when you want, where you want.
Dan Kois Starts the Day With Diet Coke
Illustration: Sarah Kilcoyne
Slate writer Dan Kois is also a podcaster, a New York alum (he was a co-founding editor of Vulture), and, as of last year, a novelist. His second novel, Hampton Heights, about a group of newspaper-delivery boys on a supernatural adventure, is out next month. It also happens to be set in his hometown of Milwaukee, where he recently made an annual visit. Kois revisited some of the childhood memories that shaped the book while also managing to consume some hideously expensive pizza, “butter burgers,” and many, many Diet Cokes — both from Milwaukee’s McDonald’s and back home in his Virginia kitchen, where he had a Diet Coke fountain installed over a decade ago. “It still works great,” he says. “If I ever looked in the tubes inside of it, I’m sure I would discover a vibrant civilization of mold that has developed its own currency, but I never will, so I’m never gonna know about that.”
Saturday, July 20
My wife, Alia, and I are in my hometown, Milwaukee, visiting my family for a long weekend. This morning we walk from our Shorewood Airbnb to a locally owned coffee chain that’s long been a fixture in North Shore neighborhoods. It used to be called Alterra, but like a decade ago the company changed its name to Colectivo Coffee, a name that almost immediately became bitterly ironic when its employees tried to organize and the company disputed the union. At “Colectivo”! Ridiculous. I remember this place having pretty good food, but our breakfast is straight up terrible: baked oatmeal and avocado toast both delivered just below room temperature in carryout containers. We throw each away half-eaten and buy some grapes at the market down the street. I choose to blame management.
This morning is our only time this weekend without family plans, so Alia and I drive up the Lake Michigan coast about an hour to Sheboygan, drinking McDonald’s Diet Cokes on the way. Actually, from here on out, you should assume that unless otherwise specified we are always drinking Diet Coke. Our Diet Coke habits make hazy the line between devotion and addiction. Call us, perhaps, addictées of Diet Coke. I’ve previously committed my judgment to print that McDonald’s serves the best Diet Coke on earth — perfectly brixed, with a big, wide straw that delivers carbonation to the back of your tongue and, thus, straight to your brain.
Sheboygan is a charming town where faucet lucre has funded several exceptional art museums. (They sell T-shirts sporting the slogan “Sheboygan: Who Knew?”) I say “hi” to a few statues by the great Mary Nohl, whose sculpture-covered house was a regular stop for us on late-night high-school driving excursions. We grab a table at Field to Fork. I get the combo: salad, quiche (peppers, zucchini, and Grand Cru), and soup (lamb vegetable). Everything’s delicious, but the restaurant, disgustingly, is a Pepsi establishment, so I get an Arnold Palmer. We buy a tasty chocolate-chip cookie on the way out and split it.
That night we pick up my mom and head to Mequon, the suburb where Stacey, my sister-in-law — my brother’s ex-wife — lives. She’s put together a nice appetizer of cheese and crackers for us, her kids, and her boyfriend, Mark. My 18-year-old nephew Olin arrives home from his summer job, so I up my order at a nearby, hideously expensive pizza place from four pizzas to seven. (Thank god, Mark volunteers to split the cost with me.) By the time we get back with the pizzas, of course, Olin has already left for a party, though I will later be told that in the days to come he would eventually consume all the leftover pizza. The pizza is okay. It tastes sort of like someone purchased an authentic Associazione Verace Pizza Napoletana oven and used it to bake a DiGiorno.
Sunday, July 21
Given that I’ve wanted to write a Grub Street Diet for years, I’m determined to pack in as many great Milwaukee eating experiences as I can before I head back east. Yesterday’s breakfast seemed like a real failure, so this morning we go to Shorewood’s farmers’ market — the place is packed. Because we’re running a little late, we eat in the car: pesto-scramble empanadas, a ham-and-cheese croissant, and something called a “sunshine roll,” which is like a cinnamon roll filled with marmalade. It’s great, except that I drop all my marmalade on the floor of the car. Also, we stop at McDonald’s for Diet Cokes.
Today we’re visiting my dad and his wife, Carolyn, at their new house on Pewaukee Lake. Carolyn is going out on the lake with her son, so we take my dad into the town of Delafield for lunch. I wouldn’t mind a brat, but my dad’s been a vegetarian for 20 years now, and anyways it turns out Delafield has the kind of downtown with a lot of boutiques and nice restaurants and not very many dives. We end up sitting outside at a lovely place in an old church called, no lie, “Belfré.” You could drop this place and its menu in Duck, or Cape Charles, or Deep Creek Lake and it would fit in just fine. I go with what’s always a solid order at a place like this: the BLT. It’s quite good! I also have the restaurant’s cucumber-lime soda with gin. After lunch, we walk to the town’s ice-cream parlor, where I get a flavor called “$&@! Just Got Serious,” which is caramel with fudge and cashews.
Alia heads home tonight, but I’m staying a few more days. After I take her to the airport, I’m feeling like a late-afternoon beer, so I go back to Estabrook Park and visit the biergarten, one of the many, many recent developments that have made Milwaukee more fun now than it was when I grew up. It’s right on the river, full of couples and families; the playground nearby is a madhouse. I order a hefeweizen straight from the Munich Hofbräuhaus and drink it while reading a mystery novel and listening to an oompah duo play “Ring of Fire.” A perfect Milwaukee afternoon!
Tonight I’m meeting my brother Dennis and his wife, Kelly, at their favorite restaurant, Santino’s Little Italy. One of the owners hustles right over when he sees Dennis and Kelly and fusses over my nephew Olin and me, saying, “Where do you want to sit? Point to a table and I’ll put you there. If I need to throw someone out, no problem.” They eat here almost every Sunday night.
I get carbonara, which is delicious and lands in my already-pretty-full stomach like a depth charge. Despite having consumed several leftover pizzas in the past 24 hours, Olin orders another full pie. Dennis orders us a bottle of Nero d’Avola. Truly, to me, it tastes indistinguishable from any other bottle of good wine.
Although the daytime bartender at my local knows to grab me a Diet Coke tallboy as soon as I walk through the door, I’ve got nothing near the “Regular” status Dennis and Kelly seem to have achieved at Santino’s, which I really admire. The owner brings us free limoncello and hangs out telling us fun stories.
Late at night, in lieu of purchasing a pack of cigarettes and smoking one of them, I buy some chocolate-covered pretzels at a convenience store.
Monday, July 22
I’m working today, asking party officials and voters in my mom’s town, Cedarburg, how they feel about new presidential candidate Kamala Harris. As always when I’m reporting, I simply eat whatever is cheapest and most convenient. At a café called Fiddleheads, I grab a turkey-and-Gouda croissant (fine), and at McDonald’s I buy a Diet Coke (perfect).
For lunch, my mom picks a brightly colored restaurant called Brunch It Up, where the choices are, like, French toast, chicken and waffles, or eggs. I get eggs (a vegetarian omelet). My mom places a drink order I distinctly remember from my childhood, what she orders when she feels she’s had enough coffee for the day: a mug of “really, really hot water.” She always wishes it were a little more hot. After I chat with diners at several other tables — including one woman who had no idea Biden had dropped out (“I didn’t watch the news last night!”) — a manager asks me to please stop interviewing her customers. This happens a lot when you try to report in restaurants. After I take my mom home, I spend an hour walking Washington Avenue, asking everyone I see how they feel about Kamala.
I’m leaving in the morning and I have not yet gone to Milwaukee’s most important restaurant, Kopp’s Frozen Custard. It’s important because it’s iconic and delicious, but also because it’s where I worked at the age of 15. We drive to the Kopp’s, and I make my customary check: Is Scott there?
Let me explain. Fourteen years ago, then-VP Joe Biden got into it with a manager at Kopp’s — my old manager, in fact, a guy who yelled at me a lot. I was sure he didn’t remember me, but I remembered him, so I wrote a snarky post and thought, Well, I got him.
The next time I was in Milwaukee, I stopped by Kopp’s, as always, and ordered a cheeseburger, as always. When my number was called, there was Scott, holding out my bag. “I read that thing you wrote,” he said. “That’s not how I remember things.”
I learned a valuable lesson: never blog. Just kidding! The lesson was not to write something mean about someone unless you’re ready to see them in person and defend it! Nonetheless, whenever I go to Kopp’s, I sneak a look to see if Scott is there, and if he is, I make the person I am with place my order. I know it’s been 14 years, but who knows — he seems to have a very long memory.
Today he is not there, so I place my own order: cheeseburger with fried onions and mustard. Kopp’s specializes in the Milwaukee delicacy known as the butter burger, which simply means that they toast the bun and throw a blob of butter on it before adding the beef. The result is, of course, totally delicious, a perfect blend of meat fats and dairy fats. The patty is wide and thin, with lots of surface area for browning. I wash it down with a Sprecher root beer, Milwaukee’s house brand. On the way back to Cedarburg, my mom and I split a scoop of the flavor of the day, Bark in the Dark — dark-chocolate custard with sea-salt almond bark. It’s bougier than Kopp’s flavors were when I was a kid, but damn, it’s good.
Tuesday, July 23
Travel day. At 6 a.m. I eat a Yoplait raspberry yogurt with a little Raisin Bran sprinkled into it at the MKE Hampton Inn. While waiting for my flight to board, I have a granola bar. Then I eat one of those packets of graham crackers that Southwest serves you on morning flights. Yes, I am drinking Diet Coke as well.
Today is a very pedestrian food day, but honestly, I need one of those after a gluttonous weekend in which not only was I a tourist, but I was eating for posterity. When I get to the house, I’m grateful that Alia saved me some leftovers from the dinner she made, penne with broccoli and salmon. I add some Everything But the Bagel spice, my go-to for enlivening leftover pasta. I eat it with Diet Coke from the Diet Coke fountain we installed in our house 11 years ago, the greatest purchase we ever made.
At 5, I take a survey of what we have in the fridge then ride my ebike to the grocery store to pick up some garlic and soy sauce to make gungjung tteokbokki, chewy Korean rice cakes in a brown sauce. (Most members of our family — everyone but my youngest daughter, who’s away working as a camp counselor — are wimps about spicy food, so we can’t really handle the redder, hotter, gochujang-powered tteokbokki.)
I have to get to my soccer game, so Lyra and I eat while Alia’s still on her way home from work. I’m not good at soccer but I am very enthusiastic, and my Tuesday-night pickup game is a real highlight of my week. Afterwards, a bunch of us go to the best bar in Arlington, my home away from home, my office away from my office, the Westover Beer Garden. The soccer crew gathers at a couple of tables; I drink a saison and find myself, just like always, eating all the fried food that appears in front of me. Tots? Yes. Wings? Okay. A freaking jalapeño popper? Why not? I had sort of hoped to eat somewhat normally today, but so much for that.
Wednesday, July 24
I’m headed into the Slate offices today, so I eat a quick breakfast of Frosted Mini-Wheats and blueberries. I don’t love that at age 49 I still eat a cereal with a mascot (the Minionesque “Mini”), but oh, well.
Wednesday is the day that Slate buys everyone lunch in an attempt to lure people into the post-COVID office. It works pretty well! Today we order from the classic D.C. sandwich shop Bub & Pops. This place used to do “half” and “full” subs, but now everything’s just delivered on a ten-inch roll that is so much more than I should eat for a weekday lunch. Do I finish my “Rich Boy”? Do I eat that entire, monstrous sandwich full of fried shrimp, arugula, tomatoes, hot-pepper relish, and mayo? Who told you that? Slate’s office also stocks Diet Coke in the fridge, so I drink like five cans.
After work, I ride to Capitol Hill for Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s book reading. My friend Stacy meets me there. Taffy can’t join us for dinner after, but she does tell me a cautionary tale about Grub Street Diets. “When I did mine I was briefly trying out eating vegan,” she says. “Now, whenever anyone takes me out to dinner, they’re always like, ‘Well, I picked out a vegan place.’”
Stacy, who lives in the neighborhood, takes me to a pretty good Mexican restaurant, where we get margaritas and tacos. Because she is a great dining companion, Stacy lets me taste all her tacos. Birria > Pastor > Camarones > Gallo >>>>> Coliflor.
It takes me an hour to ride home, and when I get there, I’m still horribly full. I might never be hungry again.
Thursday, July 25
Hungry again. I fry an egg for breakfast. I like to sprinkle a little S&B crunchy garlic on top of my egg just before I flip it over. You end up with a garlicky red yolk oozing all over your English muffin. Goes great with a breakfast Diet Coke.
I’m working at home today, so I eat the world’s greatest lunch: cheese and crackers. Triscuits (the correct cracker), Manchego, and Genoa salami. Accept no substitutes.
Our friend Ashley suffered a death in the family a few days ago, and we invite her over for an after-work drink-and-hug. We’ve got hummus and vegetables, and when I ask Ashley if she’d like a trashy summer drink, she says, “The trashier the better.” I make tinto de verano, the Spanish cooler whose only ingredients are red wine, Sprite, and a slice of lemon.
I’ve made a late reservation at Albi. Alia and I ate there last year and it was one of the best meals I’ve ever had, a combination of fire, vegetables, and meat that made us both feel immensely welcomed and cared for. Tonight our server talks us through the funny and ambitious menu, and the kitchen sends out some pickled fennel and a tiny bowl of zingy olives.
I’m drinking an Our Lady of Lebanon — gin, sumac, lavender, fruit juices, and egg white. We eat a pair of smoked oysters with arak butter and then a dark-and-crispy slab of fried okra with labneh and caviar. Our first order is a little Lebanese lamb pie with garlic toum, a perfect two-bite snack. Then a rice-stuffed squash topped with local crab meat. (Alia, a native Marylander, declares that if she sees blue crab on a menu, she wants more of it. She wants the whole dang squash to be stuffed with crab.)
It’s hot in the dining room, and the white wines look pretty appealing. I pick a Cypriot Xynisteri that our server tells me tastes sort of like a Sauvignon Blanc. (To me, it tastes like … uh … good wine.) I’m finding that a week of eating, and thinking about eating, and writing about eating, has somewhat overloaded my system. My taste buds still work, but my critical faculties are shutting down one by one. Delicious dish after delicious dish arrives at the table, and I have run out of adjectives. A rockfish kebab: adjective. A smoked chicken, spatchcocked and splayed on a platter with tomatoes and yogurt: adjective. A dish of labneh soft serve: adjective.
I think of Taffy’s Grub Street Diet aftermath, the erroneous belief that she’s a vegan sticking to her now and forever. What misconception might stick to me as a result of this Grub Street Diet? I guess just that I love eating a lot of food, which I would hardly call a misconception—a perception, if anything. Let my overeating this week be my tribute to Grub Street’s founder, the legendary Josh Ozersky, whose Meatopia parties were signal events of my time at the magazine. I can never match his genius food writing or his gluttony, but I can have a great time trying.
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