I’m All Lost In, #99: Returning to Edith Wharton; giving up sugar; and an overdue trip to the Korean restaurant in my neighborhood.
I’m All Lost In …
the 3 things I’m obsessing about THIS week.
#99
1) Edith Wharton
When I think of Edith Wharton, which I do! … I don’t think of the Jazz Age; Wharton, judging from what I’ve read by her—House of Mirth plus a transcendent collection of New York-centric short stories—is all about the last generation of Americans holding on to the Victorian era on the cobblestone streets of Manhattan.
Given that Wharton is one of my favorite writers—she’s been on this weekly list a few times [I’m All Lost In, #71, 2/23/25, most recently]—I’m happy to report that last week, I came across her little known “Flapper” novel, a 1927 best seller called Twilight Sleep.
The novel has the same crystalline Wharton prose that sparkles on every page. But this time, Wharton’s philosophical inquiries and acerbic cynicism are focused on ridiculing the newly enlightened post-World War I set more often associated with F. Scott Fitzgerald than with her early 1900s summer house crowd. Flapper feminism and Eastern mysticism are Wharton’s easy Roaring ‘20s targets here. What a treat to have Wharton’s cutting insight turn its attention to an emergent rather than elapsed generation.
Twilight sleep was the term for a trendy medical practice of the era that professed to banish the painful throes of childbirth with an opium-like motion sickness medicine and morphine mixture plus a stay in a posh clinic. Sardonic Wharton uses the term as a metaphor for phony liberation (particularly of wealthy women) as she sets out to savage both the leisure class of 20-somethings who dance until 4 am in blasé quests to live their best lives, and their overly-earnest mothers who are equally intent on saving the world by practicing the woo-woo wisdom of pseudo intellectuals and charlatans.
I’m only 100 pages in and things are getting good: Pauline Manford, a matriarch and bourgeois do-gooder—and an easy mark for eurhythmic exercise gurus, silent mediation retreats, and avant-garde art dealers—has just discovered (I think!) that her free-wheeling daughter-in-law Lita’s photo has shown up in a scandal sheet. The picture was snapped at the younger crowd’s (racier) version of Pauline Manford’s own Mahatma’s “return-to-nature” ceremonies at a retreat center known as Dawnside.
Passing over the noxious caption “Dawnside Co-Eds,” [her eyes] immediately singled out Bee Lindon from the capering round; then traveled on, amazed, to another denuded nymph…whose face, whose movements…Incredible! … For a second Pauline refused to accept what her eyes reported.
She had never seen anything of that kind herself at Dawnside—heaven forbid!—but whenever she had gone there for a lecture, or a new course of exercises, she had suspected that the whitewashed room, with its throned Buddha, which received her and other like-minded ladies of her age, all active, earnest and eager for self-improvement, had not let them very far into the mystery. Beyond, perhaps, were other rites, other settings… Wasn’t everybody talking about “the return to nature,” and ridiculing the American prudery… The Mahatma was on of the leaders of the new movement… But Pauline had supposed the draperies he advocated to be longer and less transparent; above all, she had not expected familiar faces above those insufficient scarves…
Written more in the fast-paced, reader-friendly language of scandal sheets themselves than in Wharton’s trademark retro-Jane Austen rhythms, Twilight Sleep has me staying up reading (and laughing) into the twilight hours.
2) No Sugar
You heard it here first.
2026: Oat milk out
It’s easier to capitalize on a good trend than reverse a bad one. Prompted by some good numbers from the doctor, I’ve been zeroing out the processed sugar in my diet. I can now count on one hand the number of times I’ve had a sweet treat this month.
Once I started rebuffing the cookies and other assorted coffee shop gems, I found myself going all in. This week I started isolating the remaining sickly sweetness in my life: those alt milks in my lattes. I’ve since switched my daily order to matcha with almond milk instead of all the sweeter, fattier ones. Oat milk, for example, has 19 grams of sugar, the highest of the non-dairy alternatives, versus almond milk’s zero grams.
The OG alt milk elixir, soy (“for a refreshing break in your busy day,” the classic Eden Soy carton used to declare) has the most protein but lots of sugar, 9 grams, unfortunately.
I did have two black sesame Oreo cookies this week, an exceptional and knowing gift from XDX [I’m All Lost In, #43, 8/9/24]. But otherwise, with my switch to almond milk symbolizing the turn away from sweets, I’ve been sugar free.
3) Tofu Seoul
Regular readers may remember a restaurant recommendation I made earlier this year, Broadway Wok, an overlooked standout on the long list of Capitol Hill’s Asian dinner places [I’m All Lost In, #83, 5/18/25]. I only ate there by happenstance; the original plan had been to check out the spot next door, Seoul Tofu & Jjim, a Korean hot soup place on Broadway between Harrison and Republican. Fortunately/unfortunately, it was closed that day.
I’ve since—as of last week’s spur-of-the-moment, what-to-do-for-supper decision—now eaten at Seoul Tofu. An excellent and overdue move.
I got the sizzling and spicy veggie soondubu with two go-rounds of the fixed side plates: pickled kimchi, potato bites, firm seasoned tofu wedges, and savory bean sprouts. I nearly ordered a third helping. Who knew bean sprouts could be a scrumptious delicacy—crisp and delicate, plain and seemingly marinated all at once in this attentive Korean rendition. The two pickled kimchi dishes weren’t as surprising, but they were as tasty.
The main dish, soondubu, is similar to a clay pot Turkish güveç; it’s served—in this instance with soft tofu and veggies—in the same bowl it gets cooked in. Appropriately, the bright red cast of this comforting concoction gives it a homey simmer that matches the hot spices.
This traditional soup-and-sides classic comes with bowl of rice and notably affectionate service.
———
And before I sign off, something else to savor. On Saturday, my favorite tennis player, World No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka, won the U.S. Open. For the second year in a row. (I was there live when she won it last year.)
I didn’t go to the women’s finals this year, but I did return to NYC this weekend for my second trip to the U.S. Open in two weeks for a quick arrive-Thursday-leave-Sunday visit so I could see the semifinals. It seemed likely to me when I bought the ticket months ago that Sabalenka would be on the bill. And she was. Daffy Saby (as we call her in my household) faced off against World No. 4, American Jessica Pegula (her opponent in last year’s final, actually) this past Thursday night at Arthur Ashe Stadium. Saby came back from one set down to beat Pegula 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Thursday evening also included the other woman’s semifinal match—one that a NYT/Athletic reporter subsequently picked as the best of the tournament—between World No. 5, ascendant young American Amanda Anisimova (who would go on to play Sabalenka in the final) and former World No. 1, Japan’s Naomi Osaka. Anisimova won in three sets of elite tennis.
Anisimova in action, Women’s Semifinal with Naomi Osaka, Thursday, 9/4/25
Sadly, Anisimova’s victory came with the seemingly racist intensity of an older woman sitting in the row directly in front of me whose taut, precise clapping at every Animisova winner or Osaka error seemed disproportionately aggressive. That’s not a knock on Anisimova who I’ve grown to respect for her flawless backhand returns. I saw Anisimova play live in one of her earlier matches at Armstrong Stadium on my trip during the first week of the tournament too.
As for Sabalenka’s straight-sets win over Anisimova in this year’s Saturday afternoon final, which included her record-setting 19th steely tie breaker win to finish out the 6-3, 7-6 (7-3) match: I watched it from a crowded West Village bar, my favorite White Horse Tavern of Dylan Thomas lore. And yes I drank whiskey neat in Thomas’ honor. After walking over from Soho in a crazy rain storm that soaked my new shoes, I managed to squeeze in at the corner of the bar with a great view of the TV where the bartender, a zen and mischievous young woman, befriended me and, incongruently for such a hipster, allowed that she too “loved Sabalenka.”
Who are you rooting for?, she asked me first. Sabalenka I acknowledged coyly given that Belarusian Saby was playing Animisova, an American with this season’s Cinderella story. And more over, despite Sabalenka’s insuperable talent on the court and comically klutzy vibe off the court, she’s invariably rendered as a tennis villain. The bartender and I weren’t having it. She slid me another whiskey. On the house.
This was the second instance of Sabalenka serendipity this weekend that threw me in with a fellow unabashed yet bashful Saby fan. Less than 24 hours earlier, standing on the sidewalk in front of a Bushwick comedy club on Friday night where I’d just seen the show, a young lesbian couple bounded out. Aren’t you the vegetarian? one of them, a pretty Latina, asked me. She knew about my diet because one of the comedians on the night’s bill had picked me for some of his crowd work. Ha! To his chagrin!
Aren’t you the German from Turkey who’s in town to see the U.S. Open? I asked the nerdy white woman who was standing next to the Latina (she had also been in a comedian’s sights at the show.) Soon enough, I was talking to this fellow U.S. Open visitor. It turned out not only had she been at Thursday’s semis, but she was a Saby fanatic. Your living her dream life, the Latina said pointing to her GF when I told them I’d also seen Sabalenka win live at last year’s final.
She cried! the girlfriend continued teasing.
As would Sabalenka the following afternoon when—after making but losing both the Australian and French Open finals earlier this year, as well as losing in this year’s Wimbledon semifinals—Sabalenka won the U.S. Open at Arthur Ashe in New York this week.
Sabalenka breaks down with emotion after serving for game, set, and match to win this year’s U.S. Open, Saturday, 9/6/25.
At which point, I stepped out of the White Horse Tavern onto Hudson St., walked to the 8th Avenue & W. 14th St. subway station and caught an L train to Brooklyn to debrief with my New York pals.