another food diary
feat. california persimmons and buttery kspa uniforms.
Here’s another Gr*bstr**t-inspired food diary. The last one, from summer, is found here.
Thursday, January 11th
I wake up with less of a pit in my stomach than expected. It is a travel day, after all. I’m flying to LAX to spend a long birthday weekend in the sun with my friend Nora, and am leaving from JFK around mid-day. Enough goodness in this trip is pulling me forward, mitigating my usual travel dread. While I try to clean out my fridge in perfect timing with my departure, I don’t quite have my shit together enough to pack a lunch for the plane. After the subway, the LIRR, and then eventually the Airtran has spit me out at Terminal 4, I resolve to buy a $674.99 prosciutto sandwich, tucking the warm bundle of parchment paper into my shoulder bag for the plane. I roll past the always-swarmed terminal’s Shake Shack, and marvel in disbelief at how God could create me (anxious, Jewish, IBS), and also create the people who can shovel cheeseburgers and greasy fries down their throats before boarding cross-continental flights without a second thought. If an airplane terminal is testing the survival of the fittest, it’s the Shake Shackers that are winning.
As I make my way onto the plane, I clock no fewer than 6 hot guys. The curse of existence, you’re never not clocking the hot guys at the airport. As I make my way back to the second to last row of the plane (obviously), I discover that the window seater to my aisle seat is one of the hot men. Goddamnit. Now aware of every aspect of my being as I settle into my seat, my pulse quickens with the realization that great, now I’m going to be thinking about this fucker for all 5 hours of this flight. I didn’t sign up for this! I start to debate how to muster up the courage to speak to this man (knowing I won’t), but am given quick relief when a thirty-something woman suddenly taps my shoulder to enter our row. She’s our middle seater, and I’m freed. I enjoy the mid-day plane ride, actually. I tear into my better-than-anticipated salty prosciutto, arugula, and balsamic swiped baguette, I space out the rest of my snacks across every hour, I rewatch Past Lives, and I obviously cry while I do it.
In the Lyft to Nora’s from the airport, I peel off my layers and am left in a t-shirt, face soaked in the Los Angeles sun. I text Nora this weather, holy shit. She replies, I know, it’s fucking freezing. Apparently, this is a cold front. I can’t tell.
At her apartment, I take a scalding hot shower. We talk on her bed, but not for long, as I am now ravenous. Announcing I desperately need food, any food, and now, she kicks into gear and drives us over for an early dinner at Vickys All Day. We split a burger and the lettuce-wrapped fish “tacos” and we catch up on all the shit we have to complain to each other about. Oo, heaven is a place on earth. For dessert, Nora takes me to Awan, a vegan ice cream spot where they serve impossibly creamy Indonesian coconut-based scoops. She gets the coffee, and I opt for a “rum nog,” but it’s windy out and we’re under-dressed, so we post up with our tiny cups and tiny spoons in her car.
Friday, January 12th
I wake up 28. Alright! It’s noon already on the East Coast, and my parents Facetime me as soon as we’re up. The hack in traveling west for your birthday is by the time you’ve woken, your phone has already warmed up for hours to the messages and texts, the wishes sent from your loved ones, your dentist, your coworkers, countering those birthday fears, always bubbling under the surface, of no one loving you, no one caring, etc etc. You get it. Nora surprises me with a dining room full of birthday treats, and I say for the first time of the day, ugh, only a woman!!! There’s a birthday crown, a sparkly banner, and a platter of decadent sweets: a fat slice of carrot cake, and three breakfast bars. To start our day off with all the “I need a little treat” energy you’d expect, we walk in sweats over to Andante, a vibey cafe, where I’m rewarded with an iced coffee, and a sighting of a D-list Instagram celebrity with a lot of lip filler. Frankly the LA of it all, again, hurts.
The morning is nice. We eat oatmeal at home (almond butter, blueberries, seeds, and nuts). Nora works for a few hours. I walk to her local park with my book in my bag to read. And by that I mean, I Facetime my friend, I try to get comfortable in 3 different spots (construction is too loud) (dog walker is screaming) (too chilly in the shade but too hot in the sun), read 8 pages, pee in a nearby Nordstrom, and repeatedly tell myself this is nice!!!!!
Nora finishes her work, and we head over to Cookshop for a sunny lunch. I order and devour a plate of the most California-y California produce I could ever imagine. Not to be dramatic but hand on my heart what comes is a shallow bowl of treviso & apple salad, with green satsuma, hazelnut, crouton, zinfandel vinaigrette, and pecorino fiore sardo. And a piece of fried pan con tomate on the side. I nearly weep. With my head in my crusty dusty flaky-dry East Coast winter hands, understanding about 65% of those words, I nearly weep. Paired with a lemony Arnold Palmer in a tall glass of pebble ice? It’s almost inappropriate! We spend the late afternoon on the east side, walking around the Silver Lake reservoir, ogling at people on runs, and commenting on dogs and babies. I laugh at the people in puffer coats.
We eventually get ready for dinner. Our uber driver is more than a little unhinged at the wheel, and we dig our fingernails into each other’s arms. We spend a long time at Étra, a new Italian restaurant, that is comically too moody, too sexy for us — the teeny tableside candles, the glowing red lamps. Our order is meatballs (I always order the meatballs), a chicory and anchovy salad, pomodoro spaghetti, the roast Calabrian chili chicken, and two glasses of Lambrusco. Essentially my dream meal, and I’m grateful for it. Nora fulfills her duty as birthday partner, expectedly asking me who reached out across the day, who sent the worst/best texts, and knows not to ask if I received a text from any ex-boyfriends or recent flings as she already has the answer. I blow out a candle stuck in a slice of flourless chocolate cake with blueberries baked in, take two Gas X’s with water from the bathroom sink to get ahead of my belly already twisting into cramps, and we head off to meet up with a few of Nora’s friends.
It’s a Negroni at a bar with a film photo booth, and then a briny martini and three puffs of a horrid shared cigarette at tenants of the trees, the packed but perfect dancing spot for the night. I pretend I do this often, I pretend that I’m not loving that I’ve paid for none of tonight’s drinks, I pretend that I’m not thinking of how I’ll probably wake up with a cold the next morning. Cause I’m extremely chill and cool and soooooooo very young.
Saturday, January 13th
I’m a Poog listener, in Los Angeles, and visiting the friend who shares my worst hypochondriac tendencies. A hellish, embarrassing combination. We walk over to Erewhon to buy zinc pills, coffee, breakfast, all of which we’ve wordlessly deemed will carry us to enlightenment. I opt for a $1,500.23 smoothie from their tonic bar that I’ve unfortunately been dreaming about for weeks. I think about when the guy I dated a few months ago said he loves to indulge in the Erewhon-of-it-all when he visits LA, because it’s simply everything New York is not. So true, man! I love my smoothie; it makes Nora pucker her face in horror (it’s mostly parsley and celery, and I won’t apologize). We order a breakfast burrito stuffed with black beans to share, and also a side of salty bacon that we nibble on enough that it magically disappears before we have to head to check out.
After lounging on the couch for most of the afternoon, we will ourselves out of our sweats and drive to the Los Feliz flea market. As we’re elbows deep in cheap tank tops and smelly vintage tweed, we realize we are desperately late for our appointments at Wi Spa, the Korean day spa we booked tickets a month ago to visit. We still haven’t eaten lunch. Manic, high off of our flea market scores, our sudden realized hunger going right to our heads, we get an order of 10 chicken dumplings from a food truck. After dousing the open clamshell in a gingery dumpling sauce, we shovel them into our mouths quickly in the car.
We arrive, flustered, at Wi, and the woman at the desk blinks at us. Your scrub sessions were canceled, you’re far too late. Hm. She tells us that we can still use all of the facilities, it’ll just be $30 dollars please. Originally told that we couldn’t use the baths without booking a pricier treatment, Nora and I look at each other in pleasant surprise, us both surely thinking about all of those fake-feeling Venmo dollars we just spent at the Flea. So turns out this is a win! We get our lockers, our spa uniforms, and we are sent off to fend for ourselves.
The underground spa layout is sprawling and confusing, but we eventually find our way. I haven’t been to a Korean day spa since I was just past puberty, and the prospect of even my mother and sister witnessing the grown-in pubic hair I hadn’t gotten used to yet was daunting. Here, I instantly remember both the magic and strangeness of the experience. Nora and I sit our bare asses on steps in the warm pools, then the hot ones, both of us shifting to get comfortable and both surely pretending we aren’t preoccupied with the thought of the number of naked bodies that have sat on these concrete steps since the last cleaning. We do the dance that you practically sign on a dotted line to do upon booking: taking in everyone’s nakedness, but quickly enough that you don’t catch another’s eye. The breasts pumped stiff with silicone, the pubic hair curl patterns, the horrible tattoos, the cascading bellies, nipples of every size. We can’t stop commenting to each other on all of it, both believing this is a practice that should be prescribed as medicine. I barely remember my own nakedness, I’m too busy marveling at what it means to be trapped in the human form.
Needing a respite from the baths and the stinky sauna rooms, we pull on our uniforms and head to the co-ed floor. Khaki shorts, and puke yellow t-shirts that have been washed so many times the cotton feels more like velvet. A plastic clicker buzzes when our rice bowl, full of avocado, edamame, mixed greens, and seaweed, is ready. From our seats on the floor, we dive into it from opposite ends, meeting in the middle. We are already sleepy and a little delirious, now making even more nonsensical comments about the experience. Taking in the men now around us too, we agree that it feels notably less remarkable, less like an act of beautiful resistance, to know they are also all walking around downstairs, naked and bare and different.
Once we’ve had enough of the thick air, we call it. Showered, dried, lotioned, changed, the perfect place to be. At home, on the couch, our muscles are so limp and we are so spent, that when Nora’s roommate walks in, she asks if we are stoned out of our minds. We order Mediterranean for delivery from Mizlala, platters of hummus, roast veggies, pita, fried chicken shnitzel, and we gulp down tall glasses of water.
Sunday, January 14th
It is my last full day, and after a light breakfast of blueberries and coconut yogurt, we head to the Brentwood Farmer’s Market. As we’re driving over to the west side, for the 465th time, Nora patiently answers every single one of my questions on where we are/what about now/who lives here/what about there/what are this neighborhood’s vibes. I am still trying to get my feel for how it all connects, how this other place mirrors my own life back home.
The market is a long stretch of booths, and it is swarmed with chipper weekend people doing weekend things. So used to my own market, I am overwhelmed with both the newness, but also how everyone is exactly the same. It’s laughable. We do a small shop for Nora, and I’m sad I can’t partake. I taste wedges of pink blood oranges, deglet noor dates on toothpicks, a sip of green tea from a paper cup. Feeling left out, I allow myself to buy a plastic container of dried hachiya persimmons (“a souvenir”), and one tough fuyu to take on the plane and slice into back at home once it’s turned soft.
For lunch, it’s the meal I’ve been craving since my last visit in October 2022. The turkey club, and a sparkling celery soda from Gjusta. I take several heavenly bites, the thick-sliced turkey and cold pickle of it all, so simple but so fresh, sending me somewhere nice. We savor it. I tell her a story I’ve been forgetting to share all weekend, passionately talking with my hands while I chew.
Back at home, with just a few hours left until we must leave for my red-eye flight, Nora decides now is somehow an opportune time to clean out her closet. I sit on her bed, propped up on pillows, while she peels sweaters, cardigans, and pants off their hangers to consider once and for all. I bark “yes” “no” “why don’t you ever wear that!??” trying hard to be honest, while also knowing that everything she will discard will be made mine. I’m distracted though, already thinking about the flight the traffic the journey. I’m not quite ready for real life, for my quiet apartment just yet. I’ve already started to dramatically sigh all over the place, blowing out my anxious air to try and release the tightness from my chest.
I fork a few bites of leftover rice and chicken, knowing I should eat. Once I’m packed (two, yes now two suitcases, to accommodate the stacks of clothing I’ve now inherited from my dear, very gracious, kind, gorgeous friend), Nora drives me to the airport for my red-eye. We inch nauseatingly forward in LAX’s drop-off line, and the pure existential dread is surely plastered all over my face and body. Nora responds by turning the dial and blasting a rousing pop song on volume 10000. A futile attempt to shake off these incomparable Sunday Scaries, yes, but I join in. We dance at full force in our seats for 40 seconds, belting along to every line of the chorus, sweet like hooooney, karma is a cat purring in my lap 'cause it loves me, flexing like a goddamn acrobat, me and karma vibe like thaaaat, not noticing any of the eyes we’ve surely attracted from our groove. It helps a little bit.
She turns down the music, and I hug my friend tight, thanking her for the weekend, for letting me be a passenger princess, for making this birthday a really bright one, and tell her I love her. I roll my two heavy suitcases from the sidewalk onto the linoleum floors as I pass through the automated doorway.
Monday, January 15th
It’s frigid. I eat a peanut butter GoMacro bar I took from my office 8 days prior as I stiffly make my way to the AirTran with my shoulder bag and both roller carry-ons. Somehow I can justify purchasing not one but two red leather jackets on vacation, and a last-minute checked bag for my journey home, and yet the $60 uber home when I’m juggling three bags stuffed full is out of the question. Call it “girl math,” call it “having twisted priorities,” but I’m unwavering.
I shower off my thick layer of plane grime the minute I’m home, tuck into bed and sleep for three hours with the curtains drawn. I wake up completely disoriented. Despite wanting to slink back into sleep, I open the New York Times Cooking app, forcing a bright screen in my face, knowing I need to fill my fridge with at least something this afternoon. I’m not craving much, so I screenshot several recipes and figure the wind will blow me in some direction eventually. At the shitty grocery store around the corner, I decide on both meatballs and squash soup.
For dinner, I prepare Korean BBQ-style beef meatballs that require the crushing of several Ritz crackers to add to the mix. I remember how good these damn biscuits of buttery gold are, devouring almost a whole sleeve standing in a haze, leaning against my kitchen counter while I wait for the meatballs to bake. I make a sticky soy-gochujang sauce on the stove to coat them. Knowing that it’s early and that I must keep myself awake, I queue up Mid 90s on the TV, and eat my dinner on the floor in front of my coffee table. The meatballs in sauce are far too salty. I pile each forkful with enough sticky white rice to make the bites bearable. The movie is good, but I am thrilled to crawl into bed the minute the credits roll.
Tuesday, January 16th
I wake up to snow outside of my window, and I let out a loud eeeeeep! as soon as I see it, just as I’ve done every single morning in my life that I’ve woken up to packed snow. I have a moment where I wonder if it’s a little sad I have no one to share that eep with. It doesn’t last long though, I’m too busy thanking the weather gods for gifting us with snow a reason for my office to be closed.
I do a short stationary bike ride, my muscles still creaky and fatigued from my red-eye, and after showering, I turn on the kettle for coffee. When the French press is ready, I pour a splash of the half-and-half into my steaming mug. I feel like my mom whenever I add half and half to my coffee, and that elevates the whole thing of it. After filling a bowl with yogurt and blueberries, I head to my bedroom, where the light is best, to start my workday, and to watch the snowfall.
Later, I start a soup on the stove for dinner. It’s a squash, red lentil soup. I chop a yellow onion, slice garlic, and scoop seeps out of a small halved delicata squash. I turn on some music to keep me company. The vegetables simmer in spices, a tab of butter and olive oil, and are eventually stewed with chicken broth and lentils. I full the bowl with chopped dill and scallions and a lot of cracked pepper.
After days of squinting my eyes in the sun, of busyness, of sharing almost every thought that has popped into my head in real-time, I am now extremely at home. Back to my normal. A grey and chilly winter, concrete and brick stretching out for miles outside my bedroom window. The hum of my fridge in the kitchen is the only thing I hear. I sit on my floor alone for the second night, spooning hot soup that tonight tastes a little like baby food, and watch another movie, this time L.A. Confidential. I tuck myself into bed to read a few pages until my eyelids get heavy.
