Damn It, Gwyneth Paltrow Was Right

It took a couple days to get this together, mostly because I felt like I had to write something meaningful. But I’ve realized progress over meaning is probably more important right now.

Literally, we’re at the point, like a pro athlete responding to an interviewer after a big game, where the best option is to take it one day at a time.

That is also of course the mantra of addicts. And for many of us, either dining at or running a restaurant has been mainlined into our bloodstream for so long, that is precisely what we are. 

Withdrawal, of course, can be both ruin and redemption. 

I consider myself a pretty rational person (said every crazy man), and yet, I have been defiant, prone to jokes and cynicism as COVID-19 has descended across our land (I refuse to call it the “novel Coronavirus”, because that sounds like a shitty book). 

So, in a suspension of disbelief, a few days ago, as the world was falling apart (the day all the pro sports leagues shuttered and the world seemed to close for business) I went shopping, in downtown Chicago, on State Street and the Magnificent Mile.

I needed a shirt for a safari-themed school fundraiser that would, for obvious reasons to the rest of the world, not be held. This was perfect, because it dovetailed with the fact that I am at a time in my life where, fundraiser or not, so enraptured by hip hop culture and Daren Criss’s recent Netflix turn as Gianni Versace’s killer, I feel a desperate need for a pullover emblazoned with a lion, or baroque patterns, that costs as much as my mortgage.

So what better way to spend an afternoon wandering at the uppermost floors (the men’s department is always at the top level, tucked away near the luggage section, because, maybe the only place where men are second class citizens in our society, due to their lack of investment in fashion, is the department store) of Saks, Nordstrom, and Macy’s fingering silky garments and pretending everything was fine.

But it was not. Garret’s popcorn was not thronged. Michigan Avenue, usually an uncomfortable jostle of deep dish stuffed-Iowans craning their necks at skyscraper cornices like the future condo building that was the Chicago Tribune or the sign for the Tip-Top-Tap at the Allerton hotel (which no longer exists, sadly), was populated as though it were 10 PM on Christmas day.

I really did not get any of this until two days ago. As a freelance writer who has worked from home for so long, nothing had really changed. The pandemic-related WFH jokes on Twitter didn’t feel like an apocalypse. They just felt like bullying. 

But then the restaurants, the objects of my addiction, my writing obsession for almost 15 years, closed. Despite the fact that anyone who has ever been on the end of one of my negative reviews thinks this means I would cheer like the Grinch in Whoville on Christmas morning, that is not true.  I love and appreciate our restaurant culture as much as anyone.

Sunday night, as restaurants closed, I stood in my Chicago backyard, stars twinkling, basking in my respiration. I live very close to the Dan Ryan expressway, and for the first time in seven years, I did not hear the ever-present whoosh of traffic. Chicago, city of big shoulders, had slumped. The hogbutcher to the world had nary a squeal. The apocalyptic toilet paper aisle emptiness did not get me, but this silence did.

In the way I am sure restauranteurs consulted their lease agreements, I started calculating how many months I could pay my mortgage should I lose my job. Though I had not looked at my 401K, I am positive I have lost at least five years of any potential retirement. I calculated that at current rates, the Dow-Jones would be zero by the end of April. I started imagining employees at the waste treatment plants dying off, my smugness towards not procuring ten 30 packs of Dasani when I could, melting away.  And worst of all, I would have to home school my children.

It got grim. I woke up in the middle of the night, from a nightmare of Gwyneth Paltrow in her black mask, Batman’s villain Bane, recast as Pepper Potts. I cursed her, for what I assumed was vanity and manipulation. It was of course. Gwyneth is even better than Kanye at mastering our current culture to her advantage. But, even if her motivations were selfish, her message was correct.

It is time to protect ourselves. And so, that is the point of this newsletter, Love in the Time of Coronavirus.  I plan on using this platform, rather than my website (although some stuff might get reposted at michaelnagrant.com), to write about our new normal and to help as best as I can with the talent I have. For the foreseeable future I will donate any profit (should you choose to pay for this) from this writing to Chicago Hospitality United as well as any other appropriate restaurant charities that make sense to support hospitality employees impacted by the pandemic.

I will also publish any news that helps anyone who loves food, makes food, or supports the food community, so please shared anything you think I need to post via mike@michaelnagrant.com. 

In the coming weeks, I plan on sharing recipes, covering the best take out and pick up options available, interviewing cooks and food people on how they’re getting along, and sorting things out, as well as reflecting on where I’m at. This may not even always be about food, as we will find ourselves nourishing ourselves in so many other ways without restaurants at every corner.

In the meantime, stay safe.

--Mike Nagrant