How I EatHow I EatThe How I Eat series asks chefs, food personalities, and just plain interesting people how they keep themselves fed. We also ask for photos of their fridge, because we’re into that kind of thing.Comedian Caleb Hearon is probably my favorite person on Twitter. His front-facing videos are hilarious and relatable, but there’s something special about the uncanny way he portrays social discomfort without being unkind. Having recently moved from Chicago to Los Angeles (in the middle of a pandemic), Caleb is getting used to a lot of change, but he was able to hop on the phone to discuss chicken wings, his secret chili ingredient, and the worst meal he’s ever had.How did you eat when you were traveling across the country in the middle of a pandemic?Badly. The best meal we had was when we went from Colorado to Utah in one day. We had a nice Airbnb, so we looked up a bunch of places before we got there. Then as soon as we got to this town in Utah, we went to a steakhouse and got steak and pasta and took it back to our Airbnb and ate on the deck. That was really nice. The scary thing was in Utah—at least the part that we were in—the place was packed. The patio was full, the dining room was full, really no one was wearing masks. Everyone was going about business like normal. And my mom was like “Do you want to eat here?” and I was like “God, no.” And she was like “Great, me neither.” I was so glad we were on the same page. No way, dude.Have you been cooking at home more, or have you been ordering in more?Cooking more, but that wasn’t a high bar to meet. Before COVID, I was doing multiple shows a week, sometimes more than one a night. On the way out the door in the morning, I might grab a granola bar and then go to my day job. Sometimes I would take groceries to work and make stuff there, but a lot of times I would eat out because it was a social thing. I would eat out at night because I had shows and I didn’t have time to go home. But I was definitely cooking more during the beginning of quarantine, and then towards the time when I started started packing up I was ordering out from all of my favorite spots in Chicago that I was going to miss. But it’s changed a lot, because I’m not staying out until 2: 00 or 3: 00 in the morning doing shows, and I’m getting up at, for me, a decent time and getting a decent breakfast. I’ll just really take my time. One thing I’ve been doing a lot—Are you Costco person? Are you a Costco fan?I love Costco.I love it. They have those packages of three different types of salmon. They’ll have a row of dill, a row that are cracked pepper, and a row that’s just plain salmon, and it’s all sliced up. I love to get that and a really hearty wholegrain bread with seeds—the kind that’s really chunky. Toast the bread, put a little layer of cream cheese on each slice, put down some different flavors of the salmon, and then do capers, and eat that as a breakfast toast. Have some iced coffee. I always have iced coffee in the fridge. There’s a Silk almond creamer that is vanilla-flavored that is so good; I love to make a little iced coffee situation with that. I usually will go pretty late in the day without having lunch because I’m having a big breakfast. Around two or three o’clock I’ll be like “Oh shit, I should eat something.” So I’ll have a salad or ramen. I’ll take a bag of ramen and put curry powder and soy sauce and some sriracha in it and really make it good. I love a peanut sauce. I’ll put it on any kind of any kind of Asian noodle. Or if I order Thai noodles of any kind—like phat kee mao or something—I always get a side of peanut sauce too. Especially if I’m trying a new place. I’m like “If the noodle isn’t very good, at least I have a peanut sauce to make it better.”One thing that has changed a lot is my roommate that I moved out to L.A. with is a vegetarian. So I have been eating a lot more vegetable-forward meals. At Costco I’ll get veggie pot stickers instead of meat ones, but I did go back and get the meat ones eventually because I was like “Damn. I miss those.” Or she’ll make a veggie stir fry and I’ll have that for dinner because it’s what she made.It’s kind of a cop out for me to be like “Oh, I was too busy to eat healthy before.” You can make time, but I’m less stressed because I don’t have to run around everywhere and I’m like “Oh, I would like to have a nice meal.” And it’s just kind of normal, right? It’s a thing that I might have enjoyed in normal before-life. I think a reason that I find myself eating healthier during this is I don’t feel like I’ve had a second in the last several months where I haven’t been thinking about health. Some p
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