![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/7bd080e52c4a553001135c36fb81edc92e-gsd-james-harris.rhorizontal.w1100.jpg\")
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\n Illustration: Margalit Cutler\n <\/p>\n
A lifelong New Yorker, James Harris, co-host of the menswear-slash-everything podcast Throwing Fits<\/a>, knows how to take advantage of the holiday week in New York. It\u2019s a time when all the transplants return to their respective coasts and suburbs and, suddenly, Resy slots open up. On a week-long seafood bender, he managed to squeeze into not one, but two of the city\u2019s most impossible tables: Bong<\/a> and Bistrot Ha<\/a>. He also hosted his parents for the first time this Christmas, improvising his way through a decadent seafood spread that left everyone happy (and functioned as a double-portion lunch the next day). His week of no-lines eating also produced two food predictions for 2026: Pomelo will be the citrus of the year, and the Cosmo will be the drink of the year. Pomelo Cosmo, anyone?<\/p>\n Wednesday, December 24th I make a 20-ounce hot coffee at home, which I have every morning without fail. Same ceramic drip cone I\u2019ve had for ten years, beans from Variety in Greenpoint. I kind of need it to function. I\u2019m very jealous of people who can just get up and go. I need like an hour and a half in the morning to drink coffee, spend time with my Japanese toilet seat as a result of the coffee, do Sudoku, read, scroll my phone.<\/p>\n I play tennis for an hour in the McCarren bubble. I picked up tennis seriously during COVID, and now it\u2019s kind of my thing. With any tennis court in New York, getting court time is its own competitive sport, so I book a weekly lesson for the entire season. It guarantees me a spot, but also lets me work on really small things \u2014 like if I can\u2019t get past someone\u2019s backhand, I\u2019ll drill that and then try again next time I play them. It\u2019s all incremental, infinitesimal improvements.<\/p>\n I\u2019m rarely a breakfast person, but I\u2019ve been trying to have at least a piece of toast, so I\u2019m not running around with 20 ounces of coffee sloshing around my stomach. I don\u2019t get to it this morning, and afterward I\u2019m starving. The city is empty, which is honestly one of my favorite times of year. There\u2019s a tamale cart on Manhattan Avenue in Greenpoint that always sells out immediately from commuters, and I\u2019ve never been able to catch it while it still has inventory. But around 10 a.m., I finally do. I get a $3 chicken mole tamale. It\u2019s phenomenal. After that, I have a Muscle Milk protein shake. I don\u2019t know what the current science is, but a few years ago someone was like, \u201cYou should have one of these after you work out,\u201d and I\u2019ve just been doing that ever since.<\/p>\n Back home, I start making shrimp stock for shrimp cocktail and a crab-and-lobster pasta. This year, I\u2019m hosting my parents for Christmas for the first time ever. After COVID and some family losses, there\u2019s no longer a set holiday tradition, and instead of trying to find the perfect restaurant \u2014 the right location, noise level, cuisine \u2014 I just decided to host. Shrimp cocktail felt like a must, so I peel the shrimp and make stock from the shells early so it can cool. At the same time, I\u2019m fully spiraling about seafood safety: Did I buy it too early? Was it packaged too long ago? Am I going to poison everyone? I\u2019m on ChatGPT trying to figure out if I should\u2019ve frozen the crab and lobster.<\/p>\n While I\u2019m cooking, I order a grilled pork b\u00e1nh m\u00ec and a Diet Coke from Bahnmigos<\/a> and eat it while watching Industry screeners. It might be my favorite show on TV that\u2019s not Bravo, but the screeners don\u2019t have subtitles, and I can\u2019t understand anything these British people are saying, especially with all the financial jargon.<\/p>\n Later, I drop off a gift for my friend Oliver at Bernie\u2019s<\/a>. I live two blocks away, and I\u2019m there a lot. This year, I tried to be more intentional about gift-giving. I got my barber a pound of Wagyu from a Japanese butcher. He tells me later that it kind of ruined steak for him, which I think might be the best gift feedback I\u2019ve ever gotten.<\/p>\n I mix up a hydration powder drink \u2014 another thing someone once told me I should do \u2014 partly because I don\u2019t want to get sick before Christmas, and partly because I know I\u2019m going to a Christmas Eve dinner party. Then comes a shrimp stock disaster. I put the stock in a container, swirl it to mix the sediment, only to realize it\u2019s not closed. Shrimp stock goes everywhere. It smells insanely bad. I ask Siri how to get the smell out of a rug, and spray vinegar and water all over my apartment. Now the whole place smells like white vinegar, which I don\u2019t hate, but I do briefly consider throwing the rug out.<\/p>\n Before leaving for a family friend\u2019s Christmas Eve dinner, I order veggie nachos from Homemade Taqueria<\/a> as a snack, so I am not starving.<\/p>\n It\u2019s very Italian \u2014 loud, joyful, and extremely well-fed. There\u2019s a ton of caviar, a giant ham, piles of langoustines, and enough crab for about twenty people. I mostly eat crab. There\u2019s also foie gras on some kind of potato with crab on top, which is honestly a lot, but very good.<\/p>\n The food is mostly brought in from different places and then assembled by a chef, but then, at some point, the chef quits in the middle of dinner. No one really knows why; it becomes the main plot twist of the night. But by then, everything is already close enough to being done that it doesn\u2019t really derail anything. The energy stays boisterous and happy.<\/p>\n After dinner, everyone just sits around digesting. For dessert, there\u2019s panettone with zabaglione, that traditional eggy Marsala wine sauce, which I think is fantastic. We don\u2019t leave until around 1 a.m. It\u2019s late, but it\u2019s festive in a way I\u2019m not always used to on Christmas anymore. It feels like a reminder that the holidays can still be fun.<\/p>\n Thursday, December 25th I play Christmas tennis in the McCarren bubble with a buddy. After tennis, I basically make the most decadent lunch I can manage with what\u2019s in the house: A baguette with lobster, pickle, mustard, and mayo. I\u2019ll be honest: I kind of find lobster overrated. I made it more for the aesthetics, the festivity, the decadence. The crab and the shrimp stock are the workhorses of this dinner. If I had to rank shellfish, I would say crab may be my number one. I love soft-shell crab season: Fry them up in a pan, throw them on a sandwich with tomato, onion, and tartar sauce. This lobster is technically supposed to be for dinner, but I also convince myself I have to test it to make sure it\u2019s still good. It is.<\/p>\n I have a small coffee at home because I\u2019m trying to stay on my P\u2019s and Q\u2019s. Normally, I love an afternoon nap, but today I don\u2019t want to be sleepy when my parents come over, and I\u2019ve got to pull off this whole dinner. My dad ends up drinking half the coffee anyway.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t start actually cooking until they arrive, except for the shrimp cocktail, which, in hindsight, I wish I\u2019d made fresh \u2014 it\u2019s a little rubbery. They\u2019re watching me finish everything, and my mom is trying to help, and I\u2019m like, \u201cNo, sit. You\u2019ve cooked for me my whole life. Let me do this for you.\u201d<\/p>\n I\u2019m kind of winging it \u2014 especially with the pasta \u2014 and they\u2019re basically watching me operate in my own home, which I think my mom loves. I have this analogy that cooking is actually really similar to developing your personal style: When you\u2019re first starting out, it\u2019s helpful to follow a \u201crecipe,\u201d like literally being told what to do. With style, it\u2019s like: \u201cOh, I want to dress like that,\u201d or \u201cI need to get those exact clothes to build my wardrobe.\u201d And eventually you learn what you like, you can eyeball it, you understand the basic science, and you can just figure it out on your own.<\/p>\n We eat the pasta, a radicchio and endive salad, and roasted fennel. They are pleased. We\u2019re kind of trying to figure out new traditions. We used to celebrate with our whole family, but now my brother has a one-year-old, almost two-year-old, and there\u2019s no set thing anymore. So I\u2019m like, \u201cGifts before dessert?\u201d And they\u2019re like, \u201cWell, is that what you want to do?\u201d<\/p>\n They don\u2019t really give me fashion gifts. I\u2019ve told them: \u201cPlease, I don\u2019t need more clothes.\u201d My mom gets me books. My dad went to a Japanese ceramic store near where they live and bought me a beautiful dish. I got my dad pants from Our Legacy, and he\u2019s really stoked. I think through osmosis of the podcast, he\u2019s picked up fashion cues. When I give him the pants, he\u2019s cheering, \u201cOh yeah! Our Legacy! Let\u2019s go!\u201d I got my mom a scarf from Stoffa. It\u2019s a beautiful textile, and I\u2019m like, \u201cIf you don\u2019t want it, I\u2019ll keep it for myself. Say the word.\u201d<\/p>\n My mom used to listen to every episode early on, and she would text me her thoughts every week \u2014 usually something like, \u201cThat Jonah Hill guy sounds nice. Please stop cursing so much.\u201d But they were most excited about our episode with Zohran Mamdani. Some Mamdani people knocked on their door, canvassing, and my dad was like, \u201cHey, do you know the podcast Throwing Fits?\u201d<\/p>\n I let them bring dessert even though I wanted to make everything for them, and I think they forgot because they definitely just bought ice cream and cupcakes from the bodega before driving over here. Honestly, it\u2019s kind of refreshing. I\u2019m sick of artisanal baked goods, handmade cupcakes made from hand-ground flour and icing from someone\u2019s Polish great-grandmother. These are just ultra-processed cupcakes: Synthetic red velvet cake, the thickest vanilla icing you\u2019ve ever tasted.<\/p>\n After they leave, I make myself a little mini martini to decompress. I don\u2019t make them a ton at home, but it\u2019s a special occasion. I use a really briny gin called Fundy, from Nova Scotia. I do a decent amount of vermouth, and then a little dirty. Super chilled glass. I guess the term is \u201cmake it skate.\u201d<\/p>\n Friday, December 26th Then, I run to the hardware store to buy a 1\/2-inch drill bit \u2014 I\u2019m putting up some shelving. This week I\u2019m catching up on home projects, trying to hit my goal of a book a month (I do!), and doing nothing and everything at the same time. It\u2019s a weird week where you get these random bursts of activity.<\/p>\n I stop at the Japanese market and buy Yakult. It\u2019s like a peachy-pink juice that my brother and I loved to drink when we spent summers in Japan as kids; we called it \u201cpeach juice.\u201d It\u2019s kind of like a Proustian rush back to my childhood. Now, with the English branding on the packaging, it\u2019s being sold to people as this live probiotic yogurt drink, and I\u2019m like\u2026\u00a0 what?<\/p>\n Later, I attempt to have a small bowl of Christmas pasta leftovers \u2014 the crab-and-lobster pasta. It\u2019s supposed to be a snack. And then I\u2019m like, \u201cWait, I should just eat it all now, for safety?\u201d The 25th feels like the last day the seafood is \u201cgood.\u201d So I eat, like, two-and-a-half servings of this pasta. A full second lunch.<\/p>\n It\u2019s risky because I\u2019m going to Bong<\/a> at 7:30 with a friend. I am stressed because I can\u2019t break my appetite for Bong. Bong is usually impossibly busy, but I\u2019m taking advantage of this week \u2014 reservations are easy, and everything feels more spontaneous than it usually does.<\/p>\n It\u2019s freezing and snowing \u2014 blizzard vibes \u2014 and as I am in the Uber there, I\u2019m genuinely wondering if I should\u2019ve canceled. Looking out the car window, I worry there\u2019s a chance we\u2019ll come out to a foot of snow, and won\u2019t be able to get home. But I\u2019m also like, fuck it. By the time we\u2019re there, I\u2019m thankfully starving.<\/p>\n We get the salt-and-pepper head-on shrimp, pomelo salad with dried shrimp and fried peanuts and mint, somlor machew clams with eggplant and watercress in a sour tamarind broth, plea satch ko, which is kind of like a beef carpaccio, and an unreal whole fried fish with a ton of herbs and pickled things. That salad is amazing. I\u2019m calling it right now: Pomelo is going to be the citrus of 2026.<\/p>\n After, we go to Bernie\u2019s for a nightcap. I order a Cosmo. It\u2019s actually my second Cosmo of the week. Cosmos are one of those drinks where you order it kind of ironically, but also, it\u2019s fucking delicious. Tart, sour, bright, fruity, icy. And for some reason, bartenders love it. When I had one at Blue Ribbon Brasserie earlier in the week, the bartender was like, \u201cHell yeah,\u201d and told us the secret is some kind of orange liqueur. At Bernie\u2019s, they make a round of Cosmo shots for the staff.<\/p>\n Saturday, December 27 I head out to run errands in the part of Greenpoint that\u2019s kind of far from me \u2014 near all the TikTok restaurants: Taku Sando, Kettl Matcha. I actually do try to go to Radio thinking my good-luck streak of getting into places that are impossible this week will continue. But I\u2019m too late. They\u2019re sold out of basically all the sandwiches except tuna salad, which is overrated.<\/p>\n It\u2019s another freezing day \u2014 lots of snow on the ground \u2014 and I would love some pozole right now. I think about going to Mariscos El Submarino, but that\u2019s more of a seafood aguachile place. So, I go to Frijoleros<\/a>. This is probably the third time I\u2019ve been there, and it hits every time. I also order chorizo tacos, and unfortunately, I don\u2019t realize the pozole comes with two tostadas; the tacos come first, and by the time the pozole shows up, I\u2019m stuffed. I have to bring half home.<\/p>\n Between lunch and dinner, I work on the shelving, do Sudoku, and read. I\u2019m reading a book called The Director by Daniel Kehlmann. I\u2019m trying to finish this one before New Year\u2019s. It\u2019s about a Jewish director who goes back to Germany during the rise of the Third Reich to take care of his mother and gets trapped there \u2014 basically about creating art under fascism. It\u2019s good, and also scary because it feels very\u2026 applicable.<\/p>\n The main event of my day is my reservation at Bistrot Ha<\/a> \u2014\u00a0my second time there. I\u2019ve become friends with the co-owner Sadie through going to her other restaurant Snack Bar a bunch and loving it. I first came to Bistrot Ha during their opening week, and I was blown away. Now it\u2019s gotten even better. The menu\u2019s updated. Opening week was super cramped and crowded because everyone was trying to get in; this time it\u2019s more settled. It seems like they\u2019ve reworked the interior to be more accommodating. The lighting is so insane that I asked Sadie about it, and she told me about this lighting designer James Cherry. I actually bought one of his lights as a gift for someone; it\u2019s beautiful, made with real cucumber \u2014 like, if you\u2019re hungry, you can eat the light.<\/p>\n We get the beef tataki, Ha\u2019s salad, leeks vinaigrette with mussels and egg salad, trout crudo with pomelo, leg of lamb, lobster and sweetbreads vol-au-vent, and the passion fruit meringue. The leeks vinaigrette is insane. The lamb is so good. The trout crudo with pomelo is fucking fire. We also get a bottle of Matassa, plus a lychee Cosmo. I\u2019m calling it: The Cosmo is the drink of 2026.<\/p>\n I was there with a friend, but it turned into one of those nights where you\u2019re also running into people. It\u2019s that slow week in New York thing. The table next to us is friends. We see a friend sitting at the bar with his mom who\u2019s visiting for the holidays. Another friend comes in \u2014 they just had a baby, so it\u2019s one of their first date nights out. It feels warm and New York-y and kind of like I\u2019m in a Nancy Meyers movie.<\/p>\n Sunday, December 29th\u00a0
I wake up at 6:45 a.m. for no reason. I\u2019ve decided that 2026 is going to be the year of sleep. I think I got pretty dialed in this past year on cooking for myself at home, and I realized that maybe the next big pillar of life and health that needs addressing is my sleep issues \u2014 waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to go back to bed, waking up super early and not being able to fall asleep again, not being able to fall asleep at all. I\u2019m not a big resolutions guy, but maybe that\u2019s a year-long project.<\/p>\n
I have my giant coffee at home and toast with fresh-ground almond butter. One with raspberry jam, and one with Sky High Farm <\/a>honey and salt.<\/p>\n
I have my same 20-ounce coffee at home, then go to the Good Morning Caf\u00e9<\/a> pop-up at Strange Delight<\/a>. I love Strange Delight, and they\u2019ve got a new dinner menu \u2014\u00a0I\u2019m actually going to start my New Year\u2019s there. I\u2019m supposed to meet a friend, but he bails last minute. Even still, I\u2019m like, \u201cFuck it. I\u2019m going to take the train 25 minutes, eat by myself, and take the train back.\u201d They\u2019re sold out of the breakfast sandwich. They\u2019ve got pastries that people love, but I\u2019m not big on pastries \u2014 I\u2019m more of a savory breakfast guy, even though I\u2019m not really a breakfast guy. So, I\u2019m having lunch at 11:00 a.m. I get the grits with shrimp gravy and the pimento-cheese sandwich with Cajun-spiced cucumbers, iceberg lettuce, all on milk bread.<\/p>\n
I have my same 20-ounce coffee at home. Then I play tennis \u2014 court availability is wide open. I\u2019m trying to put together a small tennis tournament in mid-January with around ten people, just a bunch of friends. The plan is to go out to Long Island for the day. My barber recommended this super old-school place in Long Beach called Clay Time<\/a> \u2014 everything\u2019s cash, verbal contracts. After tennis, I have a piece of toast with jam.<\/p>\n
Coffee at home. I have half a bialy with tomato and goat cheese and head to Lore Bathing Club. <\/a>My friend Cam works there, and they\u2019re doing single sessions right now before they open-open. I love a shvitz. It feels right after this week of documented hedonism \u2014 the true Christmas-holiday decadence is behind us, the New Year\u2019s Eve decadence is ahead of us, so let\u2019s take a moment to flush everything out of us. Detox before we retox.<\/p>\n