078: Rabbit Rabbit
Four, three, we were too fuckin' busy
(SB) Hiii, sweet readers! We’re back after a real monster of a hiatus. We missed writing to all of you, and hope that you managed to stay fed and watered throughout. We also hope that perhaps you missed us back, a little bit, too. Many things happened while we were apart, but there was really one that took up the vast majority of my time: finishing a draft of my dissertation (in a couple of months, there will be two non-medical doctors at the helm of this ship). If you felt compelled to clap, that was the correct impulse. In addition to skipping publication for a few weeks, I also skipped Thanksgiving, Christmas, Diwali, and far too many of your birthdays and celebrations. I did, however, develop a crushing preoccupation with a certain true crime case that kept me up at night. I have also instituted a no-phone before bed policy. These two things may be related, and I’m pleased to report that I’m once again sleeping soundly.
I won’t lie, the last few months have been really challenging for your humble editor. Winter is always blue, but this one has been punctuated by a unique vortex of ambition, desire, and rejection. I’m processing a lot of Big Feelings about what comes next for me by reading novels (I just finished Free Food For Millionaires) and occasionally indulging in feel-good day time television binges. I know that I couldn’t have made it through without the truly astounding amounts of love and care I have received from many of you. Thank you.
Here’s just some of what I ate along the way:
I celebrated making it to the finish line in Philly with friend-of-the-letter Sonalee, who took me to Vientiane for a delicious meal and then to a soft-serve-boba situation I’m still thinking about. Suburban bliss!
A lot of chaat in the Bay Area. My strong recommendation for Chatpatta Chaat in Fremont still stands!
Egg Tarts from Xin Fa Bakery in Sunset Park. Run don’t walk. These are divine: warm, sometimes still-jiggling, and absolutely delicious. Eric and I enjoyed them with little snifters of madeira wine.
(JS) Happy Renaissance World Tour announcement day to those who celebrate! If any friendly readers want to connect over their Citi card information, send us a DM. Jk hahaha…. unless... Unlike my soon-to-be non-medical doctor co-editor, I have not completed any massive writing projects, though I have still managed to eat a lot, and also cook a bit too. During our break from writing, I’ve attempted to live my best seasonally affective life. I’ve escaped dreary New York as frequently as possible in a perhaps futile attempt to trick my smooth reptilian brain with a little vitamin D, only resulting in a brief bout of sun poisoning. I’ve dipped my toe into the wild world of Cl*ssp*ss, and have thus far only sustained one mild injury amidst an inconsistent flow of endorphins. Also I switched my meds - psychiatry, what a concept!
We’re looking forward to getting back into some sort of (Virgo’s) groove. The past few weeks have left me inspired from a culinary perspective, at the very least. Highlights included:
A leisurely (read: five bottle) lunch at Masala y Maíz. No misses on that menu, but the kuku poussin and masala spot prawns are absolute must orders if you find yourself in Mexico City.
The French dip at the Honor Bar. Ding’s chicken sandwich gets a lot of love, but I think we need to start giving the French dip her propers - that’s jus’ my opinion.
Pretty much everything the kitchen has to offer at Palm Heights. Just a few faves included sprats escovitch, plaintain porridge, jerk mushrooms, shrimp sambusas, and the best pineapple upside down cake I’ve ever had.
LETTER OF REC: Winner Winner Fried Chicken Sandwich Dinner
ICYMI, Digestivo began as a pandemic project. We were cooking and eating mostly at home. Now that New York City Is Back™, we’d like to tell you about some of the things we eat outside our own kitchens that are particularly tasty. Think of it less as a foray into food criticism and more as a celebration of the joys of eating out. (JS: Wink.)
(SB) Giving birth has been a useful metaphor for completing my dissertation– it took a long time, it was really painful, and I am experiencing something like postpartum grief now that it’s out the door. Like new mothers across the animal kingdom, I also prepared my home for this moment, dragging back branches and trash (books, articles, snacks) to pad my growing nest. One of my more time consuming tasks in the few weeks post-delivery has been slowly cleaning that stuff out of the apartment in order to bring some light and ease to both the space and my mind.
Predictably, books have proven to be the most challenging items to get rid of. (JS: Guess which non-medical doctor still has two shelves worth of library books to return a cool three years after graduating?) Last week, Willis and I culled a large granny cart’s worth and made a date out of carting it to the Big Reuse in Gowanus. Willis took on the physical challenge of pushing the cart there; I navigated and provided the moral support. By the time we dropped off the goods on the far side of the Gowanus canal, we were hungry and had been for several blocks.
After a few desperate blocks of searching, we remembered Winner, Daniel Eddy’s much-storied Park Slope bakery and cafe. That day, sandwich service was operating out of Runner Up, their twin wine-bar-cum-restaurant. We had arrived too late for pastries and too early for the Friends & Family pop up, but just in time for the last of the sandwiches. The standout was the fried chicken: panko-crusted and pounded thin, piled with a mustard-forward slaw and nestled between two slices of buttery, griddle-toasted pullman bread. It is the kind sandwich that technically does not have much of a shelf life; I could imagine it becoming soggy after even a short walk to the park. But, enjoyed on a bench off 7th Avenue, shivering delicately from the cold? I actually highly recommend it.
RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY SOUP AND SALAD?
(JS) In our time away from your inbox, I enjoyed more than my fair share of requisite extended holiday indulgence: A few days of working (eating) remote in Mexico City, a destination wedding in Puerto Escondido (drinking), Christmas with the family in South Florida (eating and drinking), and a genuine business trip to the Cayman Islands (more eating, more drinking; all in a day’s work). Suffice it to say, I was eager to pump the brakes just a bit when it came time for the dreaded “circling back,” leaning into mostly plant-based dishes that were easily prepped and batched. The combo I found myself coming back to was a soup and salad moment, tweaking a couple of recipes to more or less fit the contents of my fridge following a less than strategic coop haul.
Butternut squash doesn’t do much for me on its own, but throw in a triple threat of nuts, (non-dairy) cream, and heat, and now we’re getting somewhere. I played around with this recipe from Yewande Komolafe, choosing to first roast my squash to concentrate the flavor. I sauteed some shallots with garlic and ginger in a bit of olive oil, then once soft, added my roasted squash, a quarter cup of chunky peanut butter, and a couple cups of water. I let that simmer away for twenty or so minutes before adding a couple dollops of Cocojune and blending to smooth. The soup is excellent on its own, but if you want to up the ante I’d suggest a flurry of fresh cilantro and some chili crisp. This basic formula is also ripe for experimentation - you could swap the peanut butter for tahini, sunflower butter, or a lesser quantity of miso/doenjang, and in lieu of chili crisp you could sautee your aromatics in spices - berbere or piri piri would be my first choice, but use whatever warm blend you’ve got.
For a little midwinter ruffage, I usually turn to chicories. This recipe from the late Bar Tartine is a standby, but the dressing alone calls for twelve ingredients - in my experience you can enjoy a pretty solid dupe with about 60% of those, but I was looking for something a little less labor intensive. *In my Stefon* This salad has everything: bitter radicchio, bright fennel, sweet and chewy dates, toasted walnuts, and crumbly ricotta salata, showered in fresh herbs and tossed in a simple agrodolce vinaigrette. I basically dialed back this roasted radicchio and ricotta ditty from Sarah Jampel, opting not to roast the radicchio, adding shaved fennel for a little extra crunch. I also threw a bit of whole grain mustard into the vinaigrette. At some point I came into possession of white balsamic vinegar - I don’t really recommend it for much, but it sings in this salad. Inoffensive ricotta salata scratches the itch for dairy without overpowering. The salad keeps well in the fridge for at least two days, making it perfect for healthy-ish lunching.
IT TAKES TWO: Mo’ Mochi, No Mo’ Problems
How do we love Mochiko - let us count (two) ways. Over the holidays we expanded our glutinous rice-based horizons with a few inspired takes on butter mochi, courtesy of Frankie Gaw, Margarita Mantzke and Sohla el-Waylly.
(JS) During the earliest weeks of the pandora, a moment when answers were few and far between and trips to the market remained rare and slightly spooky outings, I indulged in an extra large box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch. (SB: Heady days, those.) On weekends I’d dutifully dole this out in half cup servings, a semi-dystopian celebratory breakfast ritual which would conclude with me pouring the cinnamon toast-infused oat milk into my cold brew. (I will shock you with the reminder that Shrimptail-gate in fact occurred in March 2021 - almost a year after this purchase). IMHO, cinnamon toast is one of a select few flavors where the artificial derivatives (e.g. CT Crunch, CT Eggos) outshine the original. Cinnamon + butter + mochi? Sure. But Cinnamon Toast Crunch + butter + mochi? Hell yeah, brother.
Frankie Gaw’s spin on Alana Kysar’s recipe introduces textural contrast to the canonically bouncy Hawaiian butter mochi - his version is pretty spectacular as is, but you can easily get by with just one type of milk (oat, in my case) and would benefit from a heavier pinch of salt. I’m keen to try the whole recipe using salted (and maybe even browned) butter. The combo recalls my family’s corn flake and brown sugar crowned noodle kugel, and has me eager to experiment with a few other flavor combinations both in the batter and on top.
FWIW, I would recommend baking in a pyrex rather than metal so you can ensure a deeply browned and delightfully crisp exterior. Be forewarned, the crunch is highly susceptible to any humidity, so these really will taste their best on the day they were baked. That said, even a slightly soggy CTC mochi is far superior to no mochi at all.
(SB) The bebinca-adjacent jiggle and chewy promise of butter mochi has long called to me. I love a custard. But, when Jake first began experimenting with a cereal milk version, I held back. I’m not big on baking, and I had also once let a bag of Mochiko flour become infested with bugs during the very same height-of-panorama. I bought it to make Pao de Queijo and simply never followed through. That’s the kind of waste shame that haunts me, you know?
My reluctance evaporated when my friend Kyle showed up to an end-of-year potluck with a batch of cupcakes made from this Raspberry-Mochi Butter Cake with Matcha Glaze recipe. They were divine: not too sweet, with barely crisped edges and an understated but distinctly coconut-scented decadence. My only hesitation was the guarantee that I’d Miranda Hobbes a mochi cake of my own. I leapt at the chance to share with guests when it came time to host a little NYE get together and made a version of my own with friend-of-the-letter Eric. We skipped the raspberries, and used chai masala for the glaze instead of matcha. It was delicious.
It wasn’t long before my attention was fully captured by Sohla El-Waylly’s corn-and-cheese mochi snacking cake. Sadly, I have spent the last few months not on the Caymans or the beaches of Mexico (JS: It’s hard out here for a lapsed non-medical doctor), but rather at my desk completing a mammoth dissertation. The experience has all but destroyed the short term memory I had left in this old brain, and I found myself ready to bake but missing a few key ingredients: I was short on mochiko, I had bought frozen corn instead of fresh (it’s winter!!), and I didn’t actually have enough sour cream. Just how adaptable was this “incredibly adaptable” format anyway??
Turns out, quite. Despite chaotically substituting half a cup of whole wheat flour and some old Cocojune to bolster my scant quantity of sour cream, the cake turned out supple, moist, and shapely. Even violating the one rule that Sohla laid out (no frozen corn) didn’t seem to throw a substantive wrench in things. The batter was also welcoming of additional mix-ins; I folded in a small, diced Fresno chili this time and might change things up next time with a few diced jalapenos for more volume and milder heat. I could imagine this particular recipe working well with cilantro and cheddar for a version inspired by chili cheese toast. In addition to being gluten-free and highly addictive, mochi cake’s biggest asset just may be that it’s exceedingly hard to mess up. And for this old brain (which notably, forgot to photograph her work), that’s a gift.
PERMANENT ROTATION: Few recipes are more rewarding than a quick cooking but deeply flavorful stew this time of year, and kimchi jjigae is a forever favorite of ours. Most recipes (like Maangchi’s) are best made with truly ripe kimchi, but if you can only get fresh, Eric Kim suggests fortifying your stew with a bit of gochujang and gochugaru for some extra depth.
WISH LIST
(SB) I’m sure this tiger salt keep from Diaspora Co. is just the kind of silly expensive homeware I should not buy right now, and yet… I want it.
(JS) Is 2023 the year I get into small but bold pieces of statement jewelry? I’m intrigued by a variety of vaguely Byzantine earrings from Pamela Love.
(SB & JS) We were blessed to sit next to chef, writer, and C*lumbia C*llege alumna Klancy Miller at a dinner a couple months ago, and have been more eager than ever to get our hands on her forthcoming book For the Culture, a collection of interviews, inspiration, and recipes from Black women and femmes in food (stemming from the magazine of the same name). Preorder here!