064: Vaccine Mixing and Other Curative Cocktails
Plus, a shameless plug to add Digestivo to your influencer outreach list 🤡
(JS) Hello again, sweet readers. We’re back and better than ever last week! We’re barreling toward that part of the year where it starts to get dark not long after lunch, and I’m doing my best not to make that fact become my entire personality. Did you know seasonal depression now qualifies you for a covid booster? Get the shot, baby, get the shot! I’m sure there’s nothing you love more than us droning on about how busy we are (what was graduate school but a seven year opportunity to complain about deeply niche tasks we personally elected to do), but rest assured we’re both working hard and playing hard in fair Brooklyn and beyond. Since we last found ourselves in your inbox, I’ve been chugging along getting the hang of a new job and eating out in a manner that doesn’t quite match up with my pay grade. Plus, I somehow squeezed in a weekend trip to Maine, replete with much of the fare one would expect that to entail (Tandem biscuits; lobster; a god tier chicken sandwich at Palace Diner). Two thumbs up, and many thanks to friend of the newsletter Sus for her top notch hospitality.
Here’s a little snapshot of what else I’ve been eating:
Julia Child’s bouillabaisse, with Maine haddock and clams, served with many slices of Apt. 2 focaccia and old reliable Bar Tartine’s chicory salad
Something I’m calling “dipping sauce salmon,” taking inspiration from this permanent rotation hit and my standard dumpling and scallion pancake dip (soy sauce, chili oil, black vinegar); basically, lay a filet of salmon on shaved ginger and scallions; mix roughly 1:1 soy sauce, chili oil, and black vinegar and pour over salmon; roast for 15 minutes at 300 and enjoy
Three MSG martinis at the Bonnie’s “No Gas Party” this weekend; your humble narrators boldly declare these deliciously salty and alarmingly crushable cocktails Good Soup™; trust we’re hard at work trying to figure out the recipe
(SB) Dear readers! It’s been a minute. Did you even notice the little mid-Autumn break we took there? Neither did we. To be frank, the past few weeks have been rich in convivial cheer and light on completing pressing tasks in my world. There’s been a lot to celebrate: Diwali, the release of boyfriend-of-the-letter Willis’s new EP, and a slew of stunningly gorgeous fall days in all their red-leafed, blue-skied glory. I’ve been having a lot of… fun? (JS: But now we said it.) It feels strange to say out loud, especially with my dissertation and the singed-garbage embers of American Higher Education skulking at me from the corner, but there you have it.
Our kitchen-slash-living room set up has been coming along slowly, and my diet has contained a hearty amount of Trader Joe’s frozen basics, Rancho Gordo-powered breakfast tacos, and many, many patties from around the neighborhood. My favorites include the jerk plantain and pumpkin from Veggies and the callaloo and vegetable from Errol’s. I’m always open to recs, if you’ve got em. In the meantime, here’s what else I’ve been eating:
In addition to drinking three of my new favorite drink (the MSG martini, see above) I also got acquainted with the absolutely massive Spicy Marg at Mo’s Original, and have only good things to say.
While in L.A. last week, I took it upon myself to complete an informal survey of some of the most Hotly Discussed Burgers of the West Side. My humble rankings are as follows: R+D Kitchen wins for when you want a little treat, have time for a martini on the side, and feel like watching the movers and shakers of Montana Avenue; the burger at Father’s Office was a wee bit salty but more than redeemed by my particular delight at being able to enter as an adult of legal drinking age with a real ID and the Triple White Sage from Pasadena-based Craftsman Brewing on tap; as always, hitting the In N Out drive through after hours remains the best burger, deal, and good time time this girl can dream up!
The best meal of my week? Samosa with chana from Punjabi Grocery Deli. It was hot, it was fresh, it was luscious.
GLD: Blueberry Oatmeal Sichuan Peppercorn Galette
(JS) Last week I found myself with a couple pints of not so flavorful blueberries leftover from our Vacationland grocery haul. Before you ask, they were not Maine blueberries, but berries purchased in Maine, originally from Florida; please don’t @ me. (SB: >.>) I used a cup or so in these small batch blueberry muffins, allegedly based on the recipe from Levain Bakery, but was overall disappointed in my results, which were not nearly as top heavy as the picture and prototype promised. (FWIW I know those muffins all too well. I worked at Levain back when they were a mere two shop enterprise, slinging $4 cookies and whole milk lattes to unending lines of tourists while refusing – per the owner's policy – to accept tips; a tip jar was, in their words, “gauche.”) (SB: On the bright side, Jake would frequently bring back cookies to the pack of hungry college-aged wolves he lived with at the time.)
ANYWAY, I’d very recently made my nana’s blueberry cake and, in a moment of virtuous self-abnegation, resisted making and personally housing this newsletter’s favorite crumble. TLDR, I wanted to try something exciting and a little different. Leave it to our favorite culinary maximalist Mandy Lee of Lady and Pups to come through with a sichuan peppercorn blueberry oatmeal pie. Because pie is perhaps a heavy lift during the work week, I converted the recipe into a more approachable galette and split it across two days, making my dough the night before then assembling and baking in the morning – basically just make the single crust version of the Four and Twenty all butter crust, and then scale everything else down (save for the Sichuan pepper) by 2/3.
Often I’m just not excited about blueberry pie, as it usually skews both saccharine and soupy, but this one was neither. Mandy’s pie cuts back on the sugar to let the natural sweetness of the fruit shine, while the Sichuan pepper offers a subtle floral note. Blending heat and savoriness into standard baking spices is a reliable way to perk up classics; garam masala > pumpkin spice, and that’s that on that. I think if I were to remake this I might even double the Sichuan pepper, boldly asking the question, can/should desserts be tingly and numbing? (SB: yes!) As for the soupyness, a layer of oats mixed with white and brown sugar and milk (or sour cream, in my case) absorbs excess juice and adds a lovely textural contrast. Besides this handy hack, finishing the bake on the bottom of the oven (or a pizza stone) cuts down on the likelihood of a soggy crust. Not so pro tip: it’s really fucking hard to overbake fruit pies and galettes. If you think yours could use a bit more time in the oven, (in my Cranberries) let it linger. Trust me, it’s worth it.
Chow for Now
(SB) There are a few weekends in late autumn that are so spectacularly stunning that one is contractually obligated, as a resident of New York City, to spend their Sunday ignoring both the scaries and shirking plans to do laundry in order to wander around an Olmsted-designed public park marveling at foliage. This past Sunday was one of those days, and I had the good fortune to also stumble upon a little market situation on Eastern Parkway. (This bitch lives for a Farmer’s Market! She dies for a flea market! Her kingdom for a group of artisans selling their wares on a sunny afternoon!) Never one to turn from a free sample, I soon found myself tasting sips of Uncle Yankey’s Peppa Sauce. After I took a small shot of the pineapple sauce straight to the face, the keeper of the sauces presented me with a piece of pineapple on a fork as a reward and a balm to cool off my mouth (JS: Salonee can have a little marinated pineapple, as a treat). She explained that it was chow from Trinidad (Trini Chow), basically a mixture of lime juice, garlic, culantro, and pepper sauce coating sweet hunks of pineapple. Suffice to say I bought a bottle on my way out and wasted no time making some of my own.
Chow is often prepared with green mango when in season, conjuring visions of a cooling snack for hot and humid conditions. I gather, from my googling, that using the same basic formula on whatever sweet/tart fruit you have on hand is common practice. And, while this chow will almost surely be making a permanent appearance on my summertime snack rotation, the pineapple version offered me some much needed sunshine in the face of winter’s impending gloom. Culantro, which I had first heard of during friend of the letter Eva’s search for sofrito ingredients, is also known as sh/chado beni, sawtooth coriander, coulante, recao, and bhandhania (JS: she contains multitudes). It is a cousin of the more ubiquitous cilantro (dhania, for the armchair linguists out there) with longer leaves and a lingering flavor. In my humble, Little Caribbean-adjacent opinion, it’s worth trying to locate some. The recipe couldn’t be simpler: combine three or four thinly sliced cloves of garlic, the juice of two limes, and a generous handful of finely chopped culantro. You can certainly use chopped hot peppers here, but I added a healthy dash of Uncle Yankey’s Peppa Sauce to my mixture; if subbing in sauce, look for a scotch bonnet or habañero-based option. Then, add in your pineapple hunks and give the mixture a good stir. I liked it best after letting it all sit for about thirty minutes, but it was hard to wait: the chow is addictively spicy-sweet, and I found myself eating the entire bowl before it made it to the table as a side. I’ll be making it again as a side for some salmon tonight.
The Only Supreme You’ll Find ‘Round These Parts
(JS) If I were to create an upwardly mobile and generally online millennial New Yorker’s day trip to Hudson Instagram story bingo card, it would probably include a juicy shot of chicken and schmaltzy potatoes from Kitty’s. Highly photogenic destination eats are not always worth the hype, but this chicken does in fact slap. Less frequently grammed though no less delicious is their chopped salad supreme, a crunchy and colorful melange of carrots, celery, radishes, and select seasonal veg tossed in punchy kimchi vinaigrette, then nestled inside a cabbage leaf and sprinkled with sesame seeds. It’s the ideal bright and funky foil to cut the fat from the chicken and potatoes, especially if you’re dunking them in chile oil and aioli. Bon Appetit published the recipe – or at least a version of it, which commenters clearly did not fuck with – earlier this year.
FWIW, the dressing as currently written is a good starting point, and can be tinkered with according to your tastes. Of course, the flavors will depend a lot on the kimchi you’re working with – at the risk of being the white guy who explains kimchi (at the height of kimjang season to boot!), I’ll gently remind y’all that kimchi continues to ferment with age and becomes increasingly ripe, so starting with a younger kimchi may mean you’ll want to double down on fish sauce or rice vinegar for sufficient funk. I also like to blend some scallions into the dressing for a little extra allium action. As for veg, the world is really your crunchy oyster – fennel is a personal favorite, and I’d be curious to try some quick pickled shallots for a one-two punch of acid. Make a big batch so you can have leftovers – the flavors will deepen in the fridge for something between a side and a condiment, perfect for spooning over grain bowls, sandwiches, and your latest spin on the Emily Mariko salmon rice.
PERMANENT ROTATION: Is it a copout if we plug Four and Twenty Blackbirds’ all butter crust this week? It’s simply the best! No notes!
WISH LIST
(JS) I’m on the hunt for a sizable plant to sit in my north-facing window. I’m intrigued by the skinny legend that is dracaena marginata from Da-Hing, but open to your ideas. Fiddle leaf figs need not apply.
(SB) I need a new winter coat! I have my eye on a recycled plastic puffer from Girlfriend Collective, but I’m curious if any of you have intel on any chic, warm, and surprisingly affordable winter puffers? (And, you know, once again, I beseech you all: put Digestivo on your press list! Give us beautiful free things! Take a risk on the little newsletter that could!)
(JS & SB) Truth be told, it feels like we’re the only people on the internet who haven’t tried the new Fly By Jing dumplings and we’d like to change that. (See above.)
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