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Category Archives: Food

Making Tom My Own

This Tom Yum soup is the ideal antidote for these frigid days – warm to the taste, both from the spice and temperature – and packed with the traditional flavors of Thailand. I’ve made a few variations and deviations based on what was in the house, but it’s a soup that bends beautifully beneath such changes. Instead of Thai chiles, I used a habanero. Instead of galangal I used ginger. Miraculously, we had the lemon grass and kaffir lime leaves in the freezer from a previous summer. Andy had a pound of shrimp on hand from a batch we forgot to put out for a recent family dinner. I picked up some mushrooms after work, and used some remaining tomatoes and a new bottle of fish sauce to round it all out. It was just the slightest bit too biting when I first sampled it, so I added some coconut milk to temper it – not too much… these are icy days and nights

Stay warm, friends.

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Coq Soup

Winter… and we’re very much in it. Lunch-time scrambles to nearby food places prove a dire battle against icy winds ever since our office building cafe went out of business. A Tibetan blanket of soft wool makes for a heavy and oversized scarf; wrapped around my head and neck, it provides a portable cocoon that allows for a cozy walk. 

The soup and stew days are upon us, so I made this chicken soup for a friend whose family has been stricken with the nasty cold/flu thing that is going around. Simmering chicken and vegetables and a few bay leaves fills the house with the scent of comfort and coziness, turning plain water into a rich stock in just a few hours of patient heat. Making soup is like making tea – a ritual tailor-made for winter, for rumination, for survival. 

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Shame on You… Shame on All Of You

Yes, you.

And shame on everyone who knew about the glory that is the chocolate orange and just sat on that knowledge without so much as whispering its magic and wonder to me. (Not to be confused with the chocolate starfish or a starfruit.)

This is Terry’s Chocolate Orange, and apparently much of the world was aware of its awesomeness and yet no one bothered to introduce it to me until Andy gave me one for Christmas. At first I assumed it was some lovely trifle of candy, which I piled in with the rest of the treats I received.

Then I tried it.

Is this the best chocolate I have ever tasted? 

Quite possibly. At the very least, it was a revelation.

The instructions to ‘Tap and Unwrap’ are no joke – you do need to give this a fun tap, and not the shy kind, at which point it will open up its inner orange form and fall into bite-size slices easier than a real orange would. Such whimsy! I was instantly obsessed, but Andy says they only come out around the holidays, and of course we are no longer in the holiday times, so shame on all of you who kept this secret all these years. 

If you happen to find any hanging around on clearance, you know where to send them. 

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#TinyThreads: An Insignificant Series

Turn cabbage into pizza?

Abso-fucking-lutely not. 

The cauliflower crust nonsense was bad enough. 

What is wrong with all of you?

#TinyThreads

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Easiest Fondue I’ve Ever Made

New Year’s Eve is one of those weird quasi-holidays that sometimes gets us rallied and sometimes finds us sleeping through the whole thing. This year we invited Suzie’s family over, as has become somewhat of an occasional tradition, for an eclectic meal of whatever comfort food is on hand. Years past we tried to get a fondue ritual together – and for several gatherings I got out Suzie’s fondue set (for some reason she wasn’t using the one gifted to her years ago) and made a traditional cheese fondue – with the garlic rub, the kirsch, the gruyere and the cubed bread and green apples for dipping. 

This year I said fuck it – fondue is such a beast to clean (or so Andy told me, repeatedly) especially when you try to keep it warm with a sterno or tea light that just solidified a burnt circle of soot onto the bottom of the fancy fondue pot – whoopsie daisy as I used to say. Then I saw a cup of fondue at Trader Joe’s – La Fondue – and bought it as a joke. Of course I forgot to heat it up on NYE when everyone was here, but I found it this week and used the sourdough bread that Milo had made as a vehicle to test it out. 

Y’all, Traders Joe’s doesn’t dick around with this fondue. Somehow they got it all right – not sure there is any kirsch in this but damn it is decent – just as good as any fiasco I might have conjured, minus all the mess. 

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An Endless Omelette By Andy

One of the rediscovered joys of this holiday season has been home-time with Andy. While it’s always been something I’ve appreciated and adored, it means a bit more as the world around us shudders with awfulness, and even those people we thought would be with us forever dwindle and disappear. A time of uncertainty brings a time of realignment, and finding refuge in a partner is the safest bastion against an ever-threatening world. 

On a recent morning I requested one of his omelettes – he opted for a ham and cheese, and turned it into an endless plate of delectable goodness, one that went on almost too long for me to finish it. Almost – I can fit a lot into my mouth and stomach (just ask Andy how I got the nickname ‘Gummie’). When you fill the stomach with a meal made by a loved one, you fill the heart as well, and a full heart is how the holidays should be celebrated. 

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A Lunch of Leftovers

Today I made creamed turkey on toast like Gram used to do, because who doesn’t love a roux? 

What this simple meal lacks in visual appeal and ingredient complexity, it makes up for in comfort and rustic charm – and the happy memories of Gram spending the holidays with us. It was easier saying goodbye to her after Thanksgiving because we knew we’d see her in a few weeks for Christmas.

That was one of my favorite parts of the holidays. 

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Andy Has the Best Balls

Throughout this fall’s tumultuous online trajectory, one of the unheralded and all-too-often unseen pillars of support has been Andy. That’s typical the case in a general sense, but when I’m down or unsure, he seems to know when to be there, such as in this delicious comfort food dinner of spaghetti and meatballs. When the weather dips into the cycle of usual fall doldrums, a spaghetti dinner is one of those easy pick-me-ups that can shift the emotional arc of a day, or at the very least make dinner a bright spot. 

Andy makes amazing meatballs (as previously celebrated here) – it was one of the first meals he ever made for me back when we had just started dating. Over the years, he has experimented and perfected his recipe for sauce, and there is always a ready pot of it in the fridge on days when you need a little extra comfort. 

It also makes for a happy post to finish this early week of fall – come back for tomorrow morning’s recap to catch up on all the drama you might have missed for the past 49 years…

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Andy’s Towering Eggplant

Fresh off the culinary success of Andy’s take on fried green tomatoes, he went back into the kitchen to craft this insane tower of fried eggplant, interspersed with burrata, balsamic glaze, and fresh basil. We first had something like this at Angelina’s Restaurant in Ogunquit, Maine – and it was a welcome revelation. We went back there several times just for this dish. 

As we’re currently under the semi-annual spell of the deep fryer (we can only bring it out two or three times a year or we’d have heart attacks and die) it’s been a week of fried glory – next up is fried okra, courtesy of Suzie’s vegetable garden. 

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A Summer-Salvaging Moment by Andy

When we visited Savannah several years ago, Andy and I had a delicious dish of fried green tomatoes that turned me into a fan. To be fair, I’m a fan of fried anything, even if it’s an unripened tomato, and since then he’s been planning and plotting how to recreate that dish. When we put our fryer into its semi-annual rotation, he found a bag of green tomatoes and set up assembling a summer lunch that recalled and celebrated the best of the season, something of which I’d sort of lost sight and faith

He perfected it without any practice, producing this delicious dish of fried green tomatoes, augmented by a drizzle of balsamic glaze, some burrata, a sprinkling of green onions and some tomato chutney. It was just as good as the original.

It brought back happy memories of Savannah, happy memories of summer, and happy memories of Andy whenever he gets to work in the kitchen. We needed a happy moment here.

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Hi, Hi, Miss American Pie

Pie never did much for me. On my list of preferred desserts, it’s near the bottom. Not that I’ve ever turned a pie down if that’s the sweet treat to close out a dinner (Andy makes a mean one), it’s just not my favorite. For holidays, however, it seems that pie is often the choice for dessert – especially Thanksgiving and Christmas. For yesterday’s low-key non-celebration of the 4th of July, I picked up a small apple pie, because they say nothing is more American than apple pie. Whether that’s true or not, I have neither the energy nor the desire to investigate or argue – we’re talking about a fucking pie.

With some whipped cream and a double serving of softened vanilla ice cream, we made this one into apple pie à la mode, which sounds way more French than American to me, but what the fuck do I know? 

PS – I don’t hate pie because I’m gay. I’m gay because I hate the pie

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Ring Around the Burrata

Andy has been on a burrata bend of late, and I’m reaping the benefits of it in plates like this, which features a ring of heirloom tomatoes outfitted with fresh basil from the garden and a generous drizzle of a balsamic glaze. Taken with bites of burrata, it makes for a glorious combination to form a light lunch, or happy appetizer for a simple summer dinner. 

Simplicity is key for summer contentment

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Under a Wizard’s Delicious Spell

Appearing almost magically across the street from downtown Albany’s oldest store, Wizard Burger has been around for a couple of years, but I never took the opportunity to try it out until last week – and it was a happy and fortuitous revelation, as the pickings for lunch during the week in downtown are scant to say the least. Part of my reluctance is that I’m generally a meat-loving guy, so if I’m going to have a burger, I always thought I wanted it to be a meat burger. I was wrong. All of the selections at Wizard burger are vegan, but unless someone told you that you might not necessarily notice or believe it. The flavors and combos are that surprisingly satisfying .

Asking which burger on the menu was a good beginner’s choice, I took the advice of the person behind the counter and ordered their Big Kahuna (which seemed like a bold suggestion, given the pineapple and pickled jalapeño combo), as well as an order of their Buffalo-style fries (also vegan, despite their spicy taste and breaded-chicken-like appearance). Both were insanely good – the burger also had a soy glaze and some house mayo, all of which made for a sweet and savory and spicy combination that packed more flavor and punch than any burger I’ve had in the past year. The fries were no joke either, and while the creamy sauce accompanying them bore no similarity to the potent blue cheese that one may be accustomed to, it was no less delicious for the difference. All in all, it was a crazy satisfying meal, and I’ll be back again to fall under a different spell (the Wiz Mac sounds like a magnificently magical variation on the Big Mac, while the Magicano is their jackfruit-based take on pulled pork). And I haven’t even gotten started on the other fries and burritos…

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The Swedish Candy Craze

While I crave a daily sweet treat, that craving rarely comes in the desire for candy. That recently changed when the Swedish candy craze that’s been taking social media by storm deposited clips of colorful bunches of chewy, gummy deliciousness on my feed, dangling those delectable bites of sweet and tart along with their supplier links right at my double-click-to-pay fingertips. It was all too tempting to pass by, and so I ordered my first batch of sour candy mix from Bon Bon, a purveyor of Swedish candy based in New York City. Today they arrived, and they are just as enjoyable as they appear – a rarity when so much online food looks amazing until you get it into your mouth. 

This collection offers lemon, watermelon, cola, peach, and all sorts of combinations that straddle the mouthwatering line between sweet and sour, resulting in a gloriously-tart experience that explodes in the mouth like oh so many other sweetly scandalous things. 

Next up on my wish list is a sampling of their Summer mix, as well as their Jelly’Marshmallow mix. They will make for the ideal coquette sweet treat in this coquette summer. 

Life is too short not to taste the candy.

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A Mexican Salad Recipe

Full-disclosure: I’m posting this for my own reference. In the same way that I look up this tres leches cake or this holiday mocktail, or this Ghapama recipe, I will simply google my name and whatever the recipe I’m looking for, instead of searching through a pile of wrinkled, stained printed-out recipes that have been through the wear-and-tear of a kitchen season. This Mexican salad I made up the other day was such a winner that I’m doing my best to remember exactly what I put in it and how it was assembled. What follows is my best guess (and it’s all a guess since I can’t remember what happened two minutes ago, much less two days). 

Mexican Salad

1 heart of romaine lettuce, finely chopped

3 small tomatoes, chopped

1 ripe avocado, chopped

1 small can whole kernel corn, drained and rinsed  (or about 1 cup, fresh)

1 can black beans (drained and rinsed)

1 green pepper, chopped

Dressing:

1/4 cup olive oil

2 Tbsp white balsamic vinegar

1 Tbsp lime juice

1 big bunch fresh cilantro

1 garlic clove, chopped

Salt and pepper

Process:

Mix all ingredients in large bowl. Blend dressing ingredients with immersion blender and pour over salad. Toss and mix well.

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