this is a blog about the food in my life. what I eat, what I wanna eat, what I make, what I bake, what I wanna make and bake, ideas and recipes. it's also my thoughts on food or stories behind the meals. The lyric references are from my lifelong love of classic rock and funk and from working a hunnerd years in music retail.
I love spring in New York with the rains, flowering plants, old buildings, old everything. Before the summer crowds and heat set in.
I took a Tesla Uber home from work and the dash was like a spaceship and almost the entire roof was glass. It's lightyears from the Smith and 9th subway station and B61 bus.
Roasted Chicken with Lemon, Potato and Chickpeas
Breakfast Tacos for Cinco de Mayo
Listen, no one celebrates this holiday in New York and basically, no one even understands it or cares to. For me, it's one day to think about heritage and that's about the extent of it, other than a chance to make something Mexican. Breakfast griddle tacos are easy, one pan and quick.
On one end of the pan I toast the tortillas and melt cheese. On the other, I grill my vegetables and very quickly cook the eggs before stuffing and folding the tacos.
Someone is celebrating their 1st year of sobriety and it's a definite occasion for brunch. Waffles. All she really wanted was waffles and for whatever reason, the closest we could find were pancakes and French Toast. One would think with the plethora of breakfast joints in the surrounding neighborhoods, it would be easy to find a waffle but turns out, in order to partake in these crisped cakes, we would need to head to Prospect Heights. Why we didn't is unclear as it's about a 10 minute walk. I'm not sure her pancakes were as spectacular as the description advertised (something about Warm Black Bear Maple Syrup) but I can tell you my French Toast was everything and more! In fact I'm going on record to say I've not had better. They were delectable soft pillows and the caramelized apple with the fresh fruit and syrup became the perfect bite. There was no desire for extra butter that I realized was missing from the table midstream.
Brioche French Toast with Apple Compote, two sunny side eggs and sausage
This is the smile of a person who is happy to be alive but inside is thinking, where the fuck are my waffles!!?! I know this woman enough to see in her face that what she really wanted was the over the top, diner or chain restaurant waffles stacked with the tower of fake whipped cream and maybe maraschino cherries on top. The quaint French brunch vibe of Cafe Luluc was not the perfect choice. I go on record to also say I am not great at picking the right spots. There is a real art to this and I hope to get better because it's an important part of any outing.
I added cheddar, taco meat, sour cream and green onions to baked tots for a quick tater nacho for my after work impromptu party on New Year's Eve. We settled in to watch Miley and Dolly's TV Special and it was a mixed bag of delights, some bizarre, some surprises. All completely worth it!
For Dolly's outfit alone on I Love Rock and Roll. I hope Joan Jett got a chance to see that.
David Byrne was mesmorizing and his voice was dynamic as ever. The band Liily caught me off guard and took my breathe away. What a pop of brilliance in an otherwise musical circus (i.e., Paris Hilton, SIA in a box). Dolly can do no wrong and has earned her place and right to do whatever she pleases. She is an icon and we're so lucky to have her. Miley is intoxicating and I couldn't take my eyes off of her as a performer. She knows how to wow and then that voice and those legs!
The crowd was interesting but the best part was seeing the young girls cry when she sang Party in the USA!
Lots of gays, as expected with those two at the helm. A formidable welcoming of the New Year. All fabulous!
I'm a little foggy right now though on the gayification of EVERYthing! Why does every single movie and TV Series have to include mandatory LGBT+ characters and love scenes? I'm someone who could do without love scenes across the board, especially in thrillers and all other genres except romance. Some of us are not lovers of lovers. I'm not going to get pissed off if you make a legitamate romance movie, like 2017's Disobedience. That movie took my breath away. So well done and beautifully written. I think we should show diversity in characters across all genres, as it is in life. But can't it be more natural, as it is in reality?
It's embarrassing how Hollywood is so easily manipulated and how quickly they abandoned protecting the art over fear of losing money. Or maybe it's just how powerful the woke has become over industry. Doesn't anyone come forward to stand up for artistic integrity anymore?
(Spoiler Alert) We are watching the series The Last of Us and one whole episode took a giant turn to the entire plot to feature an unnecessary, poorly written, male love story that ended in layered grossness, selfishly taking their own lives and cloaking it in heroic romance. I may be in the minority here and I love Nick Offerman but to me this was an overly sweet, sugar laden dessert that was tough to get down. Not only that but all the group-think publications fell in line to call it brilliant and best ever. It turns out the director, used his power to trick his audience into witnessing what he feels is controversial, two males falling in real love. Um, unless you live under a rock, dude, everyone has gay friends, family, recording artists, actors, coworkers, and down the line. We have seen real love, nothing brand new here. When can we move on from this topic?! Show us something real. How is this even being funded? Again, it had nothing to do with the plot and took me out of the series flow like a psychotic daydream. I'm happily in bed with my nuclear fall-out zombies trying to forget my own damn troubles.
In order to show how over saturated this is, I say replace all of these film scenarios with a put-upon Mexican immigrant story. After all, they are certainly repressed, experience violence and injustices. What if you had to sit through the same cookie-cutter Maria and Juan love story and struggle in every movie and series? Is this something anyone would tolerate? In order to educate the cists and racists who clearly need the learnin'? No way! It is becoming my true belief that almost any group that gains a little power, will eventually missue and abuse it and then a horse trail miles long will follow of mindless trolls. Maybe history has already proven this but nevertheless shocks me seeing it come to fruition from a group I once admired so dearly. Or does it?
People are not groups, they are individuals as different as snowflakes. And just how the BLM movement became infiltrated by shiesty charlatans under our noses, I have to wonder how the folks that I know and love think about all of this new gay strong arming in media? We know now that many times the individuals behind all of these change movements, may not be who we think. Who's behind all of this, really?
Are legitimate gays behind this or is it woke housewives or millennials that need to affect the universe in some profound way. My generation saw the Aids epidemic and the end of the hippy free love movement so there is perspective and depth to our concern over treatment of many groups but certainly gay rights. However, I came from an opening when lines were less sharp in regards to sexuality. One could explore being with the any sex to decide if it was for them at any time. You could go for years without picking a side and never had to label or put yourself in a specific box. Who you were as a person had nothing to do with the exact way in which you chose to have sexual intercourse or love another individual for that matter. Hell my long time, not so young, friend is having urges to live and be with a woman again, and I say, cool. Its neither good nor bad.
In fact I've lived so long to learn I'm not special at all, and you're not special and no one is an island. We're all more similar than we are different in ways that matter and that is a tough pill to swallow, especially when you're quite proud of your uniqueness. True individuality and creativity is beautiful, and inclusiveness is already here. People who have a hard time embracing that are not going to be taught by forcing a bear love scene on a popular TV series.
Feature Mexicans, black lesbians, gay couples, transgender teens and all the flavors of the rainbow in movies and TV series, I'm all for that. That's how it should be. But damn it, let them be realistic characters, as they truly are, not teaching stereotype robots to infiltrate and force-feed everyone your personal vendettas.
Pizza slices, especially while sick, are downright medicinal. After soup and vitamins, while gaining strength back from a nasty bug, you need spicy, salty foods to reawaken the system. At no time does pizza fail at soothing the soul. Not Ray's Pizza for our Not Omicron flu.
Canceling the visit to see my sister in Colorado was heartbreaking for me. I needed to laugh and play with her in order to build my mental health back. I sat around moping for a couple of days but realized it only wastes precious time and I gain nothing by doing it. So, now I sit staycationing, tagging along like P's little sister while he works on his car in Red Hook. My reward is McDonald's and later a big piece of cherry pie that I warmed in the oven and served a la mode. I took my camera along and roamed the neighborhoods.
Our neighborhood became much cuter with all the additions of cafe tables outside
I told her she looked like my late cat Mona and she came and leg bumped me
A Charlie Brown Christmas Tree
When I go exploring my inner voice always sounds like Werner Herzog. What do these balls tell us about our human condition?
It's all a facade
They put the red in Red Hook
Lots of stray cats in Red Hook but also a ton of shelters.
You say tom-ah-toes, let's call the whole thing off
Breakfast tostadas are on my current playlist. Toast the shells in the oven while you make a quick scramble of whatever you have on hand and don't forget to throw in leftover herbs! That is what it's all about in Pandemic living. Using up all of your corn tortillas like a champ! Like street food, but YOU are the one cranking out the quickstyle tasty meals in your own little kitchen, so you know it's safe, you know what's in it and it's made to order!
And since we're stepping outside the box, why not Spam and eggs with leftover roasted cauliflower, topped with a tangy Feta Cheese? I couldn't think of one good reason not to.
One of the great joys of cooking is when you create a new template to host many options using all your available fridge and pantry ingredients. And you can only push leftover vegetables to the side once, or sometimes twice before they must be used or tossed.
This Coronavirus suffers from an identity crisis. I battled it more hard core in this last week. I tell ya, there is something for everyone in this vivacious little pathogen. Variety is his key. Getting bored with the chills? Well he has some nice jabbing chest pains for you. How do you feel about headaches? Oh and sitchoassdown!-extreme-fatigue, that don't stop to punk rock. He also offers constants, like morning nausea from the moment you wake each day followed by gut punches. Various body aches will surprise you at every turn. Is it 120 degrees in here or are you in hell? Then there's the blast chiller that makes it feel minus 35, better dress in layers. The pressure pain in your chest provides that terror factor. And then there is the multiple endings. You think it may be over but you are so wrong. And fever dreams are a big thing!
Ham Salad & Cheese Open-Faced Sandwich with Apple & Tomato
Shortness of breath has been a mainstay for me throughout, about three weeks starting from noticeable with exercise to bent over gasping, but it always went away. This isn't the flu where you can lay in bed and sleep it off, instead you must be the guard at the gate armed to fight. I woke up believing it had to be on its way out, that I'm through the worst days. I felt like the virus had abandoned attacks in 70% of my body but the shortness of breath came on strong straight out of the gate and just from sitting. We didn't want to bother the doctors knowing full well everyone is overworked and busy with emergencies. You get about 6 texts from the city a day telling you if you're sick, stay home and deal with it basically unless it's an absolute life or death emergency because of our overtaxed systems. I finally make a video doctor appointment, something they made available for this situation and honestly, if I had known I would have done earlier. As soon as I describe my symptoms he immediately recognizes all the strangeness and verifies what I already knew, but decides we should both come in to check oxygen levels, vitals and while there, get tested to be counted. He confesses most will get this thing in the city eventually due to the density, there's almost no getting around it. He sounds tired but is very kind. He goes on to explain he doesn't trust the bug anymore because he's seen too many things, the most troubling one, that it goes away and then resurfaces with a vengeance to take you down. And that went straight to my gut, because I thought about friends and family, people with underlying conditions, the elderly and who we're now hearing are dying into the hundreds overnight each night alone in their homes. It's heart-wrenching.
Going forward we really need mass testing now in NYC and the new blood tests that will tell us who had the virus and who is now safe to reenter the job space. Those essential tools have to be in place before we could possibly open up the floodgates again here. Also to know if we can get this thing multiple times in a season, unlike others where we build up immunity. Because many of us had the regular flu already this year around January and February, and wonder if possibly it was COVID-19. I say that because I became sick in February with a horrible sore throat and knock down flu that came on so quickly and I struggled with shortness of breath for weeks after. It was only after riding my bike and hauling ass at work but very uncommon for me to get winded so easily.
I was so relieved after seeing a doctor that I made these open-faced ham salad with apple, tomato and swiss cheese toasties for dinner. COVID cooking can still happen, you just have to move super slow, like a sloth.
In recent years, on many a night and days, I hole up and listen to Linda Ronstadt albums on repeat. Of course I've always loved her but it wasn't until now that I began to need to hear the cry and plea in her voice in order to get through my days. Now to see the much anticipated biography, I see how even though she didn't write the songs, she carefully chose each one to fit her emotional climate at the time. In that way she sang them so perfectly from the heart. She is inspiring to me as she took her path without all the consideration and calculation of some female musicians in the present day. Some women might find this opinion offensive but like many strong lesbians I've met, she thinks like men in the best of ways. They don't overthink, they don't worry too much and they are able to 'do' without all the extra words needed for many woman, me included. She was leading a band of men back when it was not common to have a female boss, but she just did it and wasn't apologetic. She brought other musicians up and encouraged their growth, most of them men. She also had strong female characteristics of keeping peace and not getting caught up in power. She was a strikingly gorgeous woman without a huge ego, which is rare and was able to partner with equally gorgeous and talented women for musical collaborations. Every decision she made seemed to be driven by her love and interest in the arts, showing a vibrant use of her soul. I can't say enough about people speaking through their art especially in sad times.
Parmesan Truffle Popcorn
I had a very sad few weeks that I'm still in and so I took my sad ass to this matinee showing and treated myself to a large Herbal Iced Tea and a giant metal bowl of Parmesan Truffle Popcorn. I sat in the front row where the chairs recline and was smart to bring a sweater to cover myself like I was laying in front of my couch. I really couldn't have been more comfortable and happy in those 2 hours. When I left I felt I took a whole laundry bag full of motivation with me. Oh I shoved it under the bed to use soon, I promise.
It's a sad story if you let it be but she tells it so full of hope and comedy. At the end to see her now, unable to sing well, somewhat shaky but surrounded by so many friends who love her and of course all of us fans who adore her work, makes it much easier. And what an inspiration on how to handle lemons in your life! She humbled my whiny ass right down. Fill it with humor and friends and don't feel sorry for yourself. Be grateful for what you've accomplished and given and don't stop living. I had a thought one night that I woke up and jotted down on my notepad. Linda should write songs! When I woke up I realized what a wonderful idea and bonus for her fans if she chose to write lyrics for others to sing, maybe choosing a vocalist for each as she chose her songs. If I could speak to her I would suggest it. She is very well read and extremely intelligent. She can no longer sing but obviously has so much more life in her. It would be a new challenge. I can only imagine she has closets full of interesting material for songs having lived that life.
But for those of us less amazing, talent-less schlepps, I can only hope to find ways to contribute any worth I do have and sneak tiny morsels of happiness in along the way.
If you listen to the link you'll hear, I really do try to work on myself. I want to be a better person. It's just such a never ending battle inside. You also might be surprised at how ignorant I am about learning to cook unfamiliar meats, like top round steak. I see it a lot and have bought it but never have I ever just sat and read a stupid recipe on how to make it. This was so super easy and it tasted amazing, not like tough grey beef. Tender like the recipe states with tomato & garlic penetrated in. I thought the cheese addition was weird but it actually works quite well. It's a great after work dinner because you can just roast your vegetables on a sheet pan alongside while it's in the oven.
