This is an edition of The Wonder Reader, a newsletter in which our editors recommend a set of stories to spark your curiosity and fill you with delight. Sign up here to get it every Saturday morning.
Since I moved to New York a couple of months ago, I’ve been paying more attention than usual to people enjoying food in public. The density of this city somehow puts the pleasures of eating right in front of you: the smell of a hot dog eaten standing up outside the local restaurant–slash–lunch counter, the crunch of movie-theater popcorn, the neighborhood bodega full of New Yorkers craving a bacon-egg-and-cheese at 2. a.m. on a Saturday.
It’s a cliché to say that food is about much more than just food—it’s about connection, deliciousness, family—but our busy lives make it easy to forget that. Take today’s reading list as your reminder to really taste the vegetables in your on-the-go salad, to smile at the person across the street also sipping an iced coffee, to take in what’s in front of you, not just swallow it down.
How We Eat
What Home Cooking Does That Restaurants Can’t
By Reem Kassis
When we eat, the social context matters perhaps even more than the food.
What You Learn From Eating Alone
By Mari Andrew
A personal pizza may seem sad, but it doesn’t have to be.
Something Weird Is Happening With Caesar Salads
By Ellen Cushing
With chefs tossing in pig ear, tequila, and other wacky ingredients, when does a classic dish become something other than itself?
Still Curious?
- The hotdish ticket: “In foregrounding food, Harris and Walz are making theirs the candidacy of terrestrial pleasure and straightforward abundance,” Ellen Cushing wrote earlier this month.
- The people who eat the same meal every day: In 2019, Joe Pisnker profiled half a dozen people who prefer consistency in their daily meals, including one man who brought the same lunch to work for about 25 years.
Other Diversions
P.S.
I recently asked readers to share a photo of something that sparks their sense of awe in the world. “Fortunate to behold the ancient Siena Palio horse race, a spectacle delayed a day by rain but no less fervent,” Michelle Lauren Kim from New York City writes. “The jockeys, mere blurs upon their speedy steeds, stand in stark contrast to the Italian crowds cheering fiercely for their contradas—neighborhoods, bound by history and friendly rivalry—in this vivid moment.”
I’ll continue to feature your responses in the coming weeks. If you’d like to share, reply to this email with a photo and a short description so we can share your wonder with fellow readers in a future edition of this newsletter or on our website. Please include your name (initials are okay), age, and location. By doing so, you agree that The Atlantic has permission to publish your photo and publicly attribute the response to you, including your first name and last initial, age, and/or location that you share with your submission.
— Isabel