From James Miller, night-shift ER doctor, culinary tinkerer, and creator of the indie docuseries Night Rounds Kitchen, comes a cookbook of 125 recipes celebrating the rich, improvisational foods found where medicine and the city meet. To James Miller, the word "scalpel" isn't forbidding; it's a way of seeing—paring away the inessential to reveal the beating heart of flavor. Across zigzag travels through Baltimore, El Paso, Tucson, Queens, New Orleans, and San Diego, he shows that at the sliding doors of hospitals—on curbside grills, in fluorescent cafeterias, and beneath buzzing bodega lights—electric things happen, and nowhere is that more true than in food. After all, a clutch of late-night favorites sprang from these liminal hours: chop cheese, carne asada fries, hot chicken, birria ramen, and diner pies cut under neon.
As Miller reveals, the cooking of the Night-Shift Commons is richer and more varied than any single city's cuisine. Though it's often equated with "diner food," it's much more—techniques and tastes gathered from across the Americas, the Middle East, and Asia. And when it is diner-adjacent, it arrives in surprising forms and flavors—from Lebanese-Texan brisket hash brushed with toum outside Houston's Medical Center, to velvet queso flecked with fire-roasted poblanos along the Rio Grande; from congee bright with chiltepin oil at a clinic in Nogales, to kimchi-smothered fries from a 24-hour stand in Koreatown, Los Angeles.
In Scalpel, Miller casts the nocturnal kitchen in a new, delicious light, sharing essential, make-anytime recipes—soups that soothe after a code, griddle feasts that spark a second wind, and sweets that taste like sunrise:
• Adobo Chicken Code-Blue Sandwiches (crispy thighs, pickled jalapeño slaw, and griddle-buttered bolillos)
• Call Room Queso con Poblanos Tostados (stovetop queso with charred poblanos)
• Tacos de Turno de Noche (Skirt Steak Tacos with a midnight coffee rub)
• Guardia Nachos al Carbón (mesquite-seared steak, frijoles puercos, and quick-pickled onions)
• OR Greens with Garlic, Lime, and Pepitas (sautéed collards built for late plates)
• El Paso–Style Burritos de Papas y Chorizo (crispy potato, chorizo, and avocado crema)
• Pho de Pasillo (brothy night-market pho with star anise and charred onion, built for speed)
• Neon-Clock Guacamole with Jalapeño y Chile de Árbol
• Pastel de Tres Leches de Chocolate y Café (mocha tres leches sheet cake)
Expertly tested in James's rowhouse kitchen in Baltimore and refined during overnight potlucks with nurses, EMTs, short-order cooks, and paramedics, the recipes in Scalpel arrive with stories, living histories, and lavish photographs—so you can cook with precision and daring, and taste the world exactly as it's served at 3 a.m. on ambulance bays, loading docks, and corner counters.
