292: Dwight Garner

23:18And they let me do it, you know, whatever, Dwight. And so I wrote a piece and it became sort of a thing, you know. I mean on Twitter people were grossed out and it made news. I mean like the Daily Mail or the Telegraph. It was everywhere and people were sort of grossed out. Times kind of stuck it to me because they ran this photograph of the sandwich. They made it look really gross. That's the worst. That is like you can't do that to a writer, a food writer. So the photograph they run, you know, it's like squishy white bread and terrible pickles. It looks like it's from the White Trash Cookbook.

23:48And I love the White Trash Cookbook, but I was trying to class this sandwich up, you know. And so I wrote about this, and it still once in a while will come up, and people will still email me. And I feel like it's the most famous thing I've ever written. I will link to that in the show notes. It's definitely one of the most viral stories you've written, at least in For Food. And back to the White Trash Cookbook, I want to put a pin in that because I feel like that book we've talked about a lot. We published that book here years ago at 10 Speed Press. I want to, like, what do you remember and recall about this book?

24:16You know, I haven't seen a copy, frankly, for a long time. I should get a copy because I'm doing some writing now about West Virginia and growing up and the kind of food that we ate and people ate. But no, you know, to be honest with you, I can't think of a favorite recipe from it. Do you have one? So, Dwight, I don't have a favorite recipe, but just the history of the writer. You know, as a queer writer back in like the 1980s, it just is a really rich text to explore. And I know folks have written about him, but I'm glad that you brought it up. I think it should be mentioned. Well, now I'm going to buy a copy today.

24:47So thank you. Yeah, you know, it's a cool book. OK, like I'm just going rapid fire here because literally I had three pages of notes tied to your book. And really, you were late in life to oysters. And I think a lot of our listeners may relate to that. Now, let me ask you, what finally hit you with oysters? You know, I was really late to them. I mean, growing up in the 70s, not many people ate oysters in their families unless you lived on the coast. and it was a thing, you know. But I read in my book, I met my wife Cree in college and her father was a well-known chef on the West Coast and he adored oysters.

25:17So he would fly in once in a while to visit us in New York City. We'd always go to the oyster bar, you know. Yeah, Grand Central. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, we'd get a couple dozen oysters and some glasses of wine. It was just the thing that we did. And I think the first one, I probably pretended to like it. And by the seventh, you know, I was in. You were in. So it was like repetition. Now, do you like creaminess, brininess? What draws you to a raw oyster? Brian, Brian, Brian. I like salty oysters, big, very cold, like my martinis. Someone said, oh gosh, this terrific writer, Lawrence Osborne, traveled in countries where drinking alcohol is illegal.

25:54And he describes loving, finding a vodka martini, he describes the taste of it as being like the brine at the bottom of an oyster with a little bit of olive water. And every time I eat an oyster now, I think of that line. That line, yeah. It doesn't quite taste like a vodka martini, but I get it. Yeah, it's definitely a good substitute if you're not in the martini. More questions, more questions. Raw Quaker oats with brown sugar and whole milk. You are into this. Well, you know, everyone has a thing of Quaker oats, right, in the back of the cabinet. So I'm always stumbling in at midnight wanting something to eat, you know, something sweet.

26:26And sometimes the cereal is gone. And my wife told me one night, you know, you can just take Quaker oats and dump some into a bowl and put a little sugar or whatever and milk on it. It's delicious. And, you know, Cree caught me at it once, and she said to me, you know, that's what they feed pigs, to fatten them up. Yeah, and brown sugar is definitely the number one. I think apple is the number two in that variety pack that everyone knows. But raw, it's about texture, Dwight. I'm getting into this texture thing with you. They don't have to be cooked, these oats. They're delicious, just right out of the box.

26:54I feel I remember Bill Cunningham, the famous New York Times photographer. That was one of his go-tos, just in that documentary about his life. I kind of wish I didn't know now, though, because I sometimes don't keep cereal in the house, because it has power over me. I'll finish it, you know? And now that I know that Quaker Oats are sitting there, I'm sort of helpless. You're just like, you know you have to go to the drawer. I might have to ban them. Okay, you are a member of the Organ Meat Society, and anybody who's familiar with New York food writing knows about this society, but fill us in on what that society is and what you, have you been meeting?

27:25Do you still meet? Yeah, we had a dinner last week, actually. You know, it's this group that's been around since the late 90s. I've only been a member for the last eight years. I always wanted to be one. You know, me too. I mean, listen, if I can apply, I'm please let me apply. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk. You're being very polite. You're like, you got it. You got to do something else. No. And I knew about it. I'd read about it. The guy who kind of is the you know, if it were a basketball team, the writer and editor, Daniel Okrent, would be the general manager. And the food critic, Robert Sietzema, would be sort of the starting point guard and the coach because he orders for the table.

27:59Sietzema does. And eight or 10 of us, there are 15 officially go out and we eat organ meats. Usually in the outer boroughs, I mean cheap stuff, you know, tripe and intestines and Chinese restaurants and flushing and places like that. But once in a while we really go for it and have a big blowout somewhere and it's expensive, you know, but just once in a while. But, you know, I wanted to be a member forever and then one night at a dinner party I didn't know Daniel Okert was going to be there. I knew him just a little bit but there he was and I thought here's my chance and I woke up to him. And I think I impressed him because A, I clearly knew so much about the Organ Meat Society.

28:33B, I knew so much about eating organs because I love to read about them. And I cook from Fergus Henderson's cookbooks all the time. As you mentioned, yeah. And so I think he just – I think I forced him. You forced him. I forced him to invite me and then they couldn't get rid of me. Who else is in the group? Who can you name? Who's out to dinner with you? Well, I don't want to give too many ways. But the journalists Bobby and Bapasha Ghosh, he writes for Bloomberg. They are members. They're great. The journalist Robert Boynton. Robert Boynton is a member. you know Jeanette Seaver who was a longtime publisher in New York with her husband Richard Seaver people like that love it thank you for sharing that yeah definitely Daniel maybe he'll maybe come on the podcast I can ask him on there but I feel like you have to be invited it's not something you apply for it's very clear yeah I mean I don't know I you know it's funny they keep the numbers kind of limited because yeah well the reason that I always sort of want to invite someone and and Sitsama says well we can't get too large because then we can't all fit I mean it's hard to get into some of these restaurants.

29:28Often it's the kind of places that don't even take reservations. So we gather early and try to, it's hard to get a table for eight in some places in Flushing. You know, there's not ready for that. Now, let me ask you about your organ meat eating. Have you come across any that you were shocked that you loved so much? Oh God. You know, I like almost everything. I'm really pretty omnivorous. One thing I can't really face a fisheye. I don't know why I'm not into the fisheye situation. In the last few years, I finally learned to eat chicken feet and to love them. I mean, it's real poverty food. You have to learn how to sort of suck the individual.

30:00It's a sucking motion. Yeah, yeah. And I, you know, I will admit for four or five years, I wasn't quite, I didn't get it. But I've finally gotten it. And now I love them. But yeah, fish eyes. Keep the fish eyes away from me. Maybe in five years, I'll be there. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I think the cheeks are great. You can definitely get some cavity meat, but the eyes are tough for me. Have you had gopjang, the Korean intestines? That's where we went. The Organ Meat Society went there last week, last Wednesday we went there. That place on the second floor. Gopchang Story. Yeah, with the grilled intestines.

30:27Yeah, Gopchang Story on 30 seconds. It's a great place. Oh, God. And, you know, the crowd is really funky, too. It's all these young Korean women, you know. It's like they know how to eat. They're all, like, 24 and eating these intestines. I'm like, wow, this is my kind of—now I get K-pop, you know. Gopchang is, like, truly one of the least understood and most delicious Korean dishes. I love that dish. Yeah, all kinds of intestines. And the tongue there is great. And anyway, yeah, first grade. I want to dig a little bit into food and fiction. And you review books and you read all the time and you're always scouting out.

30:58What is a tell or a sign that an author actually knows what they're doing when they're creating a food scene in a restaurant in a home kitchen? Well, you know, it's the little stuff. You know, it's like when someone's cooking for you, it's the little stuff. I mean, you notice that they pay attention. You know, they, I mean, you know, a good meal is often just because the cook took the time to do things right. And fiction is much the same way. You know, the kind of writers I like to read aren't the kind of writers who publish a book every six months. No knock on people who love James Patterson.

31:27But, you know, James Patterson is, would not be the equivalent of a careful chef. I mean, he's, you know, slamming down a story. And I get why people like it, but it's not my thing. And if a writer is careful, if a writer says things about food, the consumption of food, about family, about friends, about gathering together, it's just insight and penetration. And I want a writer to tell me – first of all, to tell me things I don't know, but also tell me things that I've often thought but never heard expressed so well. That's the best. Yes, it's articulate, Dwight, because I think what you're not saying, what you're saying is not the case, is it's not like a laundry list of esoteric ingredients.

32:07Oh, God, no. As a matter of fact, you really can't – if you want to look ridiculous in fiction, you have characters talk too much about the wine. Because inevitably, if you do that, you're setting them up. You're making them look hideous on purpose, even if the characters – unless they really care about wine necessarily. But too much wine talk in a novel renders your characters kind of effete snobs in a way. It's very hard not to make that sound that way. I mean, some writers. You could say about farmer's markets, too. You could say if you're, like, observing, like, produce and being douchey about it.

32:35Right, right, right. As well. Yeah, it's hard not to be douchey talking about wine. Not that wine is douchey. It's not. It's not. But it's difficult. So it's like an insight into, like, a method or some kind of—and you want to learn something. So it's maybe the way a dish is prepared and the author is expressing the end result in a way that you've never been told about something maybe very common. Yeah. Yeah. In Ian McEwan's novel Saturday, which came out in the wake of 9-11, a character in London prepares a fish stew that takes all day. And we go with him while he's shopping for it. We go there.

33:08We're there when he's sort of playing squash in the afternoon while maybe his stock is simmering. I can't remember the exact scene now. But then his family – and you just get his entire day and it's centered around this dish, which is sort of bubbling in the background. He's thinking about it while many other things are happening. And that's how we live with food. I'm thinking now about when I head out of here, I'm going to pick up this there. And tonight my wife and I are going to cook this with it. And we all just, as we go about our days, have these little seeds planted that we're thinking about.

33:34And these seeds will grow later ideally into some nice thing that we get to have. I love that. It's well said. I have to ask you how you read. I think you're a book critic. And you write about it in the book. It's nice to get a sense. But, you know, you're not reading in the same space, which I thought struck me. Well, I like to move around. If you're reading, book critics live like grad students, you know. And if I get too comfortable, I'm taking a nap. And so I move around. I go to coffee shops. And I sometimes, when I'm not in New York, I'll read in my car. I'll go drive to the beach or wherever we are.

34:06And sometimes I'll sit outside of a supermarket because it's great people watching. And I'll read my book sitting there with the book on my steering wheel. But in general, the crucial thing is I sit upright at a table usually in not a comfortable chair. And I always have a pen. I'm always taking notes. That's how you work. I mean, you have to because you're obviously writing on deadline. You're a deadline reporter more than anything. You have a lot of deadlines, and you have to work through all these books. Yeah, and if you're doing it right, the review is kind of forming in your head while you're reading.

34:34And I'm writing at the top of the page, like, this would be a great thing to start with. And maybe there's a great line I'll write down. This is a perfect ending. And so you're kind of preparing it. You're writing the review in your head while you're reading. Let me ask you. I've interviewed a lot of restaurant critics on the show. Bill Addison from the LA Times. as well as it's been a few times. And I think it's very clear that with restaurant reviews, big part of the job is not reviewing. It's actually going to a restaurant and not writing about that meal. Does it happen with books as well? It's like the middle.

35:04Sometimes if it's not great or if it's not bad, you can't write about it. Do you find the similar situation? That's the hardest thing. Most books are in the middle. Most books, and I don't know. As a critic, I don't like mushy reviews. I just don't. So often I'll find things that I love about the book and things that I don't love and I'll sort of tear it up and build it back down instead of just being middle, pouring lukewarm sauce all over. Yeah. I look for things that I have strong opinions about, which helps. And, you know, book reviews are not just entertainment, but they are entertainment.

35:38And I think of a high level and I want to be lively. I don't want to use the old cliches. I don't want to do the normal thing. So if a book is boring, maybe I'll find a way to attack it that isn't boring. I'll talk about the subject matter of the book in a way that I have maybe something to say about. I don't know. You're always looking for ways not just to be typical. I mean that's the big endorsement for picking up every Sunday, the book review in The Times, is that you are not just hearing if it's good or bad. You're learning about subject matters that are even – some of them are tangential.

36:10They're like just not related to the book, but you just learn. It's such a great, well-edited section. Yeah, well, you know, having an opinion is not such a big deal. I mean, your uncle Fester has an opinion. You know, it's whether you can talk about it. It's whether you can elucidate why you feel this way. And, you know, everyone's got an opinion. So having an opinion is the least important thing to a critic. I mean, it matters a little, but it's what you're saying. To close this section, Dwight, is there another food book or cookbook in your future? I know that you just finished this book, but you probably are working ahead.

36:41I don't know. I would like to because I have a lot of things still to say. I would like to write a book about organ meats, about offal. Yeah. I think that would be interesting. But right now I'm working on a book, a sort of memoir about growing up in West Virginia. My grandfather was a coal miner. And about the inner life of that state, you know, sort of its history, its literature, its culture, which is sort of undervalued. And people in America and the world over look at mountain people in a way and culture that I'd like to talk about. Are you going back and traveling throughout the state for the research of this memoir?

37:09I went back for a year, but COVID happened during that year. So we were kind of locked down. But I go back. I have relatives there. Yeah, you go back. Is there a food from West Virginia that maybe we don't know? Well, you know, the most famous food from West Virginia is the pepperoni roll. Yeah. You know, which, you know, I like. I mean, there's such a fetish. You know, if a restaurant has a special, special tonight, pepperoni rolls. Well, we already had. Anyway, they're everywhere. They are everywhere. People love them. And I like them. Ramps are a great thing. Wow. Oh, a state with a ramp pedigree.

37:39I like that. My grandfather grew up eating them, and he claimed that that's the way you got out of school. You would eat a bunch of ramps before you went to school, and the teacher would send you home immediately. I love it. Dwight, on This Is Taste, we ask guests about their discerning taste. So to close this interview, here's a little rapid-fire, fast-and-furious taste check. Are you ready? Yes. The best breakfast. Oh, eggs simply made. Simply made? No way, over easy scramble. Well, I asked him. I didn't. Okay, here's what I do. I take a bit of olive oil in a pan on medium high heat, medium low heat, crack two eggs, and then cover it.

38:11And so the yolks get a little bit smoggy. There's not really a name for that, but I have it every morning. It's delicious. And then I let my dog lick the plate afterwards, and she loves it too. Oh, man. So you're olive oil, not butter. That's a big dividing line. I'll use butter sometimes. Olive oil is a little easier. I'm not judging. I'm just – this is good. This is good intel. I like the method. The best dessert. I don't have a sweet tooth. I don't eat dessert very often, but blueberry pie in the summer. Yeah, you made it clear in the book that you don't, and really there's not a huge dessert section, but blueberry is good.

38:41The best bread? I could live on Bialy's, but in New York, She-Wolf Bakery in Brooklyn, whenever I see them, I just can't. I just run and buy whatever they have. Bialy's, not bagels. Bialy's, yeah. Yeah. I prefer. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why? I don't know. They're a little small. They're adorable. They're crispy. I like the onion flavor in the center. They're a little smaller. I actually – sometimes a bagel, it's a little too bready for me unless they're – I like the thinner ones. And so the bialis are thin. They're crunchy. I just like them. I like them. More texture. More surface area for texture. I agree.

39:13Tough question, but I think you can answer it. Your favorite cookbook of all time. Oh, God. You know, I thought about this this morning a little bit about cookbooks. And I thought the joy of cooking. I mean if I was going to go to a desert island, I think I would grab that. Those people know what they're doing. And I look at mine. You know, I sit there. Okay. Okay, lunchtime, I sometimes read the newspaper while I'm having my lunch, but often I'll just grab a cookbook and sit there and flip through it while I'm having my lunch. And drive cooking is great to flip through. There's all kinds of things you never knew were there that are brilliant.

39:39And they keep updating it, and there's a whole team and a family that is still doing the work to keep it modern. A favorite recent cookbook discovery. Well, there's a book from the U.K. called Goat, and it's about cooking with goat meat by a guy named James Wettler. And I saw it at a friend's house, and I said, what is that? I have to have that. So I got a copy. And we live in Hamilton Heights in Harlem in New York. And the local supermarkets have a lot of goat meat. And it's very good. And we've started to cook with it more and more. Yeah. Is there a dish that comes to mind? Well, curry is the famous thing you do with goat.

40:11Goat curries are famous. We're trying to branch out a little bit. That's an amazing protein. That book, I think, was nominated for a James Beard Award. I was at the awards. I remember it's got this, like, crazy cover. Great cover. Amazing cover. It's such a great cover. And it was like, goat. And it was like, shit, I got to buy this book. Great reminder. your favorite New York City restaurant classic edition. I love Balthazar. I think I sometimes ask people at dinner, if you had to eat at one restaurant every lunch and dinner for the rest of your life, what restaurant would it be? And it's a hard question because you don't want to go somewhere too niche.

40:42You don't want to have to, I don't know. And I would probably do a brasserie like Balthazar because, you know, fish, you have fish, you have meat, you have fries, you have vegetables, you have oysters. It's the whole fresh seafood. It's the gamut. And there's always something I want to eat there, and I'd probably do that. Great call. I think really well thought through answer. If you're going to eat every day, definitely I would eat the steak au poivre there every day. You are the guy to probably profile McNally. I feel like you're the guy. I don't know. He scares me, man. He's smart. He's funny, you know.

41:13He's great. I mean great with an asterisk. Listener, don't come after me. Great entertaining figure, and I hope somebody, maybe Jason Diamond, will write that profile. I can't wait to read his memoir, which is coming out next year. I've heard it's in the works. Yeah, maybe he's waiting to do for that. He's the great get for food writing right now, McNally profile. Yeah, you know, it's funny. That thing he does on Instagram where he prints his restaurants, his manager's notes from the evening. If there was a service in which New York City restaurants would do that every night, a lot of restaurants that are interesting restaurants, and I could read about how the night went, I would subscribe to that.

41:49I would buy a book. It's just a great idea, and I wish more restaurateurs would do something similar. It's a really good call to way. I think that this behind the scenes and, of course, with the bear and we're learning more about back of house to get a sense of like the rhythms of a restaurant. It's fascinating. Endless well. OK, your favorite New York City restaurant new or newish edition? Well, the Organ Meat Society went to Foul Witch a couple months ago. And it's really well done food. Some of the best tripe I've ever had in my life. Everything in there I liked. And I haven't been back yet, but Foul Witch is a great name and a great place.

42:17Great name. I've not made it there, but I've heard great things. OK, big question. Your favorite food that is when worked into fiction, meaning your favorite, I'll say, ingredient or dish that has found its way into fiction. Your book, The Upstairs Delicatest, is loaded with examples. But is there one that comes to mind? Oh, God, that's a hard one. Can I say alcohol? You can. Yeah. Let's do it. I always love it when characters around the table or in a bar and they become sort of unbuttoned and the conversation gets gets a little wild and loose. That's always a good moment in a, you know, as we all know, most plays or many plays start off at a dinner table, people drinking.

42:51And then the evening goes on. You know, it's sort of, you know, Edward Albee-like and things get crazy. And that's always great. Your favorite fictional restaurant or restaurant scene? Oh, man. You know, an undervalued food novel and a very funny one, a very sarcastic one is Brett Easton Ellis' American Psycho. And, you know, this book was – it really made people mad when it came out. But now it reads like comedy. And his characters, these young yuppie financiers, they eat at this restaurant and they eat – the meals get increasingly hallucinatory. At one stage, they're eating eagle carpaccio, you know, stuff like that, like crazy.

43:29The meals just get surreal. And I forget the other meals they have, but it's a great send-up of 80s food cuisine. It's a beautiful scene and scenes. And, of course, Dorsia, one of the restaurants featured in the book, is now literally an app. So some Gen Zer with some capital created a restaurant reservation app called Dorsia. I didn't know that. Yeah. So that restaurant in Dorsia is really supplanted. And I'm so happy you say that. It's such a good call. Great, great example. A couple more. Your favorite vegetable? Creamed spinach. Now, questions about that. Is it a ratio? Are we talking more cream than spinach?

44:09You know, I've never had cream spinach that I didn't like, first of all. It's so good call. You know, it's great to get at a steakhouse. But, you know, between you and me, sometimes when maybe my wife's away and I cook a little steak, I'll go buy the bird's eye. It's delicious. I'll heat it up in a pan. It's very good. You know, to be honest with you, my wife, Cree, normally makes it for me when she's cooking. And I'll request it once in a while. She doesn't like it. She's Alice Waters. She's pure. She'll have the spinach, and she'll make a little for me on this. And no shame about bird's eye or any frozen vegetables.

44:42Delicious. Especially these leafy NPs. It's better. It's better. You're right. And come Thanksgiving, my pearl onions will be those. Because, you know, I've made them myself for many years now, and I like those ones that are frozen. A pearl onion. Tell me, Dwight, what is this dish? Oh, but you can buy the bird's eye pearl onions with the white sauce. They're creamy. They're delicious. It's literally the onions in sauce from bird's eye. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Again, there must be a book just about onions. If there is, I should buy one because I'm an onion fanatic. But Pearl Onions in Sauce from Bird's Eye, I've not picked that one up.

45:10It sounds so good right now. Last one, your favorite sandwich. Turkey Club. I mean, you know, I think that if I had to pick one lunch to eat every day the rest of my life, it would probably be a Turkey Club. It's hard to screw up. Delicious. I have more, I have crazier, more occult sandwiches that I love to find, you know, but day in, day out, you can't beat it. You can't beat that. Dwight Garner, this has been such a pleasure. Thank you for joining This Is Taste. Thank you.

45:37This Is Taste is hosted by Eliza Abarbanel and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is produced by Shalia Harris and Pat Stango and edited by Clayton Gumbert. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Visit Taste online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter for updates on all cool things that are happening.

45:59Thank you.