Though this isn’t a lavender latte (my favorite) it is an admirable replacement of brown sugar vanilla – perhaps the universe feels it’s a more fitting match for the season. I no longer question how the universe works, only our reactions to it. Humans being so supremely out of control in so many practical ways…
A brown sugar vanilla latter it’ll be then, heartfully decorated with the expert design of a seasoned barista. A cup full of hearts. A heart full of latte love.
Is there a more potent elixir against a dreary late-winter afternoon than a bowl of steaming miso soup? Perhaps a bowl of pho could accomplish an equal rendering of heat, but I prefer the basic simplicity of a miso soup – it complements the stark, bare end of winter in a more elegant way.
The occasional cube of tofu, the swirling rings of scallions, and the almost-black jagged clouds of seaweed floating through the broth comprise a bowl that perfectly represents a minimalist stroke of culinary economy – where less is more and the notion of absence as elegance imparts impressive and beautiful restraint.
Winter’s enchantments are often hidden in plain stripped-down sight, but only for those who take the time to slow down and examine – both what is at hand, and what is at heart.
A bowl of miso soup is a wonderful winter thing.
All hail the French Pigwich!
This glorious concoction of eggs, ham, bacon, cheese and mayonnaise on a toasted croissant is my occasional breakfast indulgence on a weekend or holiday (or both as happened yesterday morning for Valentine’s Day). It’s one of the delectable edibles on offer at my favorite cafe – Professor Java’s.
One of the integral tenets in finding and curating happiness is regularly indulging in the savoring of things you enjoy. Not just treating yourself, but taking the time to mindfully make the most of each moment of the experience. Too often we rush and hurry to get to dessert or the weekend or a vacation, and our momentum then propels us through that goal at the same relentless pace.
It should come as no surprise that I try to find moments and little sweet treats in every day to practice savoring and slowing down, such as in this delicious French Pigwich. Far more than just a serviceable breakfast to sustain the body’s basic needs, it is an opportunity to savor the care and deliciousness that went into its creation – from the kindness of the person taking the order to the skilled culinary work of the person who made it, to the great fortune of being alive and healthy and able to sit and enjoy a leisurely breakfast on a Saturday morning.
The act and the art of savoring builds upon happiness and contentment. Little annoyances fall by the wayside. Light is always more powerful than darkness.
In service of some badly-needed levity on the internet side of life, here is a green rim job on a mockarita from a recent inspirational dinner out as Suzie and I prepare a Mexican-themed dinner fiesta. It’s this year’s take on the ‘Suzette’s Feast’ dinner we threw last winter – a way to make it through the second half of winter, and a Mexican meal feels especially cozy right now.
We’ve worked out a rough menu draft, and the star of the show is going to be one of Pati Jinich’s recipes: Enchiladas Verdes in a tomatillo sauce. But I don’t want to give away all the secrets – a good meal should contain a few surprises.
As for the mockarita and green salty rim as seen here – the only time I want a rim job ON MY DRINK is for a margarita. The sugary ones caked in chocolate or sprinkles are abominations.
Do we slice an English muffin with a knife or pull it apart with our hands?
The literature on this is inconsistent.
I adore a bundt cake.
Somewhere in my childhood there were some very pleasant visits by my Mom’s friends that resulted in her baking and setting out a bundt cake. The specialness of the occasions, and the hint of formality to serving cake and coffee in the living room or formal dining room, appealed to my sense of drama, as well as a basic sense of healthy hunger. The bundt cakes were usually simple and lacking in fancy frosting and whipped toppings – and the elegance of such simplicity appealed to me too.
Today, I still adore a bundt, and this one is especially good. It’s a take on an Italian wedding cake Betsy recently introduced me to at DeFazio’s. Theirs was slightly more moist, so the next time I’ll use all of the liquid glaze (it seemed like too much, but in this case it’s all about too much). The only drawback in all that moisture is that the topping of powdered sugar is almost instantly soaked into the cake. More sweetness, but no tell-tale prettiness, which is not at all a bad payoff when seeking out simplicity.
Betsy once made chocolate chip cookies for an office cookie contest, and they literally had about 2 chocolates chips per cookie. She promptly lost the contest to Heath, who had generously added a reasonable amount of chips to his batter. I always think of that when I order anything with chocolate chips, such as this muffin from Professor Java’s.
It stands as an ideal image of the perfect ratio of chips to muffin, and the almost-scientifically-even spacing and dispersal on display here is a thing of wonder and beauty. Behold its prettiness, as life doesn’t often approach this kind of perfection, especially during the holiday madness, and this makes me extremely happy. As did eating every bite of this chocolate chip muffin.
This Japanese hotpot recipe is so simple, and turns out so well, even with myriad variations. It also takes kindly to all sorts of supplemental bolsters, such as noodles and rice – making it as filling and substantial as you want it to be. It’s the ideal fall and winter dish – lasting for several days, lending itself to all kinds of transformations – a good thing to prepare when a stretch of snow is expected.
Comfort food is a way of making it through the winter, a way to lean into the colder season and make something cozy for it. Like candles and yeasty-baked goods, heavy blankets and endless scarves, and the stark beauty of winter dangling like icicles waiting to fall.
This post should rightfully be helmed and fronted by some popular gay porn star to get us back to this blog’s racy roots, but instead a batch of kimchi fried rice and a fried egg topper takes the pole position. In a week that typically finds this cock-eyed country focused on food and stuffing ourselves silly, this feels like an appropriately-fitting/filling post.
There, that should fulfill my cheeky double-entendre quota for the year – and don’t skip any of the skintillating links embedded and embodied within.
Gobbledy-gobble!!
Fresh-from-the-sea oysters are not often on our menu in landlocked upstate New York, so when Cormac offered to pick some up for veritable pennies, I enthusiastically supported the notion – especially when Suzie was offering up her shucking expertise (honed by restaurant work in Seattle, where she reportedly shucked oysters by the hundreds). As with so many of Suzie’s boasts, this one seemed tenuous at best, as I waited dozens of minutes between slurping these precious oysters. Cormac proved a much better shucker, and as the pile of half-shells grew higher, our stomachs grew fuller, and the sun began its daily descent behind the river, which marked my solitary sojourn to the dock while Suzie and Cormac finished their shucking business.
SEE ALSO:
Part 1: Driving South with Suzie
Part 2: A Loveliness By the River
Part 3: November Sweeps in Virginia
A recent Boston visit begins at the end, because in my experience every ending ends up being the beginning of something else, even if it’s just the return home at the end of a vacation. This fall marks the 30th anniversary of procuring our Boston condo, so I’ve been quietly celebrating this milestone with the posts to come, and this past weekend I spent there simply enjoying the city.
On the early Sunday morning of departure, I made my way to the diner nearby, Charlie’s, which has been in existence long before we moved in thirty years ago, and continues to provide comforting diner food for all early hunger pangs. On this morning, I opted for the Charlie’s Breakfast sandwich, and added some hot sauce for zing.
If I ever manage to retire and am able to spend more than fleeting weekends in Boston, this is the sort of thing I look forward to doing – hanging at the local diner with my favorite server, who welcomed me back to town and engaged in some early-morning banter amid several groups of misbehaving children.
“On Sunday morning we have a lot of hangover people or kids. I don’t know which is worse,” she whispered conspiratorially to me.
“Oh, kids,” I declared without hesitation. The hangover people just want some greasy food and to be left alone, and are thrilled with anyone who helps them accomplish this mission. Kids, and their indulgent parents, are rarely so easily satisfied, even with chocolate chip pancakes and powdered sugar.
She laughed at my instant response. “You just made my morning,” she said, setting off for a pair of youngsters still in their pajamas and jumping from empty diner stool to empty diner stool. She smiled at them and left them to their merriment.
It seems on this particular Sunday morning, Cholula wasn’t my only friend.
It was a delightful ending to a weekend in my beloved city, where other enchantments held me rapt for the days prior…
A grain and gluten free pastry that tastes delicious? Sounds like the stuff of dreams, but it turns out it’s the stuff of Ballston Spa, where The Sweetish Chef is offering some of the most delicious baked goods I’ve had in the area. If you hadn’t told me about the grain and gluten aspect, I’d have no idea – their stuff is that good regardless of the bonus healthy ingredients.
While I was on a recent trip to see my brother’s shop, a few doors down on Front Street was this cafe that advertised Keto and healthier pastry options, and when my brother later recommended it, I swung back and gave it a try. A sign on the wall gave the definition for the Swedish word fika: a social tradition and a break from the day to enjoy a hot drink, like coffee or tea, along with a treat such as a pastry or cookie. This sounded like a good theme for the rest of my life, and it seemed the happiest place to begin was somewhere between a cinnamon roll and a substantial piece of coffeecake.
Unable to decide between the two, I ultimately decided on both – devouring the cinnamon roll there and then, saving the coffeecake for home – and the plate seen here for being fancy. Grain free, sugar free, and low-carb – and somehow this I one of the most delicious coffeecakes I’ve had in years. Looks like I shall be returning to Ballston Spa more frequently…
{Check out The Sweetish Chef website here for more info and order options.}
Am I the last person you know to try an acai bowl? My niece and nephew seem to think so, and they are occasionally correct. It was Noah who mentioned them to me as we passed a store offering fruit bowls for lunch. Then I started asking around and it seems everyone has tried an acai bowl, and has been eating them for years. It’s not that I was never aware of them, they just existed on the periphery of my food journey – something like chicken wings or Orange Julius, ever-present but not a part of my life.
When asking around on what exactly an acai bowl was, the descriptions from friends were wildly off-the-mark and disparate; none of them made me particularly excited about the prospect of putting purple porridge into my body, especially if it was covered in blueberries, green bananas and granola.
As the universe would have it, down the street from my office a new cafe called ‘Blends and Brews’ had just opened, offering a multitude of shakes and smoothies, and about a dozen acai bowls. Taking a pic of the menu, I sent it around to friends and family to get their take on what my virgin acai experience should consist of, and I decided on the basic Acai Berry Bowl.
It was like a slippery frozen yogurt with icy bits, fruitfully tart with a decent amount of sweetness, and more about the toppings of strawberries, blueberries, granola and banana – a more healthy and colorful than a hot fudge sundae, but also a lot less fun. Give me that processed sugar any day. Still, I finished almost the entire bowl, leaving but one tainted blueberry. After it was done, I felt a little like I did the night I lost my gay virginity – slightly let-down, slightly satisfied, not quite hungry for more – the main difference being that I didn’t need to find a cab to take me home from an abandoned warehouse on the Mississippi river where it all went down. I digress…
{That was my fake look of disgust because blueberries were involved… and I won’t sully the end of this post with why I have an issue with blueberries – that’s for a rainier day.}
My friend Betsy gave me a box of Lucky Charms – Marshmallows only! – as part of my birthday gifts this year and it turned out to be one of the more pleasant surprises of the season. I haven’t had Lucky Charms in years – they were a mainstay of my early breakfasts at Brandeis, when I mustered up the strength and energy to make the trek to Sherman Dining Hall. (In later years I would simply grab a bite at Usdan Center instead of walking across campus for hot food.) Every once in a while I’ll pick up a box for nostalgia’s sake.
This gimmicky version was all marshmallows – which made for a cloying bowl of sweetness – proof that too much of a good thing is sometimes too much. While the marshmallows are indeed the best part of a traditional Lucky Charms bowl, having them alone proved an embarrassment of riches. It also turned out that all the milk in the house was bad, so Andy suggested I just use Half & Half in them, which didn’t really tone down the richness much.
Anyway, your kids will love this if you can find it, and it made for a sweet treat at the end of a trying day.
When summer is high, and the grill is on, Andy puts on a steak and cooks it just right. When the deep fryer is in effect, you sprinkle a few tater tots in until they’re golden and good. When the squash is tumbling off the vine, you slice and steam with some salt and pepper. It all makes for a delicious dinner, and in summer everything just tastes better.
A positive post in the midst of swirling negativity.
