Good afternoon, everyone.
Last night, we celebrated the Season Two launch of Expense Account at Bistrot Ha with our favorite people in New York City, lots of oysters, and the man himself: J Lee. Thank you to everyone who came out to party in-between The New York Times 175th anniversary gala, the Gap party, the Hermès dinner, and/or William D. Cohan’s book launch. Those who made the journey to Eldridge Street were rewarded with the legendary Ha’s Oeuf mayonnaise.
Today’s newsletter includes: Our Smashion Week grand finale, The New York Times is expanding its local newsletter efforts, a potential venue for Feed Me’s holiday party, a Guggenheim party report, Fara Homidi’s fundraise, and a sold-out Jonathan Franzen event (you can still join the livestream!). There is a lot of burger and beef news today. There will be less next week.
The Center Will Not Hold: My first round hot dog experience. By Shaad D’Souza.
Can you believe it? It’s the last day of Smashion Week — a weeklong celebration of burgers, smash and otherwise. We will be back in another 365 days, but for today, we have a brilliant closer: Shaad, founder of Shaad Magazine, one of the most innovative media projects of our time. Today, Shaad writes about something round, on a bun, but debatably a burger.
I’ve found the perfect burger. It comes in an untoasted sesame bun, with a slice of cheese, one tomato and a mound of totally flavourless shredded onion. The sandwich itself has basically no meat in the middle—just the tomato, cheese, and onion—because the burger patty isn’t a burger patty, but a hot dog, shaped into an ungodly ring, and deep fried. So it’s not really a burger: It’s a Bendy and Cheese, FKA Bender-In-A-Bun, the flagship menu item of Wimpy, the UK’s once-titanic, now-forgotten high street burger chain.
I don’t really eat burgers, but I do say yes to every commission I get, and while I could have pontificated on the McPlant or the vegan Whopper, that just wouldn’t have felt right, because both those burgers are kind of disgusting, reviled by both the vegans they are ostensibly meant to cater to and the workers charged with putting them together. (That second point is, admittedly, just a hunch, based on my most recent McPlant delivery experience, wherein I opened my bag of food to find that all the ingredients of my burger had just been thrown in loose, no box.)
“My beef virginity is the reason why, earlier this afternoon, I made an hour-long trip to Bermondsey Wimpy, from my home in east London, to try the Bendy and Cheese for the first time.”
I also can’t claim any authority as to what makes a burger “good” because I’ve never really eaten burgers: We didn’t eat beef at home when I was growing up because my mum is (nominally, I hope she doesn’t mind me saying that) Hindu. I was then vegan for most of my teen years, and found it such a trial reintroducing eggs and chicken into my diet—all the texture felt extremely novel and overwhelming, to the point that I threw up a plate of eggs at my new boyfriend’s house—that I decided beef would just be an additional chore. (If I had to psychoanalyse myself, I might also land on the idea that not eating beef was so weird-coded in beef-obsessed Australia, where I grew up, that I had to wear my no-beef status as a badge of pride that I haven’t been able to give up since.) The closest I’ve gotten to beef, aside from spongy vegan substitutes, would be a plate of venison four ways I had at Scotland’s excellent Inver restaurant, on the shores of Loch Fyne, and even then I could only really finish three of the ways.
My beef virginity is the reason why, earlier this afternoon, I made an hour-long trip to Bermondsey Wimpy, from my home in east London, to try the Bendy and Cheese for the first time. I did this for the sake of Feed Me: I’m almost certain that the Bender-In-A-Bun—I’m allowed to say that, as a bender myself—is the only burger in the world I could possibly claim to be an authority on; it is so weird and so conceptually gross that I can’t even imagine the cool girls (gender neutral term) of the London food world, so enamoured as they are with their transgressive interests in slightly outré fast foods, bothering to make a shortform video about making the pilgrimage to try the Bender of their youth.
Where Wimpy was once one of the UK’s most beloved, or at least reliable, chains—a Guardian report from 2002 depicts a pensioner in her ‘60s lighting up a fag inside the Elephant and Castle Wimpy, explaining how she likes the way they do egg on toast and a coffee—it has since faded almost entirely from public view, despite the fact that it still serves a variety of decidedly British staples, including a full English and, for breakfast, toasted teacakes. As of writing, there are five Wimpys in greater London, and only two in the Lime bike catchment area. Still, I’ve never just happened upon a Wimpy. One of the inner-London locations is at Watney Market, and the other is in a place I’d only be able to describe as “middle Bermondsey”: a small strip of shops situated exactly halfway between posh north Bermondsey—home to Bridget Jones’ apartment, the Fashion Museum, and 40 Maltby St, probably the best restaurant in London—and industrial south Bermondsey, home to Avalon Cafe, Ormside Projects, and Venue MOT, a walkable network of three of London’s best experimental clubs, referred to as the Bermondsey Triangle. I tend to spend a lot of time in the Triangle and a little bit of time in posh Bermondsey, and have never even laid eyes on this stretch b’twixt the two.
Which makes sense: Culturally, who needs Wimpy? There was nobody in the restaurant when I arrived, and the wordless smirk from my server when I asked if it had been busy today told me that it emphatically had not. Despite the fact that it is resolutely a fast-food restaurant, there’s also something avowedly genteel about the place: Your server guides you to the dining area, where you have your choice of sterile vinyl booth; he provides you cutlery, and you’re not pressed to pay until long after you’ve finished your food. There are glorious sundaes and knickerbockers available on a separate dessert menu, giving the impression of the kind of place your grandparents might take you every birthday. (If I had to hazard a guess, I would assume most kids just want a fucked-up Blank Street matcha concoction for their birthdays these days.) But Wimpys have neither the locals-y feel of the cafs near my house, nor do they have the fast, cheap familiarity of a McDonald’s or a Burger King. It is hardly a shrine to expedience, in the way that Greggs is.
So really, the only reason you go to Wimpy is for the Bender-In-A-Bun. If you have no idea what constitutes a good or bad burger, as I don’t, it is absolutely divine: hard-fried pork sausage that’s alternately bouncy (internally) and leathery (where the oil touched the sausage); onion that somehow has the texture of daikon radish; a tomato so powdery it felt like bun. I know it sounds like I’m being facetious, but even though the Bender’s centre will not hold, it still provided my perfect bite: a burger to finally, finally, call my own.
A burger in a briefcase. By J Lee.
Expense Account is a series on Feed Me by semi-anonymous restaurant critic J Lee. He hosts a podcast with the same name. This week, he wrote a love letter to White Castle.
The other day someone accused me/Expense Account of not covering “the food of struggle.” Delicious food, made of scraps born from necessity. I was offended, I was aghast, I vehemently denied the accusation, and then I went on to write about Michaels, Keens, The Grill, and Marcel in succession. But now here I am, here to write about the true food of struggle, the food of being down so fucking bad, the food of fuck it we all have to die someday my day might as well be today. The food of “protect me from what I want,” my desire will be my demise. The food of dear diary, my teen angst has a body count. The food of Chateau Blanc. The food of the one and only, the inimitable, White Castle.
I’m here to say that a White Castle Slider may very well be my favorite burger, or at least it might be the burger that I’ve most enjoyed in my life, the burger that has seen me through tough times and been there for me when I’ve needed it most, my death-row burger, and the love-of-my-life burger. I know this is a crazy thing to say. I know I’ll lose some of you. But I am fine to go on record with my love for White Castle. I will scream it from the rooftops. White Castle fucking rocks, and I don’t care what anyone thinks. No man is born with a slider in his hand or his mouth, but I might as well have been. I am from Chicago, the city that made White Castle what it is, and for as long as I’ve known my mother, for as long as I’ve known the sky was blue, as long as I’ve had ten fingers, ten toes, and a devilish grin, I’ve loved White Castle. I don’t remember the first time I ate a White Castle slider, but I can tell you that I was young, I may have been an infant. A White Castle Slider is a perfect burger for babies. It’s baby-sized, it comes in a cute little (biodegradable) box, and because it’s steamed and pillow soft, the whole thing just melts in your mouth, you don’t even need teeth, or even a working digestive tract. A White Castle slider enters your body, and it becomes part of you, forever. For better or worse. Till death do us part. Amen.
A White Castle slider is an elegant little burger. A steamed beef patty, 2.5 inches square, steamed white buns, tiny grilled onions, and a pickle. In Chicago, sliders are served sans ketchup, but here in New York they come with a little dab. You have your choice of cheese: cheddar, American, or jalapeño. I always go with the jalapeño cheese, because I love to live life on the edge. A White Castle Slider is such a singular burger, there’s nothing quite like it (we don’t talk about Krystal). It’s so soft, so moist, steamy, it’s almost creamy. The onions are sweet, and pungent, the pickle is briny, and then there’s that perfect fast-food burger umami, that’s so specific. A slider almost has more in common with a dumpling or a pierogi than it does with other burgers. In the same way that you can never eat just one dumpling, you can never eat just one slider. You can have two, you can have four, you can have eight, you can have as many as you want. They’ll cost you $1.59 each or $1.86 with cheese. At White Castle, they mean business. You can buy a briefcase full of burgers, they call it a Crave Case. Where else can you get a burger briefcase? I’ve been known to bring a Crave Case to a dinner party. People hate when I bring a Crave Case to a dinner party. That’s ok, more for me.
The very special thing about White Castle is that it’s open late. In fact, most White Castles (72%) are open 24 hours, a rarity in this day and age. Such a generous gesture. Their doors are literally always open, as are their hearts, and their minds. They serve fresh sliders 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Is there a more reliable burger? Is there a burger that tastes better at 3 a.m.? Is there a burger that tastes better when you’re blacked out? They made a whole movie about how amazing White Castle is when you’re stoned. White Castle is there when you need it most, and after a long day, or a long night, when you’re starving, maybe inebriated, literally nothing tastes as good as a White Castle slider. But you don’t even need to go to a White Castle to get a White Castle slider. You can buy them frozen at your local grocery store. You can grab some at almost any gas station. They come in vending machines, in break rooms, and in the waiting rooms of hospitals and laundromats. I won’t pretend that this is the best quality food, or even the best tasting food, but half of dining is circumstantial, and White Castle is up for any circumstance.
Many moons ago, I went to a party in a White Castle. It was a fashion week (Smashion) party for Telfar, at the White Castle by Port Authority, the only one left in Manhattan. The place was packed, sweaty, it felt like somewhere between heaven and hell, or both simultaneously, as a good party should. The DJ booth was behind the counter, there were gigantic bottles of booze to pour into White Castle cups, to make your own mixed drink in the soda fountain. The whole restaurant was dripping, and vibrating, and every surface was absolutely covered in sliders. People were eating them, people were throwing them, I brought some home. The CEO of White Castle was there in a full suit, and a White Castle tie, a bit damp, but smiling, greeting everyone warmly. Not a flicker of judgment in his eyes. He loved it. He wanted us all to have a good time, and to spread the love of White Castle. Whenever I think of what a CEO could be, what a business could be, I think of White Castle. White Castle is fast-food, but it’s not corporate. It’s been family-owned since 1921. It survived both the Depression and a world war. It existed before McDonald’s. It has seen ups and downs, and still survives and even thrives in a post-private equity fast-food landscape. They’re down to have some fun, and to make fun of themselves. They’ll collaborate with a black-owned fashion label, they’re happy to be the premise of a stoner comedy starring two Asian guys. White Castle wants you to have a good time, they want you to laugh, they want you to live your life, and they want to be there for you in those in-between times. On a long road trip, after the after party, you forget your lunch at home, you’re waiting for your grandson to be born. White Castle will always be there. And their sliders will always be square.
Hiring teams from Three Wishes Cereal, The Lede Company, and Barron’s all use the Feed Me Job Board. Browsing and posting on the job board is free!
The New York Times is expanding its local newsletter efforts. This week, they posted job listings for a Nashville and Phoenix newsletter reporter. And in more hyper-local newsletter news, Gothamist wrote about newsletters like The Carroll Gardens Times, Boerum Bulletin, and Cobble Hill Collective reporting on 10-by-10 block perimeters in New York City. I learned from the comment section that Rockaway has two print newspapers!
Huge advancement for Long Island commuters: Tracks, which originally opened in Penn Station in 2003, re-opened after being closed since 2019. The opening party included a blessing of the beer taps by Reverend Brian Jordan. (I kind of love this reverend. He wears hard hats and honors construction workers who were injured or killed on the job.) “Tracks is always known as a place where blue collar and white collar, we all got together, a true melting pot,” owner Bruce Caulfield told reporters. World peace happening on 34th Street, everyone. I look at these photos and I think, Could Feed Me throw a holiday fête in the basement of Penn Station? I’ll think about it over the weekend.
🐂 Beef news:
Chicago restaurant Copper Club is shrinking the size of its burger patties and “jazzing up” the burger vertically with fried onion strings and shredded lettuce as a solution to rising beef prices. “If I was to show you a 7 1/4-ounce burger compared to an 8-ounce burger cooked, you would never know the difference,” owner Art Mendoza told Bloomberg.
The New Yorker published an essay this week about the “peril” the beef industry is currently facing. This piece taught me that Bruce Friedrich, the head of the Good Food Institute, a nonprofit think tank that advocates for alternative meats, launched a newsletter on Substack this week called Meat Matters. His first newsletter is about why he is still optimistic about cultivated (or lab-grown) meat.
ButcherBox launched a CowShare marketplace to connect customers directly with American Ranchers, where one can buy a whole or half cow to share with friends. The site says that, “Pricing varies a bit by the size of the cow,” but a whole cow would be around $6,000 and half a share would start around $3,000. This comes on the heels of rising prices of beef, and President Trump’s announcement that he’d allow foreign beef to be imported into the U.S. Don’t worry, half a cow won’t show up on your doorstep – the ButcherBox would come with recognizable cuts of meat.
From the Feed Me Tip Line: “New Taryn Simon exhibition at the Guggenheim opens today - Gwyneth Paltrow, Laura Dern, Steven Spielberg, Salman Rushdie all attended the opening last night - going to be the show of the season.” Taryn Simon is married to Jake Paltrow, Gwyneth’s brother.
A.O. Scott broke down the first page of The Corrections. This is how you start a book. More annotation and scene breakdown features please! It’s fun to go back to English class, if only for 10 minutes. The Center for Fiction is hosting an event with Jonathan Franzen and Deborah Treisman for the 25th Anniversary of The Corrections. Unfortunately, in-person tickets are sold out but you can still attend a livestream.
Fara Homidi raised $4 million from Sandbridge Capital. The beauty brand – which took on a “considerable” amount of capital from the firm in 2025 – considers Sandbridge a significant minority partner. I have to say, I did my makeup last night with almost all Fara Homidi products, and the texture of the Cream Eyeshadow is extremely close to the beloved Dream Matte Mousse of my middle school vanity. Sandbridge’s portfolio also includes Ilia, The RealReal, and DedCool.
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I think you should make a Feed Me advent calendar
Dream matte mousse hive stand up