Today: True service journalism. Also, bad news in book publishing and good news — really! — in tech.
FOOD
Where the Media and Finance Elite Actually Eat Lunch
We don’t have a Goop Kitchen yet in Fidi, so we make do with 100 other slop-bowl options.
Recently, my colleague Tammie Teclemariam sampled the fare at the first Goop Kitchen outpost, which is operating out of a ghost kitchen in midtown; reporters from Business Insider soon followed suit, spending $95 on lunch for two. Devoid of soul and ambience as the enterprise may be, everyone seems to agree that the food is pretty good, and we’re looking forward to its inevitable expansion to our own work neighborhood: Manhattan’s historic and slightly weird Financial District, where bankers and media people spend most of their waking hours. The prices may be wrong, but we’re ready for a new lunch spot because we’ve tried everything else already.
In an ideal world, I’d set aside time every Sunday to meal prep, then set aside a meditative ten minutes every morning to pack a nourishing homemade lunch into a Lalo bento box. The world, as you’ve probably noticed, is somewhat less than ideal. In reality, I order an overpriced bowl of whatnot at least three times a week. I polled my co-workers to see what everyone else thinks has the best bang-to-buck ratio and, as a bonus, won’t send you into an afternoon food coma or give you food poisoning.
Taïm: I don’t want to wade into geopolitical controversy here, but the chicken shawarma bowl is really good. Also, it’s far enough away from the office that I feel virtuous about the walk.
Westville: Healthy, delicious, expensive. The crispy goat cheese salad, specifically, gets raves. Ordering Westville is equivalent to going to a Pilates class, IMO, and costs about the same.
Inday: This is my co-workers’ favorite slop by an overwhelming majority. People cited its proximity and its affordability, especially if you order via ClassPass (which has food?), and they shouted out the karma bowl, the salmon, and the “chicken tikka masala over half-rice half-salad.” I feel that Inday is too salty, and also I hate going into the weird, sad underground mall where it’s located alongside …
Naya: … which one co-worker feels has become “unorderable” since they “took away jalapeño.”
Brasa: Peruvian bowls. I don’t believe that humans were meant to ingest quinoa, but this chain has its fans. It’s also in the sad underground mall. One co-worker specifically shouted out the “big corn” (canchitas).
Korea2Go: Cited for sheer quantity of food. Claims to have the world’s best banana pudding. (“It’s fine.”)
Sweetgreen: Specifically, “the peach and burrata salad they have only in the summer that is truly so good.” In general, though, we can all admit that Sweetgreen is somewhat gross, right? Old heads remember when the first Sweetgreen opened in Nomad in 2013 and was actually incredible. The kids making TikToks where they talk about how much they long to be living in 2015 as an early BuzzFeed employee should add that data point to their fantasies.
Chopt: “The only bowl company doing salads like it’s still 2017,” because the bowls are still vertical.
Just Salad: But only for the cilantro-lime-chicken warm bowl.
Springbone: Only in cases of dire emergency. “I always regret a bowl purchased there.” It is also, sadly, the closest option.
BOOKS
Publishers Have No Idea How to Keep AI Out of Their Books
The system has always been flawed. Now it’s proving newly vulnerable.
Magazine writing is fact-checked within an inch of its goddamn life, but the rules for nonfiction books have always been: There are no rules! This often comes as a surprise to readers and writers alike, but if authors want their books to be professionally fact-checked, they must typically hire a checker on their own dime. Now that AI is out there hallucinating quotes and facts — as in a recent scandal where a book about AI was found to have been generated in part by AI — nonfiction books are getting more wildly inaccurate than ever. Charlotte Klein asks: What’s the plan here?
“I’ve always felt that, despite my ethical holdups with AI, there should be a more in-depth conversation on what things it absolutely shouldn’t be allowed to be involved with,” said one editor at a major publishing house. “Nobody seems willing to have that conversation.” An editor at another publishing house said their company sends authors a guide about not using AI in certain ways, “but it’s not legally binding. Once you’re at the editing stage, this is basically a business of trust.”
Perhaps future contracts will be negotiated in such a way that publishers will be forced to take more financial and legal responsibility for books’ authenticity and veracity. (Also, cover authors’ lunches.) Wouldn’t it be pretty to think so!
TECH HOES
‘The Hottest Girls You Know Are Getting Into Electronics’
Cat Zhang brings us news about a growing movement: Hobbyist queer and femme computer geeks are making “cyberdecks” — Polly Pocket–ish homemade mini-laptops — out of spare parts. These devices are not only cuter than Apple products, they can be off-grid survival tools, e-readers, digital typewriters, or any other customized thing its creator wants. Best of all, this movement exists outside the walled gardens of big tech, relying on open-source resources shared within the community. Twenty-nine-year-old new-media artist Mattaniah Aytenfsu is a prime example of someone who is working to prove that you can be anti-corporation but still pro-technology:
“Mathematical systems and computation show up all across history and indigenous cultures,” she says, bringing up the example of kente cloth, which is woven in intricate sequences that you could consider algorithms. (Female knitters were some of the earliest programmers.) In her work, she explores how tech can be “a source of care versus a source of control,” she says, attuning us to our planet, communities, and selves.
This is all very heartening! Not only are the children dressing like they’re in the 1995 movie Hackers, in which Angelina Jolie and Jonny Lee Miller make out in a pool and he wears a red latex dress, they are also literally hackers. Good job!
Click Your Way Out
“I watched a nearby diner ask for and receive black latex gloves for manhandling his poulet rôti.”
How Qween Jean came up with those eye-popping Jellicle Ball costumes.
Gayle King still remembers every detail of that time she caught her then-husband in flagrante with her best friend (“mint-green panties”).
Zohran ripped a cig mid-marathon. Whatta man.
Lin-Manuel Miranda and Cardi B picked five finalists, and now we vote on a 2K jingle. I’m torn between Allegra’s and Amanda’s.
Is it possible for a backpack not to be hideously ugly?
Counterpoint: A cute hat to buy if you like New York and also sports.
I’m not going to see the Heated Rivalry parody musical and you can’t make me.
Also - I didn't realize you were on Substack, but I always look forward to your Dinner Party newsletters in my inbox!! :)
Yes! Goop is perfectly positioned for the finance bro market too.