Food, Glorious Food

There’s something about the nightshift that leads, inevitably, to food. Talk of food. Pursuit of food. Weight gain from food. Perhaps it’s that Russell, Corey and I love good food. Possibly it’s because the NYPD, MTA, Port Authority, and taxi leasing companies turned down our requests for interviews but the Cheyenne Diner and other eateries kept their doors open to us. Or maybe it’s that working nights, as we’ve mentioned in other posts, makes you crave carbs instead of vegetables, which leads to what many refer to as the “overnight fifteen” extra pounds.

No, these all played a part but the real reason there’s lots of talk of food in the book is that everyone we interviewed talked about food. Since we often interviewed them on breaks or just after their shifts, they were also often eating while we talked. During our first conversation with Fatima at the Cheyenne, around 3 a.m., she drank a Diet Pepsi and ate a slice of cherry pie.

Steve, the night manager at the Skylight Diner, eats just once a day – in the morning after his shift. He might eat eggs. Or he might have a burger or pizza. “That’s why I’m big,” he said.

At midnight, at the start of his shift working at a Penn Station newsstand, Ahmed ate an apple. “I like to have something healthy to eat,” he said. Echoing this statement, Alam, who managed a Penn Station café, usually ate either a salad or a chicken sandwich at the start of his shift at midnight.

Rick, an exterminator, said that he too eats breakfast at the end of his shift, at 7 a.m. Then he goes to sleep until 3 p.m. “And then I’ll really be in the mood for Eggs Benedict,” he said.

Peter at JFK gained weight. “I gained 10, 12 pounds, maybe more. Now that I’m on a dayshift,” he said, meaning the 4 p.m.-midnight shift, “I’m 8 pounds lighter. I would eat before I came to work. Then I wouldn’t eat at all at work, then I’d eat right before I’d go to sleep. Go right to sleep, wake up maybe a half hour before I had to be at work and then rush to work.”

At his Brooklyn bodega, Sunny, the owner, grilled us amazing shrimp one Monday night around 4 a.m. Then at precisely 5 a.m., his night customers gone and his morning customers not yet awake, he made himself a turkey sandwich. For the first time all night, he sat down. And he ate.

PICU nurses Jessica and Tamar described their eating habits over a diner breakfast at the end of their twelve-hour shift. Since they don’t have much of an appetite before their shift, they admitted to grazing throughout the night. “On whatever’s available,” Tamar said. Jessica elaborated that she eats a number of small meals throughout the day, and has distinct names for each of them. “I have a pre-lunch lunch, lunch, and a post-lunch lunch, and then,” she added, pointing to her scrambled eggs, cinnamon toast, and orange juice, “breakfast.”

If all this leaves you craving carbs after midnight, try the four garlic rolls for $1 at John & Tony’s Pizzeria on First Ave in the East 50s. Not uptown? Try the samosas at taxi-driver hangout Lahore Deli on Crosby between Prince and Houston (and subscribe to this blog to know when we’re having our launch party at Housing Works Used Book Café next door, replete with Lahore samosas). Or, if you’re of healthier ilk, head to one of the two 24-hour New York Sports Clubs at 80th & Broadway or 23rd & Park Avenue.