“I can measure my life in lunches.” Lauren Collins goes deep on an often underappreciated meal. Plus:

• “South Park” skewers a satire-proof President 
• Susan B. Glasser on why the Epstein story stuck 
• Ozzy Osbourne tried to raise hell

Ian Crouch
Newsletter editor

When is the best time to eat? Among the many questions facing humanity, this seems like one we should have a handle on by now. And yet, owing to the vagaries of culture, work schedules, and plain personal opinion, the answer remains all over the place: a big breakfast, or no breakfast; three meals a day, or just one, or maybe six tiny ones; small dinner, huge dinner, no dinner?

No matter when exactly you eat, you shouldn’t skip lunch. In this week’s issue, Lauren Collins makes a compelling case for it being the best meal of the day. “Unlike breakfast, lunch offers variety, but, in contrast to dinner, it tolerates repetition,” she writes. Collins, who has previously celebrated the unique pleasures of the early dinner, finds something to like about lunch in all its guises—the power lunch, the liquid lunch, even the sad desk lunch. “It is what you make of it, whether you’re lingering over mignardises at Le Grand Véfour or scarfing down last night’s beans.”

The best lunch, however, is the long one—a welcome indulgence in modern life. Collins visits a small lunch-only restaurant in London, called the Yellow Bittern, whose proprietor, Hugh Corcoran, raised some eyebrows when he insisted that he was creating “a democratic space” for lengthy midweek lunches to be enjoyed by the average working person—while also charging forty-two pounds for a meat pie for two. (He also complained about patrons who split dishes and don’t order drinks.)

But maybe he’s onto something. “We live in a society that promotes this idea of constant production—you know, if you’re not in work working, then you should be doing something to be a good worker,” he tells Collins. “To just cut all that and say, ‘Actually, I’m gonna drink a bottle of wine and eat a lot of food in the middle of the day,’ right?”

Practical? No. Equitable? Not really. Every day? In our dreams. But this vision of lunch—time secreted away from our family responsibilities, our bosses, our screens—feels like a small act of rebellion.

Read or listen to the story »

The new season première goes after Trump as never before—and solves a problem that’s plagued comedians since his first term in office. Tyler Foggatt reports »

P.S. A Chuck E. Cheese employee wearing a full mouse costume was arrested at one of the restaurant’s locations in Tallahassee this week. (An image of the mascot in cuffs went viral online.) Carmen Maria Machado once noted that there was always something “a little bit seedy” about the pizza-arcade brand: “Kids can still eat forbidden foods, plunk tokens into games to win cheap prizes, and watch shuddering automata sing covers of pop songs.” 🐭