The writer and Unclear and Present Danger podcast co-host John Ganz didn’t necessarily expect his first book, When the Clock Broke — a history of early-’90s conspiracy theories, fringe political figures, and social unease — to become a best seller, but that’s what has happened. “It was a real shock to my publisher,” he says. Celebration was in order, and as a native New Yorker, Ganz knows where to go when he wants to indulge, even if that means he ends up picking up a bar tab for all of his friends. “I was feeling magnanimous,” he says. “I kind of regretted it when I saw my credit-card bill, but I’ll be okay.”
Wednesday, July 3
Today is my birthday. I’m turning 39. Never one to abstain, I’ve been celebrating for the past three weeks, and it’s starting to take a toll. I need to flash back for a moment to a meal in June. The New York Times review of my book came out, so I met my best friends Sonia and Natasha Stagg, and Sonia’s husband, Daniel Schmidt, at the Marlton Hotel Bar for drinks, and then we went to Minetta Tavern. I got us a bottle of Bollinger, we split a dozen oysters, and ordered a bottle of Premier Cru Burgundy, and Sonia and I split the massive côte de boeuf for two (could actually feed four) with marrow bones. Natasha, her twin, got a squab en croûte, and Daniel got one of the two burgers on offer. I saw a table get a chocolate soufflé and decided we were getting that too. I ordered a Calvados with dessert. This is not how I eat every day: I could neither afford it nor could my body sustain it. But it gives some indication of the way I’ve been treating myself lately.
This morning, my stomach is rebelling and I decide to go simple. I make myself one of my favorite comfort foods: pastina, tiny star-shaped pasta that I boil down into a porridge with butter and salt. My plan is to have this be my only meal until dinner. I may also be developing gout. I’ve had an unexplained pain in my toe.
My plan to make do with only pastina until dinner does not work. I start to get hungry in the afternoon and look for a snack. All I have in the house are what I’ve come to understand are very gout-inducing foods: cans of fish, jars of anchovies, and Schaller & Weber liver pâté. My self-diagnosis notwithstanding, I decide to go with the liver on toast.
I’m meeting Natasha and my friend Joey Teeling at the Odeon for my birthday dinner. I grew up in New York, and I’ve been going to the Odeon since I was a toddler. They used to have a cocktail menu for kids with special colored drinks. When I go with my parents, my mom says, “When I was pregnant with you, Basquiat and Andy Warhol were sitting right there.” My experience with restaurants in New York is a little melancholy. The places I like close, decline, and change management and menus. But the Odeon stays the same: It’s a great institution. It’s both comforting and fun.
I get there first. I like to pretend Roya, the Odeon’s famous hostess, recognizes me. She doesn’t; she just has incredible manners. I get there before my friends (I’m always punctual) and start with a dry vodka martini. I have to pace myself. I’ve rented out the basement bar of Lovely Day for my birthday, which I’m sharing with my friend Paulena. Natasha comes in and orders a Campari and soda. Joey orders a cucumber martini. There’s some discussion of oysters, but we get a shrimp cocktail instead and an appetizer portion of steak tartare. I order steak au poivre with frites, my favorite dish since I was young. I get talked into a California Pinot Noir — not good for my possible gout. For dessert, we order an affogato, and I have a Fernet Branca to calm my restive stomach.
We walk over to Lovely Day and go down into the bar. I order a tequila on the rocks, which has become my drink this summer. The bar gradually fills with guests, until it gets very full and I lose track of the tequilas. I’m told the open tab is about to be spent and add a little more. Eventually, they want us out, and I get a staggering bar tab, which I pay quickly so I don’t have to look at it for too long. The remnants of the party tries to go to Time Again Bar, which turns out to be closing, leaving Clandestino as the only option. I don’t remember if I have a drink, but I do talk to a girl I have a crush on and even seem to keep her attention from a younger, more handsome rival. She leaves to help a drunk friend into an Uber. Just as I despair of her returning, she rushes back in and asks me to fetch a glass of water for the friend. I am pleased to do this chivalric act. I walk my crush home, and she gives me her number.
Thursday, July 4
Suffice it to say I am not feeling well. Neither is Natasha, who texts me. We decide to ride out the hangover together. I have become obsessed with a Georgian mineral water called Borjomi I’m convinced is the only real hangover cure and recently bought two cases of it. It’s more mineral than water. But one serving has about a quarter of the daily recommended sodium intake, and I’ve become a little concerned that it may not be that healthy. I grab a case of it to take down to Natasha’s. We watch Sex and the City together, and I fall back asleep. Natasha convinces me some fresh air might help, so we go to Post for breakfast. Our eyes are bigger than our stomachs: I can’t finish my biscuits and sausage gravy, and she can’t finish her egg-and-bacon sandwich. We decide to go to Great Jones Spa to see if we can sweat out the hangover. The steam room, cold plunge, chamomile tea, and copious amounts of water make some improvement.
On our way back to Natasha’s, we resort to hair of the dog, buying two large Michelada cans. After more TV, we agree that Italian seems in order. We have given up on doing any Fourth of July activities. We try for Il Buco, but it’s closed, and instead we sit at the bar at Primi. I order pappardelle with Bolognese sauce and a beer. Natasha has a strange drink that combines a Miller High Life and an Aperol. The pasta is not great — it’s spicy for some reason, which Bolognese should not be — but it’s warm and nourishing, which is what I need. I head home.
Friday, July 5
Every day, I wake up with two strong cups of PG Tips tea with milk and sugar. This is often the only breakfast I have. But recently, the company that makes PG Tips has decided to change the formula, and now it doesn’t taste right. I can’t understand why they did this. It’s a huge problem for me: This is a pillar of my daily life. I have a dwindling supply of the original formula, but after that goes, I don’t know what I’ll do. It’s very unnerving when simple things you take for granted as always being around disappear.
I’m still feeling Wednesday a little bit and am “taking it easy” and watching movies. I decide to order pasta to make up for the disappointment of last night. I go for more comfort food: the penne alla vodka from Tiramisu. Here is another unwelcome change. I grew up here on the Upper East Side, Yorkville to be exact, and that restaurant opened in the 1980s — it was named for that decade’s dessert sensation — and was once a bit of a hot spot. But it gently turned into a reliable and slightly dowdy institution, inexpensive and solid. They made great pizza in their wood-burning oven. The décor hadn’t changed much over the years: Venetian masks hung from the walls, which were also lined with wine bottles, and the floors were red brick. I like to say Yorkville is the neighborhood of sublime mediocrity, and Tiramisu was the perfect example of that. Then the building was sold. They moved to a new, slicker location. This great old place that you took for granted as always being there, that I went to since I was a baby, is gone. But the food is still the same, and the delivery is fast. The forkfuls of penne are still hot.
For dinner, I’m meeting my friends Will Rahn and Alice Lloyd, who are expecting a baby and have moved from the East 60s to the East 90s for a larger apartment. Will, one of my closest friends since high school, and I used to hang out together at Donohue’s Steakhouse on Lexington, a perfectly preserved specimen that hasn’t changed its menu or customers since the 1950s. It’s far from their new place, so we will have to find somewhere new to go, I guess. I see the apartment, and we head to Pascalou on Madison. It happens to be closed, so we cross the street to go to Island, a nautical-themed neighborhood staple. The air conditioner is on the fritz, but the customers are mostly in their 80s and don’t seem to mind. I cool down with a gin-and-tonic and order a lobster roll. Will and Alice both get rigatoni. I think they are worried I’m lonesome or are preparing for the duties of parenthood, so they invite me back for drinks and cookies.
Saturday, July 6
A friend is visiting from Denmark, and we meet at Film Forum to see The Small Back Room, a Powel and Pressburger movie from the ’40s. Afterward, the heat inclines us to sushi, but this is another problem of the ever-changing city. There used to be many Japanese restaurants downtown that were not terribly expensive but were quite good and cozy. They’ve seemingly been replaced by ever-proliferating omakase “experiences,” some of which are elegant and unaffordable while others are extremely tacky and loud. One of my favorite restaurants, Hasaki, on 9th Street, another non-changer for decades, has come under new management, shortened the sushi bar, and made it omakase-only starting at around $100. It’s still pretty good, but it has lost some of its homey, friendly feel. Since the city is empty, we find a table at Tomoe on Thompson Street, which often has a line outside. This means I’ve never actually been, but I suppose there must be a reason why. I like that the décor seems unchanged from its opening and is unpretentious. The service is a little gruff. Promising!
We order a fried soft-shell crab as an appetizer, and I get a selection of nigiri à la carte: sea eel, yellowtail, kanpachi, striped jack, mackerel, salmon roe, fatty tuna, and sea urchin. It also has an extensive list of rolls with some interesting options. I get mountain yam with shiso leaf and umeboshi plum. The soft-shell crab, which my friend has never had before — apparently, it’s an American thing — is delicious. The sushi’s presentation is down-home: large slabs over small amounts of rice. Some of it is extremely fresh and flavorful. Other pieces … not so much. I’m pretty sure the uni was recommended to me to get rid of an old supply, and that’s not encouraging. Still, the place’s charm suffices. We move easily from one carafe of cold sake to two.
Sunday, July 7
I decide to keep it relatively simple for a change. I make myself an omelet. I’ve watched the Jacques Pépin video on YouTube a dozen times and still can’t make a perfectly shaped French omelet. I always produce a kind of fat, buttery squiggle, but it tastes good. I have a date tonight: The plan is to finish watching The Sorrow and the Pity, Marcel Ophul’s four-hour documentary about Vichy France, and then go out to dinner nearby.
We settle on Orsay, a bistro very close to me. It’s overpriced and not that good, but it has a welcoming neon sign and a beautiful interior. Like everywhere else, customers are sparse. As a result, the service is perhaps a little too attentive. We convince them to let us share the Dover sole meunière. I have the salade Lyonnaise to start with a poached egg, lardons, and frisée. My date has an artichoke vinaigrette. I have a glass of Chablis. The sole is fine. We’re having fun, I think, and we share a second glass of wine.
