658: Novelists Ed Park & Jason Diamond Get the Food Details So Right 

29:17um and then you know actually after like in the early 2000s my workload at the voice kind of changed in character and in sort of in workload like i was editing a lot of people i was writing a lot i was reviewing a lot and and it was great it was actually there was this window of time at the voice where it was just what a dream job you know you know sometimes i'd go out in the middle day to go to a screening and write a movie review. But I could keep, you know, so I had a novel project that was sort of, you know, not going so great, but through the 2000s and the 2010s, like I would be writing these stories often for a reading event.

30:00Somebody would invite me to read. And so I have that journalist mentality, like, oh, so-and-so is asking me to read at this event in Brooklyn in three weeks, I better write a new short story. And nobody was forcing me to do that, but it was actually, that's how this book got written. I was kind of like, what can I write that will get people's attention, be entertaining, hopefully make them laugh? I think this book is funnier than, I mean, Personal Days is pretty funny. It's pretty funny. And Same Bet has some good jokes. It's a return to form in the humor side of things. Yeah. That's what I've been struck by.

30:35And anyway, so, you know, the most recent of these stories was like, you know, early 2020s and one just got published like a couple months ago. So it really does span 25 years. But while I was putting it together, it just felt like I have the same sensibility. I definitely have the same sense of humor. And I noticed certain names recurring. And I was like, wait, is this the same character? And so that was, it was almost like my novelist impulse to like make these connections. So it is, I mean, it's not a novel in stories per se, but it does feel like, you know, one of those, the sum is greater than the parts.

31:12There's connective tissue. Yeah. For sure. So I'm going to ask you about some specific stories where food plays a role, but listener, pick it up. It's, you can just, obviously with a short story collection, you dive in wherever you want and you're going to laugh. You're going to laugh. Each one can be enjoyed individually. I agree. But there's a in the story of the gift. I want to know more about Dablinski, this protagonist who's a professor of great mystery at a community college by the airport. You have him teaching students. He's daydreaming about possibly leaving an eggplant fritter left on the counter.

31:49I love that little note there. And then the story kind of climaxes at a meal at Celestial Empire. and I recognize this restaurant. I recognize the restaurant growing up in the Midwest. It's a place where they're doing poo-poo platters and spring rolls and Peking duck and fortune cookies and you have this wonderful scene there. What made you write about this specific restaurant and style? I love that you picked up on this. I'm a little emotional for some reason. I don't name the city, the town that takes place in, but I will say there is a community college near the airport in Buffalo. And this restaurant is an amalgam of Chinese restaurants in the 70s that we used to go to in Buffalo.

32:43specifically one called Lee Choose in Tonawanda, New York, which is, you know, kind of right, right by Buffalo. And it's funny because I found, you know, I went online and I was like, Lee Choose is long gone, but somebody had posted an ad, like a TV ad, right, from Lee Choose and like the font, the, the people there that have seventies clothing and it's all white people actually. But I feel like when we were there, I mean, maybe they did that for the purposes of that ad, but it was mostly like, you know, there's a lot of like Korean Chinese people going there because it's sort of one of maybe two places.

33:22And I actually asked some, you know, friends from Buffalo who I didn't grow up with and who I didn't know until I got to the city and neither of them had ever gone there. And I just kind of thought, oh, so it wasn't this common Buffalo thing. It was like my family that went um and yes hence like you know the poo poo platter like obviously as a kid i just thought that name was hilarious right i would always want to order it um you know the the lazy susans and like the thing of uh of chopsticks and um pot stickers and and things like that and like i said before there wasn't really a korean restaurant in buffalo for a long time and And so that's where we would go.

34:03There's another place called, I won't go through all the history of Chinese restaurants in Buffalo, but Golden Palace was another one. And then later, there's a place called Golden Duck, which is kind of a small place, but my parents liked it. Or maybe I misremembered. There was a place where the owners were Chinese, but had come from, I guess, near Korea. So they actually knew some Korean. So that was like another nice connection. um and you know i was thinking about this like why did i set this story there the dablinsky is a professor of aphorism yeah and i think my you know my lizard brain was just like okay uh fortune cookies uh but as soon as i started you know typing celestial empire and started writing that scene it was like all these memories i see like lee choose kind of got stirred up yeah it's a lovely lovely story thank you so much dablinsky do we do we ever see him in your fiction anywhere else?

34:58I think he might be mentioned briefly in another story. Yeah, or maybe I took that out. Yeah, no, it's a fascinating character. Machine City revolves around a student film at Yale in the 90s. One of the scenes is at this vegetarian restaurant and it evokes such 90s feelings. There's smoking inside and it truly has the saddest food. I think one of the characters eats a dinner roll for their meal. Right. And I think you're playing around with students and food and how students maybe aren't thinking about the food. And they're just there for the community. And there's like, it's a really great 90s scene.

35:43You know, I'm not a vegetarian. I think in the early 90s, I guess, I feel like vegetarianism was sort of like in a cult thing almost. I knew very few people who were vegetarian, but this place, the place I'm, I think I name it in the story Machine City, it's called Claire's, it's called Claire's. It might be called Claire's Corner Copia because it was on a corner. sounds like yeah um and i mean that was not to be snotty that was like kind of my attitude i was i was like the few times i was there it's like there's nothing to eat um this uh really amazing novelist julia otsuka uh who um uh buddha in the attic and the swimmers and uh when the emperor was divine those are her amazing novels she went to yale a couple years before me and she she just read the book and she was she emailed me i actually liked oh that's funny and i was like you so i i you know i'm there are there it definitely had an audience i think it is actually still around um but that was that was maybe my first sort of kind of reckoning with like what is what is vegetarianism and now of course i try to eat less meat when i can and you know it's i i'm glad that place was was around but i i don't have so many um actually just talking to you now like memories So they're like New Haven eateries are now bubbling up.

37:04Well, I mean, you were just a student and you had other things on your mind. Yeah, limited budget. So it was often like pizza. It's a great story. I don't want to talk about more. Although it's a great pizza city. It's a great pizza city. It's a great story. I'll just read you that. It's a great story. It's one of my favorites in the collection. Another favorite is Watch Your Step. It's definitely a page turn. It's in the spy thriller genre. And I think food plays a pivotal role in the actual arc of it. And you set a scene at, it's a wealthy uncle's house in Apujang in Seoul. And there's a critical plot point where the menu plays into the story.

37:44How did you think about this wealthy class in Seoul and using this kind of spy craft as a device? after college i lived in seoul for about uh not quite a year about nine nine months and it was really just i had never experienced korea like we had we had visited for a couple weeks when i was 10 but that was it and you know i don't think my parents were really wild about me going there like and this is this was like 92 right and so i i had this sort of job at a law firm where i kind of would help translate stuff and just kind of be like a liaison right in the Kyobo building, right in the middle of, in downtown Seoul.

38:32But it was kind of an attempt to connect or reconnect with Korean-ness, just to experience this place. But it was also very lonely. Like, I didn't know, I mean, I wound up kind of actually meeting a couple people from Buffalo who I knew who happened to be there and we lived together for a while. But, you know, there were times where, you know, I would, and I was, my Korean was much better then, but, you know, I was trying to like navigate, like, what should I eat? Where do I go? How do I behave? Like, how do I use the bus? And this is the story, Watch Your Step is a story where I kind of take that experience and like transform it into a spy story.

39:15And I think one thing about loneliness is that, especially I think when you're eating alone in restaurants, you feel self-conscious. And I often felt like, what if people think I'm a spy? Like, this is just like all playing out of my head. there were also times when I was in Korea where just kind of the way I dressed which is you know whatever like east coast yeah whatever liberal arts like 92 I have thoughts about what you're doing right right cool and so but I you know you stand you don't kind of look like people like my glasses didn't kind of look like what other people wearing and a couple times like I would be stopped on the street like by soldiers with guns um and did they think i was like uh what a north korean spy a japanese spy i don't know um but that was that like you know in my mind like this fantasy like it it kind of um was good fodder for this story i also had this weird thing where you know i was working at this office but every like every couple months i had to like travel like this driver would take me to this really distant like visa place where I had to do some kind of shenanigans just to like stay there.

40:30And I often wondered what that was about. Like I was born in Buffalo. I had never really lived in Korea and it just seemed strange to me. And so like little things like that stuck in my mind. And kind of the food aspect, there's, oh, I will also say Ap Go Jong at that time was kind of notorious in Korea. Like that's when it sort of became this, I think they were called the oranges. Like it was the rich people's playground. So I kind of had that in my mind. There was also this phenomenon of like well-meaning Korean, like friends of the family sometimes taking me to Western restaurants in Seoul, like this Italian restaurant.

41:10and just like eating like quote unquote Italian food in Korea that tastes like, I don't know what it, you know, it's a very alienated. Ketchup is probably a main ingredient in that Italian food. Or there are places with like pizza with kimchi pizza, which actually wasn't bad, or polgogi pizza. Like they were trying all these kind of fusion misfires at the time. So that's kind of, you know, this is like three of the sort of inspirations, I think, for that particular story. And then you land on this menu and using that as, I'm not going to spoil the story, but using it as a key plot device. It's very clever.

41:47Do you research spy crafting? No, I just made that up. You made it all up. That's why we love fiction. I do love, you know, ciphers and things like that. So I kind of, in early stories, none of which are published here, I often did that. I have a story published in a journal but not here where every letter of every – the first letter of every paragraph spells out like a secret code. So I love doing stuff like that. But, you know, it's weird because – so that story, Watch Your Step, it does actually feel like a preparation for Same Bed, Different Dreams, which was a lot about kind of tension in Korea and surveillance and spying and stuff like that.

42:29It warmed you up for that. that large work that you're so well-known for. What inspired you to write about seafood haggis and artisanal jelly beans? You use it as kind of a funny joke, but there's more to it. There's a meaning there. I think it's, there's part of me that is, there are a couple other stories where I kind of get into outlandish food descriptions, like food that should not exist, you know? And there's like, in my writerly DNA, there's perhaps a experimental side. So, you know, the experimental writers of the Ulipo group in France, like where they would just take kind of irrational things and meld them together.

43:16And I think that sort of comes from that. It also comes from, I believe, being on book tour for personal days and like my minder when I went to Portland, kind of raving about the local scene of the local food scene, which, you know, sounded really exciting. And I did actually have a good meal there after my reading, but which I think seven people went to the reading. but yeah at least you got a meal out of it i got a meal something else yeah got a great meal um but uh but i i think i had this out of body experience as he was describing like this incredibly complex food scene of just like melding like seafood haggis like like just kind of like making up stuff um riffing off of what he was actually saying it's i mean it's such a it just hits hard like the idea of seafood haggis is uh it's abstract and but it it has it's like this over the topness.

44:10Yeah. Of where food can go. Where food can go and maybe where it shouldn't go. Where it shouldn't go. Yeah. I read the pulgogi pizza or whatever. I love the book. Listeners, please pick it up and dive in. And what's on deck for you right now? I mean, this is a collection, so you maybe weren't working on all these stories recently. What are you working on? So I'm working on another novel and it also has actually quite a bit of Korean stuff and Buffalo, Western New York stuff. It's almost like, I mean, some of the things are things that I didn't put in same bed that I just thought, that's interesting, but it doesn't belong here.

44:50I've been describing it as a horror novel, which is somewhat accurate, but there are sections where the scariness is sort of outlapped by my sense of humor. So I kind of have to decide there. But I also have a memoir, this unusual memoir coming out next year that I hope people like. It's done in a thousand fragments or something like that. It's about 200 pages, but it's nonlinear. It sounds scarier than it is, but it's basically this manuscript that I wrote kind of in the period we're talking about. I was 28. This is like in the late 90s. I was working at The Voice. and actually this comes full circle often in these solitary lunches i was working on this i was writing this document yeah and um every fragment begins with the word in so it's like in korea i blah blah blah in buffalo in you know a certain book and there's a quotation so it's sort of like maybe more of a poem and um but it it's a portrait i think of who i was at that time at the voice um doing these solitary lunches trying to be a writer writing my heart out for nobody and in any case i found this manuscript which i you know i'd written but i had kind of lost wow and i found it at the beginning of the pandemic i was like what's in this envelope oh here's this book that I wrote and I had no other copy of it.

46:26So I retyped, I typed it into the computer just to have a record of it. And, you know, by, by 20 pages in, I was like kind of in love with it. So, so cool to hear. Cause I think like you've really set up your life experiences and, and that time in your life at 28 and capturing that moment from a long lost manuscript is special. It's literally everything we've been talking about today. It's Korea. It's Buffalo. It's like working at The Voice. It's writing. And that's out next year. It's out next year. Well, I cannot wait to read it. Thank you, Matt. And maybe we'll have you back to talk about it.

47:07But you're always welcome back. I'm such a fan of your work. Ed, 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? I am so ready. The best fruit. Cherimoya? Yeah. Do you know what I'm talking about? I do, but I haven't had it a lot. Okay. Sometimes it's called sugar apple, custard apple. First time I had it, I had landed in Taiwan. My wife's parents are from Taiwan. So this was like back in the 90s. They presented me with this fruit I had never seen before. The flesh was so soft. The taste was kind of like kiwi, banana, strawberry.

47:44I didn't know what was going on. The seeds were very alien looking. So delicious. Yeah. The worst vegetable. My wife's going to hate me. I'm going to say eggplant. I will eat eggplant. I love the color, texture. I'm not wild about it. Yeah. I'll eat it. Do you have a preparation in the house that you guys do? For eggplant? Yeah. Sometimes she'll do kind of like a Chinese stir fry thing. I love my wife's cooking. Don't get me wrong. But I will not willingly eat it at a restaurant. Fair enough. Yeah. What is your typical breakfast? oatmeal with some honey or maybe some raisins. We bought this thing of chia seeds that never seems to diminish.

48:27I don't really like it, so I'll put in some chia seeds. It's like a thousand spoons are in there. It's still there. It's probably gone bad by now. That's my typical breakfast. Sometimes, this is a whole different area, Absolute Bagels, which just closed. Sometimes we would have bags of frozen bagels, and so sometimes I would eat that. The best dessert? I'm going to go Korean with this. It's not quite a dessert. It's more of a street food. I think it's bungabang, the fish-shaped red bean thing. Made in special mold. Yes, made in special mold on the street. And it's really like you don't get it at a restaurant per se.

49:08There are places you can get it on 32nd Street. That also just goes back to me in Korea in the early 90s. really cold winters there and just having this delicious treat and so hot. Yeah, it would steam up on the street. Yes. Oh my God. So that's going to be my favorite. I love that. I think this is a good one for you. A restaurant you wish you could bring back from the dead. I've mentioned Absolute Bagels. I mentioned the Old Gummi Oak. I'm going to go with being a vibes guy. Columbus Bakery in the 1990s which was on columbus and about 83rd and for a while i lived on 83rd basically 83rd and amson like very close by i lived above cafe lalo oh wow strangely but i but i never went there because i would go to columbus bakery and i would go there every morning before going to the voice and i would write there i had paper i didn't have a laptop but i had paper and a clipboard and i would write there and then i have another memory with it so i get i would get a sticky roll and a kind of bottomless cup of coffee uh i saw jerry seinfeld in there once with his wife and um my friend sloan crossley used to live on columbus and so she was sometimes gonna be there good good memory good memory i love i love hearing that story of upper west side in the 90s such an era that played on television pretty effectively right yeah yeah i had actually not really watched i didn't have a tv back then which is how i wrote why i wrote so much but so i hadn't i'm now a seinfeld fan but i i That's crazy.

50:39You were living in that world. That world, and he was there. And he was there, and you were unaware. That's beautiful. When you have a craving for fast food, Ed, where are you going? I really don't eat that much fast food, but if I'm driving somewhere, often to Buffalo to see my folks, we'll stop by McDonald's, and I get two hamburgers and some fries, and it's perfect. It's actually exactly the amount of hamburger I want. Two hamburgers is a good choice. your favorite city outside America to visit for food? This might be recency bias, but I just got back from Taipei. And we also went to Seoul and Tokyo.

51:17It was kind of this, you know, we're away for a couple weeks. But, you know, we started and ended in Taipei. It's nuts. It's just great. So some of the things I had there, this crispy milk donut, this place called Wong's Broth that had braised pork over rice. There was a place near where my in-laws have a place. We would take a bus and get Taiwanese breakfast. This thing called yu chow and sometimes covered with rice. I could go out and out scallion buns. I don't even like oysters, but we went to this place that had these oysters that were amazing. So I could easily have just spent another. I kind of felt like I needed another stomach because I would just eat everything and get so full.

52:02And was this these three locations as like a vacation or were you working? Yeah, it was a vacation. Yeah. So mostly, so my in-laws live in California, but, you know, they do go to Taipei quite a bit. So we kind of timed it with their trip and my sister-in-law's family. But it was nice. We were in Seoul for only a couple days. The food there was great, too, obviously. And I'd never been to Tokyo and the food there was amazing, too. Oh, I'm going to say Taipei. I love that answer. Last one, your favorite sandwich. If you had asked me this, you know, a year ago, I would not have had an answer. But on Father's Day, I went to this place on the Upper West Side called Florentine.

52:43My family took me out. And I got this thing. It was like a schnitzel sandwich on like ciabatta bread. I don't know how to describe it. But the flavoring was great. It was not too dry. It was kind of good moisture level. and it was kind of it was it was a little too big but it was so good like after every bite I was like this is the best sandwich I've ever had and so I finished the whole thing if I go there again I would you know I would go with someone maybe you can come with it we would split it and we'd get maybe some we're gonna split that sandwich I like that choice we gotta have a lunch it'd be fun well Ed this has been a real pleasure having you on the show please come back thank you so much for joining This is Taste thank you Matt

53:28Jason Diamond welcome back to this is taste wow so happy to see you three timers club you are three timers is that so like is that like for snl like you get the jacket do i get like a bib or something well priya krishna has six and we haven't given priya anything so until we give priya that i'm gonna say it's it's an apron yeah yeah but a more stylish one i don't know why i went with bib i should have said apron that's okay i mean the jacket snl obviously has we need our own three timers club You're always welcome back. You'll get to five or six soon. And really, I'm not going to talk about The Melt, but subscribe to The Melt.

54:01Love your sub stack. It's always such a great read. Before we get to your novel, which I spoke about in a previous episode, a little mini review, one of my favorite novels of the year, it's called Kaplan's Plot, and it's terrific, Jason. Thanks. We're going to talk all about it, but I always want to check in with you about restaurants. Where are you dining right now? So again, just like last time I was here, I think my baby had just been born. So it was mostly just like Neptune 2, which is still my go-to. I go to Little Egg every, like once a week. That's become like sort of my favorite thing in the world because I hated Little Egg when it originally opened.

54:39And I feel bad saying that, but it was more me than them. Sure. Because I was like, you're taking over Williamsburg. It's going to be gentrified beyond belief now. And little did I know, Little Egg was like the best, last great thing of that era. Yeah. And then they opened up down the street for me and it's been like my favorite place to take my daughter. So I'm there like once a week. But Chateau Royale was incredible. I don't know if you've been yet, but I'd love them to let me make that a place I go to often. But I don't think I, I don't know. But I've been really into Sofra Cafe a lot and stopping in there.

55:12There's the cafe of Sofra. Yeah, yeah. I love that place. It's so, so good. So good. Yeah. And yeah, it's soup season is coming up. So Yemen Cafe. will be on constant rotation because of their lamb soup. Oh, I missed that. That was in my old neighborhood. Love that. We buy some. The trick is you order extra lamb soup. They give you the cups for free and you just freeze it. And it's, yeah. Great. Great rec. So you're in this like pocket of Brooklyn. It's very specific. I feel like that's your energy is that little pocket of Park Slope. It's certainly become. So it's like that Park Slope, prospect crown heights yeah sort of we're we're uh it's funny because it's like we had a kid last year and a lot of our friends in that neighborhood started having kids in the last two years and we're all in our 40s so it's it's kind of a funny like 40 something media writer i don't know it's strange absolutely lovely uh community you have there great people best all right we're gonna to talk about the novel uh i think when you were last on uh you were telling me about it in the lobby and i was like getting excited and excited and it was you set it up as um you told me it was like the godfather to but jewish and set in chicago yeah set up the book for our listeners yeah i'm still going with that because it's the because you know i think i kind of get into that writerly like, well, it's about this and the deeper, you know, this, that.

56:46But it's about generations. It's about the things we don't know about the people who came before us and what they passed down to us essentially. So it takes place over two timelines, the early 20th century and the modern day. And it's about a grandson of a Jewish gangster from Chicago who kind of starts finding out little things about his grandfather's past, who he'd never had met his grandfather. All the while his mom, who he had moved back to Chicago to take care of, she's dying. And they're kind of patching up the relationship a little bit without even kind of knowing it. And to me it's like the whole, there's like a bigger theme there about patching up things, whether it's past sins of the family that you had no part of or your own relationships.

57:40And so there's a lot of stuff going on, but that's... I mean, family is at the core of the novel. But I will just say in my mini review, I mean, if you're a fan of Boardwalk Empire and you're a fan of just like shoot-em-up gangster period dramas and with suspense, you nail it. It's such a wonderful universe. How did you build Maxwell Street in the 20s? How did you build this universe? And I think I read somewhere online that you didn't really visit Chicago a lot during the writing of the book. So it was clearly a lot of research just, you know, and really in your head, which I applaud. I love the universe.

58:16I think it's like been less told in fiction. How'd you do that? Yeah, it's actually really funny because that's the longest I'd gone without visiting Chicago. I was born in Skokie and I, you know, as a kid, I was in Rogers Park. And, you know, my family, when they came through Chicago, were on Maxwell Street. And so I grew up hearing a lot about it. And I just became fascinated with it because, you know, both sides of my family, Jewish, immigrant, all that stuff. But we don't have that Lower East Side connection. So I think early on when we would take field trips to places like the Historical Society, I would always like focus on Maxwell Street.

58:57Like, oh, these are really interesting pictures. And so I think the pictures really helped develop. you know I love looking at pictures and kind of like putting myself in them yeah and putting my you know my imagination in them and uh yeah I just kind of drew a little map I knew I know the streets well enough and I know what's there now and it's sad because it's all UIC kind of glossed over it's really sad that it that they didn't preserve so much part of the Jewish steadal yeah or the black part I mean like because the African-American part that moved in after it's like the same thing. That same thing.

59:30Sure. Yeah. But you addressed in the book beautifully, uh, as well, the kind of changing of the neighborhood in the fifties and sixties, which I love that. I mean, there was one diner there, there was a Jewish deli that my grandfather used to go to. And it was when he, when I was a kid, it was still there and it was owned by a black guy who spoke Yiddish. He had grown up there working there for the original owners. And it was a Jewish deli and to, to cater to the neighborhood as it was changing, He just started bringing in more like Southern African-American foods. But he had corned beef and pastrami.

1:00:05And it's interesting because it's when you watch the Blues Brothers, that scene with Aretha Franklin, that diner that she owns, that's it. They filmed it inside of there. Oh, right. So that's like legit Maxwell Street. Yeah. Maxwell Street is such a fascinating place. You know, Al Capone is most associated with Chicago and the mob there. but you make a great case in this novel that the Jews are really running shit at the time as well um on kind of a parallel track uh tell us a little bit about this era and the gangsters that inhabited Maxwell Street yeah I think you know a big part of it is that we associate the mob with Italians now and that's you know some of some I love my Italian friends love that they're like, yeah, it's cool.

1:00:49Like, but, um, you know, the thing is with the mob, uh, it really is when you go back and look at the history, it's, it's all there. It's the syndicate, however you want to call it is a mutual Jewish Italian invention. Like, uh, Meyer Lansky had just as much part in building that as anybody else. And, you know, in New York, you had him obviously are of Rothstein who all these guys are on Boardwalk Empire, I believe, and Bugsy Siegel, famously played by non-Jew Warren Beatty. Yeah, that's an interesting film. We'll leave it there. Yeah. But, you know, in Chicago, it was different. It was like, I think because Capone had so much power and the Italian mobsters had so much power and were so flashy and so openly brazen about, like, you know, I don't care, you know.

1:01:41And then, you know, on the other side of that, You had like the Irish gangsters on the north side who were taken out by the Italian gangsters. I think the Chicago gangsters were sort of like, we're just going to hang back. We're going to do our thing. And, you know, I tell people I'm like the most famous Jewish gangster that I could think of who came later was Lefty Rosenthal, who ended up being played fictitiously by Robert De Niro in Casino. That's based off of him. And, you know, he's a Chicago Jewish guy. and there's a lot of those kinds of guys but they're just not big names. Yeah, they're not names in the Italian lexicon of mobsters and of course New York is so Italian-centric in that world but Chicago is very different.

1:02:24So you've got this family drama and you've got this really great, you know, this crescendoing gangster tale that you could just hear the music building while you're reading the novel. I mean, it's brilliant work. But Jason, of course, there's food in it. You know, you're a longtime, you know, food writer, capital F food writer. Many other you write about many other topics. But I think I know you as somebody who really is is deep in the food writing world. And of course, this novel really captures food in the most unique way. I mean, you start the book with this amazing scene between Elijah and Eve at this yakitori restaurant.

1:03:01You write really vividly about liverwurst on Maxwell Street in the 20s. Sidebar, my father's favorite meat was liverwurst. It's very underrated. He, it was like liverwurst and he loved Miracle Whip, oddly, but which is kind of a choice, but together. Yeah, together. That was his jam. But like every birthday he'd have that. But like liverwurst is such a Chicago Jewish thing to me. I mean, you've got kosher butchering and dairy bars and Jason, you're building this amazing world around food. Tell me a little bit about how you got into the food of the era. Yeah. You know, it was really funny to me because I have always appreciated Chicago's food as like something bigger than obviously hot dogs and pizza.

1:03:43But I love those things. And when I started kind of I wrote this thing years ago about like the tavern style pizza and its origins. And, you know, it's an interesting thing because it's like Chicago. I think I'm pretty sure Chicago invented that kind of pizza. And when you ask people about it, it's like, oh, it's because they would make the free pizzas and just slice them up that way and give it out to the Italian immigrant steel workers or factory guys. And that was at the bar after happy hour. Yeah. And so everything in Chicago, to me, it's like even the hot dog, all the different toppings on that represent different parts of the city, like Greek.

1:04:21They're trying to get the Greek customers and the Italian customers and the Jewish customers and the black customers. And it's like every ingredient has a purpose. And there's something really fascinating about that to me. And so I kind of want to pay tribute to that because, you know, I've really I've people have all their different opinions on the bear. It's like we're never going to stop hearing people talk about the bear. And on this show, you're going to hear stop hearing about. I appreciate a lot of that show and like what it did. But to me, it's like there's a much deeper connection that Chicago has with food that I think doesn't it kind of like gets lost in the fact that there's a lot of meat and people.

1:05:00It's very big portions and we're not shy about that. And I just wanted to pay tribute to that because it's like you can't talk about Chicago without talking about immigrants and without talking about food. Um, and there's a reason for that. You know, you could say what you want about New York and LA and other food cities, but Chicago, it's like the food is so part of it. And so, you know, going back to Maxwell street, it was just sort of like, I've always known, you know, like the Polish, they used to call the Polish sausage, the Jew town dog, which is kind of amazing to me. Cause, uh, you know, I wouldn't have thought of that.

1:05:38Uh, if you would give me one right now, I wouldn't be like, Oh, it's a Jew town dog. Um, completely. But, you know, so I started kind of like working that on, you know, just making little references to those things and getting Manny's in there because there used to be a lot more delis. Yeah. And Manny's is like the holdout. And it's so great. It's so great to this day, Manny's. You have to go to Manny's in Chicago. Yeah. I had to shout it out. Yeah. My dad's spot was Ashkenaz up in Rogers Park. And I heard great stories about that growing up. Yeah. That was my family's place, too. Yeah. Yeah. You said the Blintzes are.

1:06:10Blintzes were, I guess, Barbara Walters had gone there in the 70s when her career was just kind of starting out and did a whole thing on the best blintzes in America when the people in America cared about blintzes. Bless Barbara for that move. Oh, my God. I love that move, Barbara. Yeah. Let's get that on YouTube. I'll look for that link. I want to find it so bad. And the Bears, I think, the Chicago Bears, because they used to play at Wrigley Field back in the day. I think a lot of them, my grandfather would see them all the time. And yeah, they would just chow down on hearty Jewish foods. And yeah.

1:06:43I love it. Well, it's a great segue talking about the bears playing at Wrigley. There's this beautiful scene in the book. And it's really not a major plot point, but I was reading closely as I have a deep interest in Chicago. Food. And you tell this story. And I'm wondering, is it a real history of the birth of the Chicago hot dog? Is it an alternate history about the birth of the Chicago hot dog? but is beautifully portrayed by a character who is a butcher and then is quite entrepreneurial and decides to take some of these tube stakes up to the ballpark and open up a cart. Beautiful scene, but tell me a little bit about what inspired it.

1:07:19That is my wife. You and my wife are the only two people who have gotten that so far, and I'm shocked by that because I've made sure to hand this book to so many people from Chicago and be like, please get the hot dog part. It is sort of, it's a fictionalized take, But I do believe that at the very least, you can't get the Chicago hot dog without the Jewish immigrants because it was Vienna. And Vienna were two Jewish guys from Vienna. And so I was kind of playing around with it a little bit. And then, you know, it's the idea of the Chicago hot dog came out of the Depression and the Depression dog and just put a bunch of toppings on it.

1:07:59And so I was thinking, I was like, well, maybe I go back a little further and have Saul, Solomon, the character, just be like, you know, very 19 kind of 20s idea. Be like, no, here's a healthy, it's a whole meal with vegetables and meat. You know, you go to Grey's Papaya, that's how they try to sell you. It's like a juice and a hot dog. And so I could see that being a thing. The one thing I threw in, which was definitely like for the real heads, was him being like, I was offered a bunch of ketchup sauce. I call it – because they used to call it – Ketchup sauce, yeah. Yeah, and he was like, I don't think it tastes the same.

1:08:38And I'm not going to – I just had to do that. No, I loved that move so much as growing up in a household where ketchup was banned from the hot dog. And just like making it be like, it just – this ketchup doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. I think anyone who loves a Chicago dog would never put ketchup on. There are places where they won't let you. They just don't even have it in the city. Like, they literally, like, we don't have ketchup. I mean, they do. Yeah. If you want for fries. But if you ask, they're like, no, we don't have ketchup. Wait, you did a little funny thing where you had the, was it the wiener circle sign change?

1:09:09Yes. Tell me about that. I just remember seeing that on social. It was so great. It was like promo for your book. I just, they, I got the opportunity to do it. And I was like, you know, it was in April. So I was like, whatever. I'm doing this. Like it's the wiener circle. If they're going to let me do this, I'm just acting on it right away. And, uh, yeah, I just had them. There was like the Cubs were playing a few games at Wrigley and I knew like, you know, it's kind of like on the main thoroughfare, uh, or one of the main thoroughfares in that part of the town. And, uh, I was like, hell yeah, I'm going to put that's how many times you get to do that in your life.

1:09:40And, um, so you had them change the lettering, the signage to promote your book. Yep. Just said, uh, Kaplan's pop by Jason diamond and the sale date. And, you know, it wasn't anything too flashy, but I was just like, well, if enough people drive past this, it'll kind of like get in their head and they'll be thinking about it. Like, what the hell is that? And but also it's just funny. It was really clever. And I just stress that you you have to buy this book. It's for so many of our listeners with deep interest in food and just a great family story. Last question about Chicago. where are you going to go out to eat after your book event or when you're back in Chicago in September?

1:10:20I'd love to get your Chicago hit list. Well, I'm trying finally. I mean, I just went back for the first time. I wrote this thing for the Wall Street Journal and they did that thing where here's a thousand dollars. Can you use all this in Chicago over X amount of days? But can I use a thousand dollars? Of course I could use. Believe me. And I had like money left over. I think the most expensive thing was like I ended up in Wicker Park and went to Dove's Luncheonette. Yeah, I love that place. Yeah, I do too. But it's, you know, you can get like legit Mexican food. Yeah. Much, much cheaper. Yeah.

1:10:55But I was like, I'm here. I love Dove's. But I really want to try Millie's this time. Yeah. I've never tried it and I've become friendly with them over Instagram on DM and all my friends. If a person from Chicago, it's sort of like Texas. Texas and Chicago have this in common. If a person from Chicago tells you it's good, you know, obviously everyone's got different. This is better. There's a new there was a thing about how Chicagoans like, OK, that's fine. But this is the better one. But like I do think when like enough people say, oh, yeah, that's legit in Chicago to me about something like pizza that I'm like, OK, that's legit.

1:11:31And so Millie's that's number one on my hit list. We had the chef on our show about a year and a half ago. I've been a Millie several times. It's it's super good, man. it's for the for a unique style of chicago pizza i think it's really the one in uptown is what i went to i know he's got a suburban location now too but i love the one in uptown yeah that's probably where i'm gonna end up yeah i can go but i likely if i can't make it because i know they sell out fast but um italian village which i'm always harped like a friend of mine who's a g the gq style editor was like where should i go in chicago i'm like listen you're here go to italian village it is the like it's like a weird red sauce place um it's very weird and like i love it my family has been going there for decades yeah and um they redid like the downstairs bar so it's like kind of like cool i i somebody was telling me like 1970s italian disco-y vibe and oh i like it i can't see that but i'm gonna i'm gonna check it out because i love that place so that's likely where I'll end up if I can't get to Millie's before or after.

1:12:36I love it, Jason. Well, pick up Kaplan's plot again. It's a terrific novel. Jason, I can't let you go without asking you about the Ramones. You're writing a book about the Ramones. It's your follow-up to this amazing gangster novel is a book about the Ramones? Yeah. You know, I've always, my first two books were nonfiction. I I co-wrote the guidebook about New York with my friend, New York Nico. And, you know, I always want to be able to kind of do both nonfiction and fiction. And I didn't really want to do any like heady sort of like essay collection sort of thing or or try to be heady. I'm not very heady, but I was like, I'm just I've always they're my favorite band of all time.

1:13:20And I, you know, I think going to Queens as much as I was for the Nico book, I was like, God, I love Queens. Queens. And it's like, cause you know, my dad grew up in Brooklyn in the Bronx. So I have like some connection to those places, but Queens is kind of foreign to me. Um, and every time I go there, I'm like, I just want a reason to be in Queens. Uh, and I also just have always felt like the Ramones have been sort of underrepresented, uh, for such an important band, uh, because they're always kind of just placed in this context of like CBGB is punk. It's cartoonish almost. They are literal cartoons of an era.

1:13:57And I cannot wait to see what you unpack there. How's it going with the writing? so far it's good I mean right now I'm still finishing up all the research that I'm putting into it but I have a very like specific way I want to tell the story and I think that's kind of the goal is telling a story because I think there's plenty of oral histories and there's plenty of you know secondhand accounts and this and that and you know they're all dead unfortunately the original members Marky's still around I see him driving his Cadillac in my neighborhood which is crazy but But yeah, I really want to tell a story and I want to put them in a different light.

1:14:35So it's like a firm third person approach. Yeah, for sure. I love this. Yeah, it's going to be something. I mean, I'm being like one out of five music books, like books about music are I like. Like most of them are. I'm like, you can barely write. Why are you doing this? Yeah. You know. Can we talk about Our Bank of Your Life? Oh, I mean, let's see that. That's an oral history. No, wait. Is that? No, that one. Yeah. That's Azurad. that's a great one yeah vignettes of like punk and post it's like Mudhoney and Beat Happening and Fugazi yeah yeah it's a great that's a great book and you know one of my I think Positively Fourth Street the Dylan Baez book I love how he did that I just read Brian Anderson's book about the Grateful Dead's Wall of Sound oh cool and I'm like this was an interesting way to do this I like this because it's you know the Grateful Dead have been written about a thousand and one times and he did something different.

1:15:34How do you, and there's been plenty written about the Ramones as well. How do you think about the story in a new way as you're outlining it and researching it? It's all about the seventies. It's all about the seventies. I mean, there's going to be like the kind of like, like the early days and Queens and growing up. But to me, the book is about how they represent this sort of sea change in America. and, you know, Western culture in general. And they're kind of like looked at as this like kind of silly couple of dummies who could barely play their instruments. But meanwhile, they ended up influencing everything.

1:16:13Their songs are actually brilliant. I don't care what anybody says. Like, oh, no, they're not. I'm like, dude, if you like the Beach Boys, if you like the Ronettes, you should understand why the Ramones are so wonderful. And there's just so much more to them than just, you know, three chords and yeah punk rock you know it's just they were at the at the at the forefront of something much bigger and uh everything that came after him was influenced by that well of course and they were like watching them perform in new york i mean is there drama to unpack as well within the members the original members yeah definitely i mean there was always between joey and johnny there was always a lot of back and forth i think um you know that's always been that's pretty well known that like Johnny was sort of the tough guy and Joey was like the sweetheart and Didi was the junkie and Tommy I always think is kind of the fascinating one because I think he was born in Eastern Europe or after the war his parents are Holocaust survivors he was more of like the business sense guy and I think it's kind of interesting that he got out of it because he's like yeah I don't think this is I'll hang out with you guys and I'll work with you guys and produce you but I'm done drumming drum drum yeah drumming and more like the behind the scenes music industry guy i love that narrative i can't actually can't let you go and and and hear about uh kaplan's plot on on screen oh yeah is this i mean i know hollywood is crazy and you know doing a period drama is expensive and difficult to make but is there anything in in motion with the with tv or yeah there's things and there's things, but like, I've honestly, I've, I was talking to a friend last night about this.

1:17:52It's like, we're, it's like, I don't like to say we're of this generation, but there is something really funny about people who came up in media around the time we did. We saw this, it happened in like the 20s and 30s where you saw like all these writers move out West. Like, Fitzgerald Faulkner, you know, they all, Dashiell Hammett, they all moved out West because they were going to be rich and famous by writing movies and most of them crashed and burned um on their own because you know they were all alcoholics yeah but but um a lot of the people i know who moved out to la in the last like decade with the same hopes that this is going to be much better than writing you know 300 dollar uh like listicles yeah right yeah um they you know they've been screwed over and uh like countless times by that industry and a lot of my friends have moved back to new york and you know and so i've like watched what they've had to go through and i've already been involved in some of the process of like uh with the stuff i've written and taking meetings when i'm out there before kaplan's plot and i'm like yeah this isn't for me so i'm gonna i'm gonna be involved somehow when it happens but i don't really wanna i just finished watching the studio recently and i'm like this is a nightmare Yeah.

1:19:11No reason to leave Brooklyn, to be honest. For creative endeavors, at least. I came to Manhattan today and I'm like, the city. The city. City's looking nice right now. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's looking nice. I love the perspective. It's really, really articulate. And you are so core about writing books and journalism and, of course, having a really good Instagram too. And I think if you try to extend and try to do TV and film, it's just like you start going nuts. That's, yeah. And I mean, I'm a writer. That's all I ever wanted to be. And that's all I want to do. Um, no, no, actually, let me add to that.

1:19:47I love being a dad. I love being a parent. I'm, I'm deadly serious about that. It's like, I'm obsessed with parenting. It's like, it's fun. But, um, and that's the thing. It's like, I say it's fun and writing is fun. So all I want to do is have fun. And I look at the process of like working in a, in a Hollywood setting. I'm like, this doesn't look fun. so I don't know if it's for me but if somebody else wants to tackle it I'm more than willing to lend my yeah well those on the West Coast who are listening to the show pick up the book there's some moves there for TV and film Jason Diamond this has been such a pleasure thank you so much for joining This is Taste I'm so appreciative of this I love coming on this so thank you Matt

1:20:33This is Taste is hosted and produced by Eliza Barbanal and me, Matt Rodbar. The show is edited by lead producer Clayton Gumbert and supervised by Pat Stango, director of media production and development at Penguin Random House. Thanks to Shalia Harris and the production team at Penguin Random House. Theme music by Steve Rydell. Logo and guest illustrations by Ellie Skrzat. Visit Taste Online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep updated on all cool things in the world of taste.