Triple-Dipping All By My Lonesome, or Second Breakfast #15
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, I’ll be in conversation with John Birdsall at Now Serving on June 12. We’ll be talking queer food! Also, happy pride : )
Earlier this year, I assigned myself a day of reporting on two different projects. First, I slouched with a blackberry scone and a cup of hot black coffee among the beautiful creatives at Canyon Coffee in Echo Park. Then, I took a long drive up the 101 to Encino, specifically to the dark, half-empty dining room of Chili’s, where I ordered three kinds of dip.
Los Angeles is so sprawling that it seems wrong to say the contrast gave me whiplash. I drove for at least 45 minutes! I went over a mountain! But our sprawl is dense sprawl, a spiraling, near-impassible thicket — every exit off a freeway can usher you into a different existence. Off one, a lifestyle of literary magazine tote bags and toast. Off another, the Margarita of the Month sipped across from a strip mall topped with grand glass domes.
I visited Canyon, fittingly, for a scene. Specifically, an opening scene for a sample chapter for the book proposal I’m plugging away on. I needed somewhere that could sum up contemporary coffeeshop culture, with is focus on lifestyle and visual appeal, in contrast to the 1990s era of dark brown wood and burnt coffee.
Going to Chili’s was a bit more quixotic. Technically, it was for big feature I was reporting out about the rise and fall of sit-down chains in America. But nothing about my trip to Chili’s made it in the story. By reporting standards, it was boring: I came, I ordered, I triple-dipped all by my lonesome. My guacamole was a little brown at the edges; the spicy chicken tenders, so trendy and pandering, were unfortunately good.
There was something grounding, though, about breaking up all the reporting phone calls with an actual meal. I thrilled at the abundance on display in the picture menu, accompanied by low, low prices. The friendly service charmed me more than I would have expected. And I felt nostalgia for my childhood in restaurants like these, often with my dad, who died over a decade ago.
It seems silly to feel intense things about processed cheese served in a beaten-up booth. But what’s interesting to me about food lately is the quotidian. Like, ok, it is transporting to have a perfect meal in Paris (or a stylish coffee in Echo Park). But there’s something much more complex and interesting embedded in the strip mall.
The feature on the rise and fall of sit-down chains in America ran in the New York Times last month. It got a really enthusiastic and generous reception. I loved messaging with people about it.
I also got to chat on Serious Eats’ podcast about the story, which was very fun!
I subscribe to too many print publications, more than I ever get through. They live on my kitchen table in a terrible pile. When I’m eating, I pick up an old LRB or a pretty travel magazine and read what catches my attention.
What’s funny is the stuff I read in print and the stuff I read online is pretty different. When I see, say, a big New Yorker feature drop, sometimes I open the tab and then decide I want to wait to read it in print. But when I pick up the magazine, I don’t necessarily end up on that story again. Maybe for the next edition of this newsletter I’ll do a better job keeping track of my print reads and make sure I share them, too.
J. reminded me this morning that I read portions of this review on the history of direction out loud to her, and that later my brother texted me while reading the same article.
Another print read: a gutting and personal reported feature about grief and the perhaps-fruitless quest for justice. A warning to parents of young children: the kicker will wreck you.
Via Angie: a short story response to the AI cheating story. This was not entirely for me, but I’m fascinated by how engaging it is to read, like, fanfiction about a magazine article discourse.
I am more or less immune to best dish lists, but my god did this list make me want pizza. And to be in New York eating said pizza. The blurbs are so fun and snappy!
While working on the chains feature, I read Alexandra Lange’s history of the American mall, which made me reconsider a place I’d scorned in my teenage years. She also just won a well-deserved Pulitzer for her architectural criticism focused on the needs of families
All new restaurants are Hillstone now. I wonder what it will take for anyone to open a risky, creative sit-down restaurant in the 2020s.
Chefs never talk about their consulting gigs, but you know they take them! So I really appreciated this thorough and frank week-in-the-life of a consulting pastry chef.
Take-out potlucks are fun (a friend did a fried chicken party for her birthday once, and I still think about it). I loved this gossipy rundown of what various LA chefs and food people picked up for a party thrown by Nancy Silverton
I’ve become an odd fan of the DJ Avalon Emerson, odd because I have not gone to a DJ show in like 20 years, but I love her taste and her vibe. This super-eclectic playlist has been playing in my car for a week. My toddler calls it “Baba party.”
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5tsuaF5YX0T1ETldAU0T5m?si=72fe0dd3c9a143eb
That’s it! Thank you for reading. There will be another edition soon. Definitely sometime this summer?
Love,
Meghan
PS: A few snaps from a roll of film I got back recently. I’m obsessed with the contrast and color!
