Robert Indiana kept a series of illustrated journals during the late 1950s and 1960s, in which he discusses the development of his work as well as his daily life on Coenties Slip.

In his journal page for June 5, 1962, Indiana records that after breakfast he "set on a fourth and final stretcher." He writes "it is now fairly well set in my mind [that] I shall devote one [to] 'Dietary' & [the] other 3 [to] a triptych of 'Coenties Slip,' 'Corlears Hook,' Whitehall' — ([the] Moby Dick Triad) in black and white only." (The Melville Triptych) 

Indiana explains that it was good that he waited for a rainy day, when the fabric was loose and tractable, as it allowed him to rough stretch three paintings before running out of canvas for the fourth. He also records that he drew a cartoon for The Dietary, a 60 x 48-inch "companion effort [to] The Eateria," and includes a sketch of a detail of the painting. 

Indiana's journal pages frequently reference current events. Here the artist notes that astronaut Scott Carpenter spoke on WNYC, a rebroadcast of an earlier luncheon at which presidents Truman and Hoover also spoke, and that Carpenter and his boss received medals from the city.