Dinner for One

What do you eat when no one is watching? That’s the question asked—and answered—in What We Eat When We Eat Alone (Gibbs Smith), a new book by chef Deborah Madison and her husband, artist and graphic designer Patrick McFarlin. Through stories and recipes that come to life in McFarlin’s whimsical watercolor sketches, readers get a taste of solo dining habits that range from standard (Tater Tots) to semi-bizarre (a leftover spaghetti sandwich) and the wonderfully ridiculous (Life cereal bathed in non-dairy coffee creamer). The book grew out of McFarlin’s habit of querying people whom he met while traveling on what they tended to nibble when no one was looking. “Some were ordinary, some quirky, and others credible and civilized,” he notes of the diverse responses, all of which are united by their ripeness for illustration. Confessed one person McFarlin surveyed, “I pour sardine juice on to cottage cheese while standing on one foot in front of the refrigerator, not putting down the other foot because there’s been a meat leak from the vegetable drawer.”