Today's menu

I.

Five years ago, before she became a basic-cable celebrity, I met her at the Kentucky Derby and she was wearing a T-shirt that read, “I Recycle Men.” When she explained that she had another at home that said, “Tell Your Boyfriend to Stop Calling Me,” I realized I was in the presence of a kind of greatness that could not be contained by the dairy-free cookie business Ms. Frankel was building. Since then she has developed a “Sex and the City”-like health-food and diet-book mini-empire that tells you how to lose weight by drinking margaritas. —Ginia Bellafante, NYT


II.

While pedestrians speculated on Ms. Lee's activities in the trailer, John Starks, a former shooting guard for the Knicks, posed for photos in a polo shirt adorned with the Starkist logo. "I grew up mixing tuna with mustard and tapping a little sugar into it," he told the Transom. "I always had a sweet tooth. I like tuna melts, too. It helps with the brain and the eyes." —Molly Young, NYO

III.

And so my life fell into the unvarying routine I crave and need. I would wake up, have my muesli at home, work for a bit and then go to Delectica for my elevenses. I said "unvarying" but gradually, as my eagerness to go to Delectica increased, I found it impossible to concentrate on my work because all I could think about was my doughnut and coffee, and so I started having my elevenses earlier and earlier until I ended up skipping breakfast and having my elevenses at nine. At the latest.

I went to bed at night looking forward to my nineses and then, as soon as I woke up, I stumbled out of bed, dressed and went to Delectica before I was even properly awake. Although I loved them and should have savoured them, I started gobbling my doughnut and drinking my coffee in a hurry, gobbling and slurping them down in such a frenzy that I barely tasted a thing. Before I knew it the high point of my day was over with. It was only 8.45am and there was nothing to look forward to. I also found it increasingly difficult to keep my rapture to myself.

One morning, as I gobbled my doughnut and slurped my coffee, thinking to myself, "What a fantastic doughnut, what an amazing coffee," I realised that I had not just thought this but was actually saying aloud, "What a fantastic doughnut! What a totally fantastic experience!", and that this was attracting the attention of the other customers, one of whom turned to me and said, "You like the doughnuts, huh?" —Geoff Dyer, Guardian