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3 THE NYC FOOD MARATHON:

26.2 DISHES IN 26 LOCATIONS IN 24 HOURS

The bodys not a temple. Its an amusement park.

In my favorite food memoir, Heat, I highlighted close to 100 passages. Most were related to topics for further exploration, questions I needed answers to. Six months later, only two passages remained mysteries. Both related to professional chefs who had gone on food tours, eating at 1530 restaurants in single days. One had done it for pleasure while in Italy, the other for research prior to opening his own joint in NYC. I couldnt figure out the logistics. How is it possible to hit that many places? How could anyone eat that much food? Was it remotely plausible, or a literary exaggeration? I asked JZ to help me test-drive it. I proposed an NYC Food Marathon: 26.2 dishes, all at different places, in 24 hours. It was a nod to the 26.2 miles in a normal marathon, and we would walk the whole thing. But which 26.2 dishes? To narrow it down, JZ asked more than 40 NYC chefs and foodie friends: If it were your last day to live, what would you eat in NYC? That created the starter list, which JZ honed down to items unique to (or iconic in) NYC. Needless to say, all of them had to be amazing. The locations also had to be close enough together that we could hit them by foot in a single day. For this reason, we focused on Manhattan. On December 20, 2011, less than 24 hours after Id tackled the 14,000+ calorie Vermonster, we did it. Like all first-time

marathons, it was brutal. Without a doubt, it was also totally worthwhile. We ended up eating 20+ New York Times stars from 9 a.m. to 3:23 a.m. In a footrace, thatd be slower than the bag lady pushing the broken grocery cart, but in a food marathon, 18 hours is an MVP hustle. The morning we started, JZs partner and chef-owner at Riverpark, Sisha Ortuzar, texted: I want reports every hour. He expected us to lose our lunch before lunch. We didnt. A meticulous plan, a minute-by-minute blueprint, was our savior. Its included in the next spread, with adjustments and notes in parentheses. Seem like a lot of food? It wasnt. It was a freaking Godzilla-killing buttload of food. To replicate our NYC Food Marathon (or a food marathon in your own city), which I totally encourage you to try, a few guidelines are mission critical. Its all worth saving up for. Think of the stories for the grandkids! Now the golden rules: Do this with a friend. Its 100 times more fun. Split everything (food quantities and cost). Our marathon cost about $550 total, but your mileage may vary.

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If you dont want to finish something, dont force yourself. This is supposed to be fun. Challenging? Of course. Nauseainducing for days? No. JZ and I left quite a few bits unfinished, even though we tried to polish off anything that wasnt a complete gluten bomb. Pierogies were tough. Have backup plans in case of rain, which could be as simple as umbrellas, a tighter cluster of restaurants, or the budget for cab fare between 26 places. In all seriousness: Do not expect to get anything productive done in the subsequent 24 hours. It aint gonna happen. Remember Lance Armstrong (freakin Lance Armstrong) walking sideways downstairs after his first marathon? Thats how your brain will feel.

Biochemical insurance: PAGG, Cissus, and friends.

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NYC FOOD MARATHON

9:00 AM 9:17 AM 9:45 AM 10:20 AM 10:45 AM

9:05 9:27 9:53 10:25 10:53

9:15 9:42 9:59 10:30 11:04

1. ABRAO
86 East 7th Street

2. CAF MOGADOR
101 Saint Marks Place

Haloumi and shakshuka Almond croissant Coconut cream and carrot cake doughnuts
Belly lox on an everything bagel with capers, tomatoes, and onions The bagel with lox truly saved us. We couldnt have done another sweet dish, and the salty wonder of the cream cheese with salmon offered the taste-bud contrast we needed to continue.

3. TARALLUCCI E VINO
163 1st Avenue

4. DOUGHNUT PLANT
379 Grand Street

5. RUSS & DAUGHTERS

11:14 AM

11:24

11:34

6. WICHCRAFT
60 East 8th Street

Beer-braised beef brisket with pickled vegetables and cheddar on ciabatta

We took the top slice of bread off of our sandwiches to treat them like tartines, open-faced French sandwiches. I wanted to minimize gluten-loading too early in the game.

11:44 AM 12:09 PM 12:44 PM

11:49 12:14 12:49

11:54 12:29 1:04

7. LIQUITERIA
170 2nd Avenue

All Greens smoothie

This provided both ginger for digestion/force-feeding and a small amount of fructose to help prevent enormous blood sugar swings. I drank half and saved the rest for later.

8. COCORON
61 Delancey Street

Pork kimchi soba and green tea Pork buns

9. MOMOFUKU
171 1st Avenue

This is where I said to JZ, I think I burned my mouth at the last soba place, to which he rightly responded, Thats like getting a hangnail at mile four. He was right. Taking stock of the rest of my body, I noticed another problem: Uh-oh. I dropped two of my pills. I had brought nine capsules of anti-obesity cissus quadrangularis (CQ) and 6 g L-lysine (an immune system hedge), all to be taken in three divided doses during our race.

1:11 PM 1:46 PM

1:16 1:56

1:26 2:06

10. TAIM
222 Waverly Place

Sabich sandwich Kabocha squash toast, chicken liver toast, cheeseburger with fries, and roasted Jerusalem artichokes
One of the biggest challenges of doing a food marathon with JZ was that most of the chefs and managers know him, so free dishes came out. This happened at ABC, one of my favorite spots (chef Dan Kluger trained JZ in his first job). I felt a second wind and sprinted through two bread dishesAh, feeling light! I said, smirking at JZand then I dove headfirst into the shallow end. This was my first sensation of bonking. In real marathons, this hitting the wall is associated with running out of stored glycogen, a carbohydrate. In food marathons, bonking is the opposite, something like insulin intoxication: stuffing too many carbohydrates in your maw.

11. ABC KITCHEN

2:26 PM 3:04 PM

2:36 3:09

3:01 3:14

12. CRAFTBAR
900 Broadway

Veal ricotta meatballs and two glasses of wine Pretzel croissant

A Dolcetto dAlba 2009 and an Elena Walch Lagrein 2009.

13. CITY BAKERY

Right on the tail of the Vermonster, there was no way I could even taste chocolate and peanut butter ice cream without puking, so we scratched our original plan to get ice cream at Sundaes & Cones. Then we took a 20-minute nap at JZs apartment and did GLUT-4 exercises. Sadly, 10 minutes after entering comatose bliss, a dog walker came banging through the door and started yelling, Abbey, sit! Abbey, sit! Abbey, sit! at JZs pit bull/dachshund mix. The dog defiantly freaked out instead, and nap time was concluded. With a sigh, I finished our brief time-out with 40 airsquats and 40 wall presses, both designed to increase recruitment of GLUT-4 receptors in muscle tissue.

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NYC FOOD MARATHON ( CONTINUED)

3:29 PM 3:56 PM 4:26 PM

3:39 4:06 4:36

3:49 4:21 4:51

14. PORCHETTA
110 East 7th Street

15. GRAFFITI
224 East 10th Street

Hummus-and-zucchini pizza Ribollita, autumn vegetable salad with whipped ricotta, cotechino with lentils, braised rabbit with olives, and a glass of Colli Orientali del Friuli Marco, a good friend of JZs whom I love to death, decided to pull a Tanya Harding here. Hes a mischievous one. Oh, so you want a tasting? Out came four dishes for each of us. And you cant leave without trying.... Just a little bit. Hold on.... It was incredible, and he knew wed eat it all. This little side-gorge was like stopping in the middle of a real marathon to do 100-meter sprints for 10 minutes before continuing. Fried pierogis with sauted onions Cupcake and a chocolate-chip cookie At this point, JZ did not feel well and couldnt finish his cookie. Im proud to report that I ate all of the cookies. Avocado-and-hamachi salad and Chilean bitters (for digestion) I finished off the second half of the Liquiteria ginger greens at this point. Chemex coffee, venison loin with brussels sprouts, and a glass of Saint-Emilion Grand Cru Braised short ribs, butternut squash puree, and a glass of Domaine Vincent Paris Cornas Granit 60 All delicious, in part because of the decadent sauces. I nicknamed the butternut squash butter, not squash. Your choice cocktail, sencha, and chawan-mushi (steamed egg custard) Brushstroke treated me to the best chawan-mushi Ive ever had. The booklined walls of the far-right bar are incredible, and the food and drink are even better. The sencha, a strong green tea, was consumed first for inhibition of fat-storage and better recruitment of GLUT-4 receptors in muscle cells. Then, we went for the house-made ginger ale with shochu. Bone marrow with oxtail ragout, half-dozen oysters, and a Brooklyn lager Anything tastes amazing if youre drunk and hungry. Its quite another thing if youve had 24 meals sober and something tastes incredible. That was this dish. Truth be told, JZ and I expected it to be the final nail in the coffin. Pork blade steak with arugula salad and a glass of 2009 Solane Santi Valpolicella Slice of pepperoni pizza (alternate location 25B: Joes Pizza) Cocktails, including two Ginger Smashes With one of the coolest logos and bartenders Id ever met (Bratislav from Serbia), this was the perfect place to cross the finish line. Leftover olive cookie from Abrao

16. HEARTH
403 East 12th Street

5:16 PM 5:43 PM 6:18 PM 7:08 PM 7:58 PM

5:21 5:48 6:28 7:23 8:08

5:36 6:09 6:48 7:53 9:08

17. STAGE
128 Second Avenue

18. PODUNK
231 East 5th Street

19. RIVERPARK
450 East 29th Street

20. ELEVEN MADISON PARK

21. CRAFT
43 East 19th Street

9:25 PM

9:35

9:55

22. BRUSHSTROKE
30 Hudson Street

10:15 PM

10:30

10:50

23. BLUE RIBBON

11:00 PM 12:30 AM 1:00 AM

11:10 12:35 1:15

12:00 AM 12:45 3:20

24. TERROIR
413 East 12th Street

25. SOUTH BROOKLYN PIZZA

26. EMPLOYEES ONLY and 26.2.

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Crossing the finish line and polishing off the last 0.2 miles.

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