Grub Street Diet: Dwight Garner A Muffuletta in the Freezer

The book critic's week of organ meat, fried cheese, and PB&Ps

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For Dwight Garner, hunger is not unlike the pursuit of great literature. "You start finding one writer, and this writer leads you to a slightly better writer, who leads you to the next writer," says the New York Times book critic.

"With food, it's really similar. You taste your first blue crab, a bialy, or a perfect tomato and there's a whole other world out there." This idea is the basis of Garner's new memoir, The Upstairs Delicatessen, which is about "eating, reading, reading about eating, and eating while reading."

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 19

ALMOST EVERY MORNING, I eat the same simple breakfast because I like it so much. I warm a small amount of olive oil in a nonstick pan over medium-low heat, then I crack two good eggs into the pan and cover it with a lid. After three or four minutes, I begin to peek underneath. The whites should be slightly crispy and the yolks just beginning to cloud. Does this method have a name? I couldn't think of one, so I emailed my old Times colleague Amanda Hesser. Being Amanda Hesser, she made up a name on the spot: smoggy-side up. I let our dog, Mae, have the yolky plate when I finish. Mae reveres these eggs too. I can tell because the face she gives me afterward is especially soulful, as if I’ve said something beautiful and true.