EATING ALONE/REFRACTING IMAGES/FAVORITE SPOTS/EMPTY SPACE
This week, I read the NYMag feature by Tammie Teclemarium on eating alone. I also read the Bon Appétit piece by Alicia Kennedy about what defines a dive.
To go somewhere, to sit alone, to read, can be a real pleasure. In the same way that I really like people who have such big personalities that I get to sit back and be quiet, I find going out to eat or drink alone can be a wash of relief, a shift of focus.
The type of eating alone I’m thinking about is sort of a specific one. It’s not the same thing as eating alone in my apartment, or drinking a glass of wine in the bath (cheugy, perhaps, but underrated!). I also don’t mean getting a drink at the airport bar before you get in the air. I don’t mean getting dressed up either, necessarily. I mean, more, killing time with quiet, amidst bustle.
Often, I think eating or drinking alone can induce or accentuate the surrealism one can feel moving through the world with anonymity. To be a flaneur, to be fluid, to watch without a stake. I’ve spent a lot of time on subways, gazing across from me ‘til the car isn’t really anything anymore, and the colors are just orange and grey. Sometimes, I get the same feeling in public solitude – colors washing over me, refracting like shadows in a pool.
^Hockney, Portrait of an Artist (Pool with Two Figures), 1972
The joy for me is zooming out, wondering why the establishment I’m in was made, and trying to get the most out of the moments that my body gets to live there.
I shan’t be so bold as to pretend that curating an experience at an eating establishment is not a luxury. It’s the type of investment that is sort of hard to justify. However! There are a couple things that I’ve figured out.
1. There’s nothing wrong with getting bread or olives or cheese or tea. No one needs you to order something you don’t feel like ordering.
2. I like to think about what pairs with the space. In a dive, you’ll probably want a beer and not a martini -- this I know from experience. If you don’t usually drink beer – what if, at this place, you are a person who does?
just accessorize it ! hehe
3. Go somewhere that is somewhat empty, or not at full capacity. Can be overstimulating to be somewhere alone when it’s popping off.
4. Also—always bring a book or a journal. Being on the phone just is not right. Alternatively, having nothing to look at but other people, for me, is a bit much.
5. I say this last one as a chef, so I am allowed! Most places, you won’t want to order salad unless it looks really good.
SOME OF ME FAVORITE SPOTS
-Sharlene’s is a soft and unchanging cave. I’ve had a lot of sweet nights there, but I remember one specific early summer evening – I had been working at the Brooklyn Public Library and had a particularly restless and chaotic day. Sweating, I had two whiskey sours and destroyed my moleskine with nonsense. Walked home in the summer twilight, wondering, as one often does at 23, the form that life might take.
-Okonomi/Yuji used to be my favorite breakfast in NYC. Honestly, they haven’t done indoor dining since I’ve moved back to Brooklyn so I’m not sure what the vibe is like now—but when I first started eating there, it was a revelation. Beautiful Japanese breakfasts, so quiet you whispered your order and could hear the roe pop in your mouth.
-When I lived in Hudson, it was a joy to go to Kitty’s and get a breakfast sandwich. Best in the world, done with Bon Appétit meticulous consistency. Last time I was there, I had one in their courtyard, in the sun, listening to the murmur of Euro tourists, spilling cheese on my hands, smelling lavender.
-Five Leaves is kind of my guilty pleasure. Five Leaves, in many ways, is what I imagine Parisians think that an American bistro might be. It can feel like a film set.
But you know it’s reality because the staples break the third wall. Five Leaves is the perfect example of a place that sears in my memory every time I go there because of the intensity of my order: oysters and truffle fries. I have not forgotten a single visit there, in part, because who can forget eating that combo?
Every time I go with others, I make sure it’s with someone I love. I go alone when I feel like reminiscing.
There also was one time this past September when I laughed at myself because I went to Five Leaves for a burger and martini, and paired it with my book about folkloric psychological interpretations of eating disorders. I’m so crazy!
-Speaking of audacious! Buvette is really sweet. Always makes me feel glam. The garden is really gorg, and I love that they always have fresh citrus downstairs. One winter day a couple years ago, I walked around the Village (where I grew up), as it began to snow. I listened to “La Javanaise” over and over like a little freak, and then went to Buvette for un café and their really good toast that has is whole wheat and has walnuts and raisins.
-Roberta’s! Surprise surprise.
The last time I went to Roberta’s, this was what I got. ^
It was winter and I was feeling insane. I was living on a tiny island off the coast of Washington State, but had come home for a little stretch. Relief. I came to Roberta’s directly after having been tattoo-ed for the first time, around the corner in Bushwick. I got my first tattoo (a cowboy hat and flowers… don’t say anything mean!), and realized that I liked it so much that I promptly got a second (a tiny rose. I’ll hear none of it!). The adrenaline was next level. I am so lactose intolerant that I knew instinctively that I should sedate myself with dairy.
This was a pic I took that day.
^Yay!! Absolutely chuffed.
EMPTY SPACE
In college, I wrote a paper on Edward Hopper’s ‘Empty Food Spaces’. I focused on Nighthawks and The Automat.
Nighthawks, 1942
The Automat, 1927
At the time, my thoughts were mostly concerned with the placement of these works preceding and following WWII. The concept of automats is fascinating… industrialization, individualism, solitude, alienation of body to object of food, etc… (Also the Brooklyn Dumpling Shop’s weird bastardization of the automat is something that I could spend hours on. Appalling.)
In my paper, I asked “where is the food? And what does that mean?”. Those are worthy questions, I still think. But now I sense, from the people in the paintings, less hunger than patience. These paintings evoke, admittedly, some grim mystery. But how lovely to feel something, even melancholy, in a place that is well-lit.
During Passover, you open the door and pour a cup of wine to welcome the prophet Elijah, the peacemaker, into your home. The moment that you open the door, a hush sort of falls on the room. I remember always kind of feeling like someone had come in.
It makes me think that there’s no such thing as empty space. You bring something with you when you go somewhere alone.