Union Square Cafe
Drawing throughlines, returning to healthy habits, and bread as the main event.
Each morning, I sit down on the subway while in transit and open my photos app. I search for the current date (Dec. 8), and I review every photo I have taken or saved on this day over the years. What started as a feasible approach to consolidating the nearly 65k photos in my library has since grown to be a daily dose of nostalgia that I look forward to.
As time has passed, patterns have emerged that I would not be able to notice otherwise. These patterns are as simple as unconsciously making the same salad three years in a row on an afternoon in August. Or photos of the same street (a place I do not frequent), taken years apart on the same morning in September.
This morning, I noticed a throughline of health-oriented choices — yoga at Sky Ting in 2019, homemade green juice from 2020, a sweet potato and trumpet mushroom dinner from 2022, a contemplative moment at the park mid-run in 2023.
When thinking of the end of the year, people often talk about the liminal space between Christmas and New Years. To me, the stretch of weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas feels more like the transitional period of in-between, where there is still enough time to make changes, and the promise of a blank slate feels just out of reach.
Coming off of a week spent hosting, cooking, and eating, I found myself in need of a re-orientation towards healthy habits. For me, this entails healthy food (simple meals), movement (running), and time recharging (sleep). While this experience in the moment felt unique to this year, a look through my photos revealed that it is a recurring, seasonal feeling.
On our last day with both sides of the family in town, we had lunch together at Union Square Cafe. My mom wanted to pay a visit to the greenmarket across the street before heading home, and I was seeking a produce-forward meal.
At the market prior to lunch, my mom bought a lovely wreath, celeriac, and bread. I bought cavolo nero and a loaf of my favorite cranberry walnut sourdough that is only available this time of year.
At Union Square Cafe, bread is a main event. They serve sesame focaccia with both salted butter and a Calabrian chili butter. Their focaccia might be my favorite bread I’ve had at a restaurant. The excessive sesame seeds and perfect level of toast, paired with the warmth of the Calabrian chili and butter are heaven to me.
To start, I had the bibb salad with gruyere, garlic croutons, and dijon vinaigrette. Once again, the bread was a highlight of the salad — the garlic croutons were my favorite part. I loved the thin, curling threads of gruyere delicately shaved atop the salad. The salad was very enjoyable though maybe forgettable, but nevertheless something that I will replicate at home.
Others at the table ordered the chicory caesar with parmigiana breadcrumbs and bottarga, which I think was the favorite. I often find caesar salads to be lacking in anchovy flavor, but this one I would classify as anchovy-forward. Again, the breadcrumbs were the highlight, and tasting them alongside the anchovies was reminiscent of bagna cauda.
For my main, I ordered the bucatini with a Sicilian tomato sauce, raisins, almonds, and chili crunch. I cannot resist a traditional dish with unexpected raisins. Any pop of sweet in an otherwise savory dish reminds me of my mom’s chicken salad growing up, complete with dried cranberries and apples. I thoroughly enjoyed it, though would opt for something different in the future. I am a big fan of chili, and loved the heat of the dish paired with the sweet raisins.
As for the rest of the table, the burger was a hit (cheddar, bacon, herb aioli, rosemary shoestring fries) as well as the celeriac soup (roasted pears, brown butter, crispy sage).
I love Union Square Cafe’s ability to feel both formal and informal. It manages to feel like you are sitting down in a restaurant you have been to a hundred times on first visit. Eating there feels how I want others to feel when eating lunch at my home — considered, but still relaxed and not too precious.
In the vein of healthy choices, I closed out my week at Ricari Studios in the WSA Building. To me, Ricari is the best feeling in the world. I am a firm believer in small incremental choices. Ricari, however, is the opposite — it’s a jumpstart to your system in the form of suctioning your entire body to promote lymphatic drainage. Their treatments provide additional support or (in my case) act as a reset. You emerge feeling light and focused. I did not have a chance to eat beforehand and afterwards stopped by Takahachi (my go-to neighborhood spot for casual sushi) for miso soup and a few pieces of sashimi. This perfect evening will become a ritual going forward. An opportunity to take a step back and contextualize the passage of time by way of consistency — a throughline in the making.
You might have noticed that this newsletter looks a little different than weeks past. In previous installments, I have shared both a Meal Out and Meal In. In an effort to spend more time better attending to each article, I will be breaking these out into series with a monthly cadence — one week each month will be a Meal Out, one a Meal In, another a Meal Prep, and finally an Off The Shelf (Meal Reference? Meal Inspo?) where I feature favorite cookbooks from my collection. I also plan to start sharing occasional segments such as a Meal Away or a Meal with a Friend in the New Year. Like I noted, my best planning for the new year happens now! Let me know if there is anything you would like to see. I look forward to sharing with you.