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Jenny Hagel Makes Good Choices
Photo-Illustration: Adam Mazur
For the past few years, Jenny Hagel and her colleagues at Late Night With Seth Meyers have been “happily but also sadly” working remotely — “sadly because I miss my colleagues, and happily because now my laundry’s always done,” says Hagel. The flexibility is useful; between writing for Meyers and hosting a monthly comedy show at Union Hall in which she gives audience members advice — aptly called Jenny Hagel Gives Advice — and season Liberty tickets for this coming spring, she’s got her hands relatively full. She spent last week bouncing around Brooklyn between perfect cups of coffee, streetside empanadas, and many, many purse snacks.
Sunday, February 9
There is one kind of person who everyone hates, and I am that kind of person: A morning person. I wake up every day at an hour you don’t even want to know about it. And the first thing I do is make myself exactly one cup of coffee. I make it every day at the same time, in the same way, with an air of ritual and reverence normally reserved for a priest performing the Consecration. First, I boil water in an electric kettle. Then I pour a little half-and-half into my mug (because life is too short for anything with less fat content). And then, finally, I pull out a device called the Melitta 1-Cup Pour-Over Coffee Brew Cone. This device is a miracle. You’ve heard of the printing press? This device is like that, but more important. The Melitta 1-Cup Pour-Over Coffee Brew Cone is not fancy. It is not beautiful to look at. It is not made from handblown glass with a sleek Scandinavian design aesthetic. It is an unattractive lump of plastic that retails for $4.99. If you see one in real life, you will think, How the hell does coffee come out of THAT? But it does. And it’s the best coffee that’s ever been coffee-d.
Two facts about me are: (1) I have an 11-year-old son, and (2) I am divorced, so my son spends part of his time at his other mom’s house. I’m mentioning this now so that, as this diary proceeds, you don’t read about me traipsing about the city and think, While all this is happening, who the hell is taking care of her kid?
When I’m full of caffeine, I text my friend Tali. One of her kids is very sick, so I offer to take the other — her 10-year-old, Harriet — off her hands for a little bit. I do this to give my friend a break. But also? I do it because Harriet is delightful, and hanging out with her for a day sounds like a blast.
First, we head to the Apple store because my phone is dying. The new iPhone comes in four pastel colors, and I let Harriet choose. “The pink one is really bright,” she says, rubbing her chin thoughtfully. “Do you like bright colors or more subtle colors?” “More subtle colors,” I reply. “You should go with the teal,” she says. She’s right, and I do.
Parked outside the Apple Store in downtown Brooklyn is a food truck called Cesar’s Empanadas. This truck is always there, and the empanadas are always perfect. (Empanadas are my favorite food, and I have eaten more of them than I’m willing to admit to you — or to my doctor.) I order a beef empanada and eat it right there on the sidewalk, straight out of the bag, as God intended. Harriet declines politely and eats a Luna bar from her backpack instead. We have both made good choices.
No girls’ day is complete without manicures, so next, we head to a nail salon. Harriet runs into three different people she knows at the salon. I run into zero people I know. I wonder quietly if it’s weird that my social circle is smaller than a 10-year-old’s.
Once our nails are dry, we head to Toyo Ramen Bar, because it’s cold outside — the kind of cold that makes you want to eat soup out of a bowl the size of your head. Luckily, that is exactly the size of bowl that Toyo offers. We split an order of steamed pork bao, and I get a bowl of chicken wonton ramen. We talk about important things like what books we’re reading and how Harriet feels about starting middle school next year. I add kimchi to my ramen because there is no situation that has not been improved by kimchi.
I drop Harriet off at her house and head home. The Super Bowl tonight, and I only care about it a very tiny bit. So instead of going to a Super Bowl party, I watch it alone at home under a giant blanket.
The night before, my friend Trina invited me to an “American Food Party,” where everyone brought one of those corny casseroles that comes from a Campbell’s cookbook. The menu included a green-bean casserole with crunchy onions, a squash casserole made with an entire stick of butter, and multiple chicken pot pies. Everyone thought it was very funny until we all took our first bites — and then it was not funny at all because each of those dishes was FIRE. The host sent me home with a bunch of leftovers, and I eat them while watching adult men tackle each other for money.
Monday, February 10
Today is filled with a million tiny, tedious tasks. When you’re little, grown-ups talk to you about how one day you will go to college and have a job and raise a family. They don’t tell you that, in between those things, your life will be filled with an endless to-do list that never gets shorter. And that list will not be filled with the kind of exciting to-dos that you imagine grown-ups have, like “send a bunch of pizzas to my friend as a joke” and “escape quicksand.” It will be filled with things like “call a doctor’s office to argue about a bill from six months ago” and “send that PDF to that guy.”
To steel myself for this tedium, I make my perfect cup of coffee and pair that with the breakfast of kings: two pieces of sourdough toast, each topped with a thin layer of Nutella. Then I sit down at my kitchen table, open my laptop, and enter a fugue state.
Several hours later, all the boring tasks have been completed. I have been sitting in the exact same spot for several hours and I feel gross — like when you first step out of a car after a long road trip. To shake off this feeling, I go for a three-mile run. When I’m done, I send a text to a group of friends, reporting my accomplishment. My friend Shermaine sends back a picture of my face photoshopped onto the cover of Track magazine. I laugh so hard I forget to eat lunch.
In the evening, my son and I are invited to my friend Miwa’s house for a pizza party with several other families. Miwa is a flawless host, so she has ordered my son’s favorite type of pizza: sausage and pineapple. I regret to inform you that it’s delicious. I arrive starving and eat way too much pizza, way too fast. A classic mistake that I will make over and over again until I die. (From eating way too much pizza, way too fast.)
Tuesday, February 11
Today is a big day. I lead the Fifth-Grade Book Club at my son’s elementary school, and our monthly meeting is this morning at 7:30 a.m. I bring snacks to each meeting because I feel strongly that any child who reads an entire extra book, and then shows up before school to talk about it, deserves snacks. Today, I bring two boxes of raspberry rugelach and a bag of mandarin oranges.
Getting out the door by 7:30 a.m. is tricky business, even for me. I make another quick (and perfect!) cup of Cafe Bustelo. Then I eat three spoonfuls of cottage cheese straight out of the container, like a stereotype of a busy mom.
This month’s book is Faker, by Gordon Korman. It’s about a kid whose dad is a con artist and the kid’s realization that his dad is unethical. Today in Book Club, one boy raises his hand and says, “I think the real victims in this book aren’t the people who fell for the dad’s scams. The real victim is the main character, because his dad taught him that scamming people is okay.” While nodding, I pop several rugelach into my mouth.
In the afternoon, I do more boring adult things like “go to the dermatologist” and “therapy.” Then I head back home, where I eat a fennel pork sausage on a brioche bun and three mandarin oranges.
I’m Puerto Rican, and a big way that I connect with my culture is through food. Tonight, I decide to connect through empanadas and rice. I start by making a batch of picadillo, a traditional ground-beef dish that is used as empanada filling. Then I defrost a couple packs of Goya frozen empanada shells. Next, my son and I sit down at the kitchen table and stuff the empanadas. (Because he’s 11, he is still willing to do things like this with me. I’m assuming this type of bonding will end the moment puberty hits.) Once they’re stuffed, we brush the empanadas with egg wash, sprinkle sugar on them, and pop them in the oven. While they’re baking, I make some arroz con gandules, a magical Puerto Rican combination of rice, pigeon peas, and joy. During COVID, while everyone else was making sourdough, I taught myself how to make arroz con gandules. It remains one of my better life choices.
When dinner is ready, my son and I sit down with large bowls of food and play a game of Battleship. I win, but that’s not important. (It’s very important.)
Wednesday, February 12
I start today by making a batch of cinnamon rolls. Not the kind you make from scratch, the kind you make from one of those tubes that opens with a satisfying pop. They turn out perfectly, in the way that only processed foods can. I have a stressful meeting this morning, so I think about what I want to say in the meeting while sipping yet another perfect coffee made with my Melitta 1-Cup Pour-Over Coffee Brew Cone. (Is it me or is the name getting longer?)
In the afternoon, I have plans to pick up a friend from the hospital after she undergoes an outpatient surgery. There isn’t an exact end time for the procedure, so I’ll have to spend some time in the lobby just hanging out and waiting. One of my greatest fears in life is being trapped somewhere without food. So I throw several snacks in my bag. Then, right before I leave, I panic and throw in several more. (This is a lifelong practice of mine. I have taken granola bars to the Emmys.) I arrive at the hospital and my friend is ready to go 15 minutes later. I have eaten all the snacks.
For dinner, I meet my friend Rachel at Gertrude’s in Fort Greene. Rachel and I were very good friends in third grade and rode the bus together every day. Then her family moved away and we never saw each other again. Last year, I was grabbing a drink in Brooklyn and felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and there was Rachel! We’ve been hanging out ever since, but instead of on a bus now we do it at restaurants.
Tonight we’re at Gertrude’s because we both love its Dirty Gertie — a martini with dill aquavit and pickle brine. We order a round and decide to share the half-chicken with roasted apples and the Gertrude’s Burger with shoestring fries. We are offered the option to make the burger “Reuben style” and we accept. Only an insane person would turn down the opportunity to take a regular, everyday object and Reubenize it. Oops, the martinis go down very quickly, so we order a second round. I tell Rachel about my stressful meeting, and she nods with a level of understanding you can only get from someone you’ve ridden the bus with.
Thursday, February 13
I have an appointment first thing in the morning to sign up for TSA PreCheck — an errand I have been putting off since the invention of human-powered flight. I arrive at my local Staples, prepared to wait in line for hours, and am finished in seven minutes. I cannot believe how long I put that off. If you are also currently putting off signing up for TSA PreCheck, do it now.
To reward myself for completing yet another grown-up task, I head to my favorite bagel shop. This place is a classic New York establishment; it serves amazing food — and it looks like the Health Department should shut it down immediately. The bagels here are so good and there is always a line out the door on weekends. And the place is so dirty that if a rat walked out of the back and took my order, I would not blink. (I am intentionally not mentioning this place by name in case anyone from the Health Department is reading.) I order a plain bagel with egg and bacon.
I eat the bagel as I walk to my next stop, a coffee shop called Cuppa Hive. At Late Night With Seth Meyers, we are emailed a series of monologue-joke setups each morning, and then we add punch lines to those setups. That’s what I’m here to do this morning. I order a flat white with whole milk, open my laptop, crack my knuckles, and settle in. I love monologue jokes so much — they somehow manage to communicate both a punch line and a point of view in just two sentences. They are sharp and economical and sometimes even moving. They are the haiku of comedy. Late Night has five dedicated monologue writers, and together they crank out approximately 200 jokes a day. The show’s head writer chooses ten or so for that night’s monologue. With those odds, it’s not uncommon to write a big pile of jokes and have none of them chosen for that night’s show — which is exactly what happens to me today. Here are three of my jokes that ended up in the trash:
Amid rising prices, some New York bodegas are reportedly selling “loose” eggs. Also selling loose eggs: fertility clinics.
A woman gave birth yesterday in a New York subway car. Even crazier — no one offered her a seat.
A statue of author F. Scott Fitzgerald was recently stolen from outside a school in Minnesota. And I think we all know where they found it. (PIC: THAT STATUE SITTING AT A BAR)
After writing my little comedy haikus, I head home for lunch. I am passionate about cereal, and my favorite cereal of all time is Waffle Crisp — a food so perfect it’s not available in all markets. I currently have one (1) box of it in my house, and that is because I ordered that box online. My commitment to this cereal knows no bounds. I eat one bowl of it and tell myself I’m done. Then I laugh and pour a second bowl.
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