You Are What You Eat, Jon Fasman

Name: Jon Fasman

Occupation: Writer

Borough: Brooklyn

Relationship status: I’m all hitched up

What did you eat today?
Breakfast: Special K, no milk (I know, I know: I just don’t like the taste of milk, or the idea of putting juice on my cereal).
Lunch: Focaccia with eggplant, crushed tomatoes, and fresh mozzarella from the Italian grocery on DeGraw and Court, washed down with lime seltzer, followed by 3 Ricolas and a Granny Smith apple. We were home for dinner, so I made a yellow-bean shrimp curry with bean sprouts and brown rice. Dessert was some salty licorice a friend brought me from Holland, and, once again, a Granny Smith apple.

What do you never eat?

Eggs and bananas make me retch. So does the idea of drinking a glass of milk. I don’t think I’d cry if I never ate liver or blue cheese again. On a more restrained level of loathing, I guess I’m also not a big fan of raisins. Or fruit-meat combinations. Keep your cranberries and orange peel away from my animal protein. [What is it with you fruit and meat haters? You’ll eat salty licorice before you'd eat duck a l’orange? --Ed.]

Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:

White miso, Gala or Granny Smith apples, lime seltzer, and, if you look far back enough, new life forms.

What is your favorite kitchen item?

It was my immersion blender, until I absent-mindedly chucked it into a sink full of water, plug and all. Assuming its position atop the heap is a wonderful Santoku knife my brother and sister got me, which I love so much I’m a little reluctant to use it.

Where do you eat out most frequently?

Zaytoons, Grand Sichuan, Kum Gang San, the taqueria (I think that’s what it’s called: on 5th, right near the Commonwealth Bar), and now Nicky’s on Smith Street.

World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?

Oh, boy. Just one last meal? I suppose start with three pieces of nigiri – sea urchin, eel, ikura – and three oysters on the half-shell. I’m not picky about the type, but they have to come from the northeast Atlantic. Then the bacon appetizer from Peter Luger’s (that’s the real reason to go: a steak is always just a steak, but treat a pig right and you get poetry). The main dish would of course be my mother’s roast chicken with lemons, garlic and thyme, with her roast potatoes and the sautéed hollow vegetables from Nha Trang on the side. Just for nibbling on the side I’d want a pork chop banh mi from Nicky’s, and a few cha xiu bao from the Roastie Shop With Neither Name Nor Equal in Kowloon. For dessert I’d like a Del’s Frozen Lemonade, along with a nice fat warm brownie sprinkled heavily with cinnamon, cocoa powder, one of the finer incarnations of lorazepam, and pot. Do not go gentle into that zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…