054: Holding Space with J*ff B*zos
I am getting so hot, I'm going to enjoy some cultured dairy
(SB) It sure is hot over here, lovely readers. The last handful of days have lingered around a stultifying 90 degrees, and I’m left with the feeling that I stressed and snoozed my way through an incredibly brief spring (it felt short, right?), awaking sticky with sweat and in the middle of what already feels like dog days of summer. I, for one, feel unprepared. Though we managed to get our window unit in by the end of the weekend, my few remaining reserves of energy and motivation to do essential household and professional tasks has evaporated into what our governor described as a “thick wave of humidity” this weekend. Instead of installing curtains (needed) or completing long awaited de-cluttering projects (maybe the heat would feel less oppressive in a more empty apartment?) I've found myself once again in the mood to exclusively read novels (I just finished Sarah Schulman’s Rat Bohemia and Lauren Oyler’s Fake Accounts) and drink natural wine outdoors. I’m gearing up to skip town for a couple of weeks (yes, I requested & received an absentee ballot!!!) to see my family for the first time in nearly a year (!) and making peace with the fact that my kitchen will surely be a uniquely unappealing place to spend time when I return.
I haven’t done a whole lot of cooking this week, but here’s what I ate:
Jerk chicken, whole coconuts, and vegan Jamaican curry enjoyed in sweltering shade during the much appreciated return of Drums Along the Hudson.
A visit from friend of the letter Alison inspired a transcendent trip to Via Carota, where we had a short wait and ate several things, including negronis bianco and the whole branzino. We also returned to Xi ‘An Famous Foods, where I enjoyed an A1: cold skin noodle (as is traditional) in the park with a brown-baggie Sapporo. I don’t make the rules, I simply respect them.
Lobster rolls & plenty of fried things from Lenny and Joe’s Fish Tale and a big fresh clam pie from Zuppardi’s on either side of a visit to Hammonasset State Beach with the wonderful Working Group on Globalization and Culture.
(JS) Sweet readers, I’m gonna give it to you straight: perhaps it’s partly because of the aforementioned thicc wave of humidity, but I’m feeling absolutely kooky this week and have also done very little cooking of my own. I know I’ve been making the same New York is Back™ joke for months at this point, but my schedule is suddenly teeming with dinner dates and family visits (not to mention w*rk) in a way that feels very 2019. I went to #theclub on Friday for the first time since February 2020, an experience that was overall disappointing considering it was my first opportunity to soak in the glory of Rain on Me and far too little of Future Nostalgia in the company of mostly homosexual strangers. This is not a brag so much as an admission that I’m feeling a little bit overstretched and directionless these days. NYMag claims FOMO is back, but for me, the feeling is more one of self interrogation – is this my return of Saturn? Even my feature for this week is a dip into the archives, a sort of aspirational offering of what I’d like to be eating if I had the forethought and freezer space. Fortunately we’re rapidly approaching the time of year when in season ingredients will do most of the work for you (cut to me gnawing on a straight stalk of rhubarb, eyes glazed over, mumbling “this is fine”).
Here’s what I’ve been eating:
Turned my extra pissaladière dough into a potato/caper pizza sort of thing
Enjoyed a fat Niçoise-y salad with the family over the weekend, including super rare grilled tuna in lieu of the usual olive oil-packed situ; leftover tuna (can you imagine) found itself in a poke-inspired prep with avocado, soy, lime, shallot, and cilantro, served with potato chips
Steamed clams with butter, shallots, beer, and chopped parsley. For all my kvetching above, these absolutely slapped.
Note from The Eds: We’ve been thinking a lot about how to make Digestivo a sustainable project as we move into our second year of writing to all of you, and are excited to announce a few changes. We’ll be taking next week off, and when we return Digestivo will publish in full form every other week; in the off weeks we’ll be trialing something new! Thank you to each of you for your continued support, attention, and appetite for our nonsense 👁 👄👁
HOT IN HERRE: Slow-Cooker Caramelized Alliums
(SB) Spicy Village is famous and beloved for many reasons, perhaps most prominently a combination of the Big Tray Chicken, hand-pulled noodles, and a generous BYOB policy. On a recent visit, Alison and I were in search of another, less storied but equally delicious dish: the scallion sauce dumplings, vegetable dumplings covered in a light gingery sauce with caramelized shallots, plenty of scallions, and sprinkled with fresh cilantro. We gobbled up all twelve in record time, and I was left dreaming of those caramelized shallots.
Famously, caramelizing alliums is time-intensive. While they are delicious, standing in front of my stove for many minutes is absolutely not something that I can do in this weather. And, as Tom Socca has pointed out, liars abound when it comes to this subject in recipes. I had seen various articles crop up about the promise of caramelizing onions in an Instant Pot during the IP heyday, and was finally compelled to give it a try this week. Since I was out for most of the day, I opted for the slow-cooker method, though I’m curious enough to report back on a pressure-cooker version in time. Watch this space.
First, I heated a generous but unmeasured pour of olive oil in my Instant Pot’s sautee function, tossing in four roughly diced onions. I stirred to make sure that the onions were evenly coated with oil, adding a little bit more for good measure, and sealed the pot. I set them to slow cook for 12 hours, and returned to find the onions soft and lightly golden, if a little watery (JS: pissaladière hopefuls, take note). I had a little time and wanted a richer color, so I removed my lid and set the pot to “slow cook,” leaving the mixture (uncovered) for another couple of hours. I occasionally stirred, but didn’t do much else. Eventually, I accepted their pleasant sweet and mildness as part of the package and packed them up to use in the coming weeks.
I’m already struck by their promise. I’m envisioning spooning them onto frozen dumplings, adding them to quick fried-rices, and throwing a spoonful onto toast and cream cheese. A few extra minutes on a skillet renders a spoonful nice and jammy for recipes that call for a little more flavor. Next time, I plan to try with shallots. One might throw in a sprig of thyme or rosemary if you’re feeling so inclined.
HOT IN HERRE: Swirled Yogurt Popsicles
(JS) Allegedly we’re still a good two weeks away from the official start of summer, yet overnight my apartment has turned into a full on sauna. Hot on the heels of preaching to you about breakfast cake, I come to you this week with another ~out of the box~ treat to spice (or sweeten) up your morning routine: yogurt popsicles a la Smitten Kitchen. But first, a caveat. As I peeled away my rapidly disintegrating Br**klinen sheets from my sticky body on Monday morning, I couldn’t help but wonder: why did I throw away my popsicle mold? Well dear readers, I’ll tell you why – popsicle molds are by and large a waste of space. They sit in the cabinet for maybe 90% of the year, and when you finally commit to making moves, chances are you’ll have to rearrange most of the contents of your freezer to create a flat surface with ample overhead room to give the sticks clearance. Until my mid pandemic kitchen purge, I had the exact same molds pictured in Deb’s photos, an inexplicable combination of plastic and metal that was shockingly difficult to unmold if your sticks were anything less than perfectly straight (homophobic). Adding insult to injury, the POS lid cracked early in its tenure, rendering three of the five popsicle molds unusable. I’ve not yet tried them myself, but I think if I were to reinvest I’d go with a silicone model – for this type of investigative journalism I’d normally turn to The Strategist, but alarmingly their 2019 “I Can’t Stop Buying Popsicle Molds” roundup includes the aforementioned offender among its ranks, so I just don’t know who to trust. This is really just a long winded way of saying that I love this recipe, but fully recognize that the concept of popsicle molds may be a dealbreaker for some, and would welcome unconventional suggestions for popsicle crafting (no offense to Deb, but glass and especially champagne flutes [?!] seem risky).
BUT… if you should choose to suck it up, dust off the old molds, and clear out your freezer, Deb’s recipe (adapted from paleta princesa Fany Gerson of the late La Newyorkina) is the perfect place to start. Begin by macerating berries of your choice in lemon or lime juice with a squeeze of honey. Then, make a quick simple syrup – Deb flavors hers just slightly with citrus peel, but you could probably get creative here with herbs and spices. Chill the syrup in an ice bath, then when it’s cool to the touch, whisk with Greek yogurt – I’ve had success with full fat and 2%. Blend your macerated berries to your desired texture – the blackberry puree can become a little seedy, so I’d recommend straining, or sticking to something like blueberries or raspberries instead. Alternating between the yogurt and berry puree, fill your molds until ¼ inch from the top, then use a skewer (or the sticks) to swirl the two together. Freeze until solid, preferably overnight, then unmold and savor, perhaps reenacting the most iconic Sears commercial of all time.
HOT IN HERRE: Gimme Gimme Neer More
(SB) This kind of weather plays tricks on an appetite, and I was somewhat shocked to see that over the course of the last 54 weeks (!) we had yet to cover a staple of my summertime diet: neer more, a spiced buttermilk drink popular on the subcontinent. It is often drunk after a meal to settle the stomach, but I haven taken to enjoying it like breakfast or a lazy lunch when the weather is oppressive. Particularly popular in South India, neer more has many variations and preparations: some add asfoteida, some like to blend it, some temper their ingredients, and others like to use thinned yogurt instead of buttermilk. I encourage you to experiment and do your own research, but what follows is my own process.
To spice a standard 32-oz carton of buttermilk, you’ll need about a tablespoon of black mustard seeds, 15 curry leaves, a large tablespoon of grated ginger or ginger paste, salt to taste and either a green chile or a teaspoon of red chili powder. I like to use my Diaspora Co. spices and the pre-processed tubes of ginger paste found in the refrigerated section. This is, as I mentioned, supposed to be easy. Crush all of the above in a mortar and pestle to form a paste. The curry leaf stems may not be crushed, and you can either remove them or leave them in depending on how much you dislike picking stems from your cold beverages (JS: tbt to stem tea). Add the paste to the bottom of a pitcher, pour over a carton of buttermilk and stir. Place everything in the fridge and let the flavors meld for about an hour. When it’s done, you can drink it straight up or, if you’re feeling bold, pour it over some leftover rice for a make-shift curd rice situation.
PERMANENT ROTATION: Keeping with this week’s theme of “too hot to think”, have you tried slaking your thirst with a little nimbu pani yet? Chaat masala works great if you don’t have kala namak.
WISH LIST
(SB) There are many fascinating things about the foolishly wealthy, but one the most consistently beguiling to me, someone who has Googled “how do some women always smell so good”, is how they scent a home. After the delicate and unknowable fragrance of Aesop wafted out of Via Carota and into the streets, I got to searching again and am sad to report that I really want this incredibly stupid and expensive Aesop fragrance burner.
(JS) I’m on the hunt for some *in my Ina* good dried rose petals for cooking and baking – both Diaspora Co and Rose Dose are currently sold out, so if anyone has a trusted gulabi guy or gal, please get in touch.
(SB & JS) Forever intrigued by new SPF offerings, we couldn’t help but click on Bask’s Feel Good Lotion & Spray Bundle, characterized by a “light vanilla and coconut aroma to inspire a nostalgic yet elevated trip to your childhood.” Cursed copy or extremely compelling marketing? U decide.
You know what else is hot? Our instagram. Give us a follow if you’re cool. Sorry.