Name: Janet Ozzard
Occupation: Strategist editor, New York magazine
Borough: Manhattan
Relationship status: dating
What did you eat today?
For breakfast I had oatmeal and a banana; I always go for brown-spotted bananas over the green-stemmed ones. I don’t understand people who eat underripe bananas.
Midmorning I had a cup of this beautifully-scented Yogi tea called cocoa spice. Every time I make it, people say, “What is that? It smells wonderful.” For lunch I had an arugula salad with chickpeas, artichoke hearts, roasted onions and cucumber, with insufficient balsamic vinaigrette. We had to taste some chocolate mid-afternoon, but it wasn’t very good so I won’t tell you where it was from; I don’t want to hurt their feelings. For dinner my friend Gordon and I went to Beppe, with the intention of having a drink and nothing more. We ended up with tuna pizza, sweetbreads, their excellent sautéed calamari, an order of headcheese ravioli with peas and mint, and an haute s’more for dessert, all washed down with Tuscan rose followed by some digestivo that Tom, the manager, poured for us.
What do you never eat?
Raw chicken and Dr. Pepper. I’d have to be pretty dehydrated to contemplate Dr. Pepper.
Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:
Seltzer. FreshDirect was invented so that I could have an endless supply of seltzer delivered to my door. And citrus. And Fee Bros. bitters. Together, they make a delightful summer drink.
What is your favorite kitchen item?
My microplane. Isn’t that weird? I love to grate things (see above: citrus) [Did you know that they make Microplane foot files now? Why don’t they think that’s weird? –-Ed.]
Where do you eat out most frequently?
Lately, I’ve been a slave to Momofuku Ssam but I love Maremma for Cesare’s amazing homemade sausage and lentils and the Tuscan fries. Ai yi yi.
World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
To start: very very thin crust pizza robiola, like they make at Fred’s, but I’m talking really cracker-like crust. That’s served with prosecco. Then for the main course, a perfectly-roasted chicken, like you get at old-school French bistros, with French fries. We’re drinking Pommerol with that. Then there’s a cheese course, with salad. Then warm brownie a la mode, followed by a digestivo. And sex before, of course.
Comments: (i) I read somewhere that green bananas have a kind of fiber that helps you "go" but once the banana ripens, this fiber is oxidized or something and the ripened banana no longer has that "going" effect. (ii) The one problem I have with teas that smell really good when they are being made, is that the taste is always a faint and distant cousin to the overwhelmingly amazing smell, and thus makes the whole experience anticlimactic. (iii) I sure hope that one day when people ask me, "how was your day," my answer would be, "We had to taste some chocolate mid-afternoon." Sounds like you have a dream job... either that or you and your brother Hansel should probably get outta there, pronto.