrival in Tenochtitlan, which I found both mind-bending and wildly entertaining
Fascinating to see Substack compared to podcasts (though I feel like I’ve seen every possible take about the state of podcasts?)
A complex feature about how A.I. is playing a role in historic research
I’m bad at decorating but love looking at other people’s rooms, so I enjoyed this couch content.
Discourse about a very mistaken TikTok reminded me of this feature on Grand Central Market’s gentrification which I envied when it came out. Almost a decade later, that gentrification rolls on.
Marlee Blodgett, co-founder of the wonderful La Morra Pizzeria, shares some really interesting reflections on what her dad, a veteran of sit-down chain restaurants, taught her about restaurant operations (paywalled)
Noma is going to do an LA residency. Ok!
Should I buy: This pizza oven?
Like many other cooped-up people, I purchased a Solo Stove during the pandemic, used it about five times, and never got it out again. My lament was you couldn’t use it for cooking! Now I see they have rolled out an insane number of cooking accessories.
Or should I be honest with myself that starting a fire in my front yard is just a lot of work and even pizza won’t get me over the hump?
That’s all! Thank you for reading. If you got this far, maybe you want to reach a bunch of Wikipedia articles about pre-Colombian Mexico?
—Meghan
