Category Archives: Food

A rather unremarkable cliffhanger finds satisfactory resolution here, as our cucamelon harvest has been as robust as anything else this summer (which is to say less than expected, but by the end we would take anything as a success). It’s been a wildly inconsistent summer, and quite frankly I gave up on everything halfway through it. Now that it’s harvest time, it all feels a little anticlimactic. The Anti-Climax, now that’s a song Taylor Swift needs to record, and I hope she puts some cucamelon into it. 

These little cucumbers look just like baby watermelons, and in the pics that will follow, I’ll scoop some up to give you some perspective on how small they actually are. Their taste is on the tart and sour side, which I happen to enjoy because I’m nothing if not tart and sour. Nobody brings out my sweet side now – that Alan can’t come to the phone anymore – ask Taylor. 

And so, in my hands rest little globules of tartness bordering on bitter, deceptively adorable, misleadingly cute, and tempting for all the wrong reasons. Try some, eat one… said the witch. 

Witches can be right… giants can be good…

Please God may this not be an ongoing feature, but for the moment it’s Buffalo chicken wings. Andy introduced me to the glory of the Buffalo chicken wing back when we met twenty-three years ago, and in my mid-twenties my stomach could handle them with nary a gurgle.

Fast-forward to today, and I need two solid days (and as many bowel movements) to recover from eating a batch of them. No matter how healthy I trick myself into thinking they might be (because celery sticks) I simply have to face the sad fact that a fried piece of chicken doused in hot sauce and blue cheese dressing will never be good for me. 

What is it about a bundt cake that makes it seem to taste so much better than any other cake? Is it the visual sumptuousness and simplicity of the shape? The dribble of glaze that said shape provides for such regular rivulets? We eat more than we think with our eyes. 

This basic bundt is the Harvey Wallbanger cake, the recipe of which may be found here. It’s worth a try (and if you don’t have the Galliano on hand, because no one really does, a Sambuca or Yellow Chartreuse makes a fine substitute). For this one, in place of the 3/4 cup orange juice that keeps this sweet and moist, I took the time to squeeze a few Mandarins that made it even better than I remember. 

Happy Bundting!

For all those who have already celebrated today’s date, I give you this mouth-watering image of a chocolate chip cookie. Yes, it’s already halfway gone, perhaps not unlike you, and though I’m not currently having an old-fashioned pot party here myself, absolutely no judgment to those who are. Happy 4/20 everybody! 

(If you want further visual munchies, check out this post. Yum-yum!)

Forty-seven years into this life it’s difficult to find any revelations that profoundly shift the make-up of the man I’ve become in all that time. Every once in a while, however, there comes a situation that does shift everything I thought I knew, and on Friday night that came from a discussion with Suzie about eggs. Apparently it makes me look like a complete and total ass (I’m paraphrasing Andy) but that sort of jolt is good for a perfectionist Virgo who up until a few years ago genuinely believed he could do little to no wrong. My how times have changed…

All my life, I’ve assumed that eggs just came in one basic size. I’d only half-noticed the large and extra-large and Grade A markings on the cartons, and to be honest I just thought those were marketing strategies, like ‘World’s Greatest Butter’ or ‘Extra-large pumpkins’. Whenever I saw a recipe that called for one large egg, I would simply open the fridge and look for the largest egg I could find and use that. It always worked. 

Imagine my shock to find that ‘large’ and ‘extra-large’ were two very different and distinct egg sizes/weights, and there were more too, like ‘medium’ and ‘jumbo’. Perhaps you can’t imagine such a thing, because neither could Suzie. In fact, when the topic came up, there was a good five-minute period of wild confusion, as she was talking about ‘large’ eggs in the apparently traditional sense, while I was talking about large eggs as eggs that happened to be on the large size. Finally I blurted out, ‘What do YOU mean by jumbo eggs?’ and that’s when we realized my folly. Forty-seven years of thinking eggs came in one size came screeching to a stunned halt. 

Immediately, I texted everyone I knew with the simple ask of “What is a large egg?” Some would rightfully wonder if I’d started drinking again. One told me to go to bed. Most didn’t understand the question, because all of them had learned, not sure where, that eggs were sized and labeled differently. Small consolation came on social media, where most people thought I was kidding, a few thought I was ridiculous, and just a smidge said they were on my side and always thought eggs came in one size too. 

Suzie and I were trying to figure out how I could have baked so many things without incident (more or less) over the years, and I said in exasperation that I’d only ever seen a recipe call for large eggs. I’ve never seen one that used jumbo eggs or medium eggs – had I noticed that I might have made the connection. But unfailingly, all the recipes I’ve ever made required ‘large’ eggs. The reason it always worked, as we found out, is because Andy has only ever stocked the fridge with ‘large’ eggs. Another happy accident that avoided unhappy accidents. 

Suzie and I drove along the rainy, dark roads in shocked and shook fashion, each trying to wrap our heads around things for different reasons. The next day I stopped in the market to confirm it, and there they were – all differently sized and labeled – medium and jumbo and extra large and small. 

I’m still processing… 

They make it look so easy on those Instagram reels and TikTok dreams, but when I try something like this ‘super simple’ French omelette, it sticks to the pan, burns to the consistency of a rubbery frisbee, and tastes like French bulldog shit. There is a Sunday morning lesson here (aside from not walking away from eggs to check your text messages) and it comes with the posting of these decidedly-imperfect photos. 

The vast majority of posts that go up here are highly curated and edited, cropped within an inch of their lives (and sometimes my dick) to the point that everything looked deceptively pretty and enchanting – even the darker stuff. Well, that’s not really true to life. It’s true to the spirit of this site, and the idea of aspiration, but I never liked to sugarcoat, so in the ongoing quest to embrace and accept our inherent imperfection, this post shows that failure is part of the game. 

I will try this again – though not for a day or two given the price of eggs. I ate this one, most of it, because it was edible, just not very good. There another lesson there too: accepting what’s good enough rather than tossing it out and trying to achieve something great. 

Bon appe-fucking-tit. 

When I first moved away to Chicago to start a new life with a relatively new boyfriend (both of which clearly didn’t work out to last) my Mom gave me a cookbook of recipes that were supposed to be quick and easy. One of them was titled ‘Chicken Curry in a Hurry‘ and it was decidedly misnomered, as that recipe took my about five hours to make. New to cutting, prepping, measuring, and cooking, it was a trial by fire, and while the end result was decent enough, the time and effort it took to create that one dish was not worth it. 

Years later, after honing a bit of my kitchen skills, I can take a recipe that the New York Times published (their chickpea, coconut milk and curry dish) and roughly make it my own. In this instance, I diced up an onion and some carrots, then cooked those down in a bit of olive oil and generous helpings of curry and turmeric. Once soft enough to my liking, I added a can of coconut milk and two cans of chick peas, rinsed well.

Once the garbanzos were warmed, I modified the salt and pepper (lots of both) and piled the pot high with kale and spinach. A whole bag will wilt down into the manageable mix you see here.

Finally, I added some chopped fresh cilantro and a sprinkling of fresh lime juice, and the meal was ready in a matter of minutes. It’s a wonderful centerpiece for a meat-free Friday dinner, for those of us guilty Catholics who are still hedging our bets on making it into heaven. 

Never one to poo-poo an unorthodox food idea until I’ve tried it, I shall keep an open mind to the Ranch Ice Cream being released in a few days. First thought on this idea: abhorrent. Second thought: while not a ranch fan, I’m more open to this than the dill pickle ice cream that ran its course a couple of years ago. Third thought: I didn’t hate peanut butter on a hot dog, so why not? Ranch ice cream it shall be. 

(If I end up hating it, I’ll just serve it to our next dinner guests without telling them what it is. That’s the kind of host I am.)

Viva Empanadas is one of the delicious vendors at Galleria 7 Market in Latham, and I introduced Suzie to their glory at dinner last night. I first tried these empanadas this winter, on a quiet Saturday before Andy woke up. I was going to save one for him, but they didn’t make it. The filling and the sauces were just too good. 

Suzie and I ordered a variety of four each – I’d only had a dry turkey sandwich that day, or so I justified it. A plate of three would have sufficed, but some dinners should be an excess of goodness, especially at the end of winter. It wasn’t difficult to finish them all. Suzie managed to save one. 

A bottle of guava soda recalled summer mocktails and poolside lounging, planting a seed for the months to come. 

Billed as one of the bestsellers in stores that sell such items, the Billionaire Brownie comes in many variations. For my first attempt, I used a recipe from the Magnolia Bakery cookbook, which uses a brown sugar shortbread as the base, a layer of caramel, and then a brownie on top of that. They said more caramel could be added on top, but I’ve never been a big caramel fan, so I veered away from that – and honestly there was more than enough in the middle layer (a whole cup).

The results were spectacular for what was a rather simple recipe. The only time-consuming part was making the shortbread base and letting it cool before all the caramel and brownie mix can go on top. I was worried about double baking the shortbread, but it didn’t burn at all – and the brownies actually had to bake for fifteen minutes longer than the recipe time indicated before they were done (I lost track of how many dirty toothpicks gave their lives for this enterprise).

These sorry photos don’t do the sweet goodness half its due justice. 

The last time I made Jello was for a much more celebratory moment, as this post on the ‘Cathedral Windows’ dessert will hopefully illuminate. Today’s jello moment is the result of a stomach bug that has me unable to hold food of any sort, so I made this wobbly batch of strawberry jello to get something fluid-like in my system (I don’t know how much more Pedialyte I can drink at this point). 

Coupled with a few popsicles, this is the food of the sick, which is a land I’ve not had to visit in four years. I did not miss it, and I’m more than ready to leave. It would be so much nicer to make a jello dish of this sort. Happy holiday memories…

Fruity food gimmicks have always fallen flat with me, and I have no patience for giving cute names to something like citrus (looking at you, Cutie, and judging you, Halo). So when I first heard about cotton candy grapes, I ignored them until I saw Pati Jinich use them in this recipe, and a co-worker brought some in and I got to try one. 

This shit is the real deal – and it tasted like… wait for it…. cotton fucking candy. Not in an annoying, cloying way, but very much like a sweet echo and approximation of the cotton candy sweetness, grounded in a bright grape. 

As we prepare for summer recipes (I do like to plan ahead) this variety will prove a fun twist to any grape dish – and a highlight of any fruit salad. Pop a few in your mouth and see what you think. It was enough to transform even a skeptical non-believer like myself.