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What I ate last week. Ranked #182 in food podcasts in Mexico according to an email I just got.
EPISODE 62
NEWS & UPDATES
https://www.fooddive.com/news/marzetti-buys-japanese-bbq-bachans-400m/811823/
Bought a bottle before they sell to my least favorite salad dressing. Bbq sauce is something that I’m never thinking about so this will probably expire in my cupboard.
https://nypost.com/2026/05/07/business/popular-italian-food-brand-accused-of-tomato-fraud-in-new-lawsuit/
Funny because I was just watching a video where people review canned tomatoes. I think it was America’s test kitchen or something similar and they chose Cento as the number one but all the other options were like hunts so what’s the competition? Cento are not DOP. For the price I would get another organic canned tomato even if not San Marzano. Bianco dinapoli.
Over 100 people got Norovirus on a Princess cruise. I was hoping that a Hantavirus would’ve left the news cycle by the time this episode came around, but there's no reason to go on a cruise even if they do serve alcoholic soup. You can make that at home. I know you all wanted to go on the Marc McGrath and Friends cruise to see Smash Mouth but you can see them on land. I don’t think any issue is black or white I think there’s a lot of nuance around most things except cruises. We should ban them. Historically nothing good has happened on a ship. Did we not learn anything from the Titanic? I’m probably the only American my age who hasn’t seen the Titanic. My mom wouldn’t let me. I had to pretend I knew what everyone was talking about for a whole year of elementary school. And thank god I had that practice, because now most of my friends are married with children, owning 1-2 houses, and I have to pretend like I know what it’s like to be an adult. On days where I have to interact with real adults I do feel like I’m waddling around in a big diaper and I only know one word. I don’t think I should own a house or have a family. Any time I have a dream that involves having a family I spend the entirety of the dream trying to kill them. Hantavirus sounds like Honda virus which sounds like something that would happen to Brian’s parents. I’ve got the Honda Virus. My Honda’s GPS keeps telling me to drive into the river. Instead of using their phone and carplay, Brian’s parents rely on the Honda GPS system that doesn’t automatically update and insists that you drive off a cliff into a river. Dealership tried to charge them $400 to update it. I did it in five minutes.
Collagen powder is making a giant tuft of hair grow out of the front of my mom’s head (cookies, coffee, toast was a fail)
Avril Lavigne food court
Local politics: A neighboring county wanted to condemn land in three other counties so that they could access the main lake that supplies water to my county. It was blocked but I don’t even understand how they would do that? Condemn enough land that you could make a long lake back to their county?
Pa Water
Trash can outside of an italian restaurant labeled Bread in a fancy font
Such a stunning piece of news
SCENTS
Maison Margiela Replica Coffee Break
Official Description: https://www.maisonmargiela-fragrances.us/fragrances/replica-eau-de-toilette/replica-coffee-break/MM006.html?srsltid=AfmBOoqVS1PiuJyIYqgfKBIP02hQFZWGjc78sLaz05T1BACq4od6SkBE
My review: Immediate Nordstroms circa 2003, mall coffee, mocha, small local 90s coffee shop with a table of small boxes of chocolates and gift baskets, vanilla, soap, deeply layered, also a touch of a scratch and sniff sticker that I got in kindergarten that was supposed to smell like pepperoni pizza but smelled spicy. Someone eating Chex Mix in the distance. Actually perfect for the super rainy day with coffee.
https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/ymibsc/who_else_remembers_these_scratch_n_sniff_stickers/ (Trend’s Stinky Stickers)
Daddy smelled like peppery pencil shavings all week
There’s a fertilizer that we use for growing crops called HARMONY. I started using it for my roses. It smells like hot chocolate.
INTERNET
flood_freak
Looks revolting xx https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8p8jnSu/
May wine - but does it turn in the fridge? Maybe a Riesling could use a sour note https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8pR3FxR/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_wine
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/776534511-big-jam-danish?unlocked_article_code=1.g1A.jSrD.P2qZDpV_qPee&smid=ck-recipe-iOS-share
90 Day food updates
Vanja, who is a bellydancer in Orlando Florida that somehow has more airtime than any other person on this show, is still really into cupcakes. She’s a lot. So his her style. And so are the cupcakes she chooses. The gaudiest cupcakes imaginable. Tie-dye frosting with chocolates in different dumb shapes on top and patterned wrappers. Too much going on. Turns out they are vegan cupcakes. “Die in a car bomb” Brian yelled at the TV. Very harsh thing to yell at someone who grew up in a war torn country.
Meanwhile Rick breaks up with his girlfriend Trish in Madagascar and hooks up with the first girl he sees who is standing outside of a bar eating chicken
Top Chef Season 23 Episode 9 (watched alone so as to not torture Brian)
Special guest and former Top Chef contestant Shuai Wang has to carry a giant cardboard sign into the room to announce the next challenge but he can’t fit through the door so everyone is sitting there watching him run into the wall over and over
They’re going to Greenville, SC to host the ultimate dinner party.
Quickfire challenge is sponsored by Duke’s mayonnaise. I love Dukes but I believe it has been purchased by private equity. They have to make an appetizer featuring Duke’s.
Elimination challenge: each person has to serve one of the courses at the ultimate dinner party. They decide to do a sunday supper theme which is reminding me of the TikTok of the woman who posts her family’s “Sunday in South Carolina” https://www.tiktok.com/@sundayinsouthcarolina
Kristin describes Jonathan’s BLT deviled egg as “yummy” which is unfortunate. The judges say that Duyen basically made deep fried mayonnaise.
Laurence is making what he describes as a sexy soup (chicken and corn). Meanwhile the judges are getting loaded.
Anthony wins the quickfire with his elevated crab rangoon
Laurence wins the elimination with his sexy soup
Oscar and Rhoda are in the bottom. Kristen says she can’t figure out what Rhoda did for four hours other than make a soggy merengue with creme fraiche and berries. Oscar is going home for making bad beef on overcooked rice.
America’s Culinary Cup Season 1 Episode 10: Bittersweet Semifinals
They need to stop doing dramatic, off-center close-ups of Padma emerging from the elevator like it’s a wind tunnel. Her face is so close to the lens its skewed and she is looking her eyes are on the side of her head
Today they’ll be tested on “taste”. How is that different from any other challenge?
They will each be assigned a taste profile and have 75 minutes to make 2 dishes, one hot and one cold. Chris has an extra 30 minutes since he won the last episode that he gets to take from someone else. Chris looks around the room and Cara says “I’m pregnant”. He takes 15 minutes away from Buddha and Matt.
Sweet: Chris, Sour: Cara, Salty: Matt, Bitter: Buddha, Umami: nobody
Padma makes a wok pun. She should be fired from her own show.
They make Cara candidly say that she loves washing with Dawn Powerwash, something that any one of us would naturally say
Buddha accidentally serves Wiley bones
Matt wins; Cara is 2nd
Chris and Buddha have to compete for the final spot in the finale; they have to make a dish that features umami and their choice of another taste profile. Chris goes sweet again, Buddha salty.
Chris unanimously makes it to the final. The sauce he made for his hamachi was such an umami bomb it tasted like cheese.
Padma says “come on boys” and gets into the elevator with the two other judges. Their dynamic is weird. That’s also how I talk to my cats.
May 4, 2026 (Monday)
8:30am: Counter Culture coffee with half & half, made at home.
10:30am: A bowl of bran flakes with milk.
12:30pm: Leftover green curry with rice.
2pm: Half of a bottle of Brew Dr Island Mango kombucha.
6pm: A soda with bitters, arancini, and fish and chips at Bar Virgile in Durham, North Carolina.
7pm: A scoop of Vietnamese coffee ice cream from Parlour in Durham.
Why do they sell packages of ladyfingers that are only half of the amount that you need to make a normally-sized Tiramisu? 8x8”? I bought one package of Natural Nectar Biscotti Savoiardi Lady Fingers (product of France, on sale) and now I have to make a half batch of tiramisu in a loaf pan or some other bizarre vessel. I was like, should I get two boxes, but then I saw that the box had “two stay-fresh packs” so I thought, clearly this must be enough for a Tiramisu if they had to separate the contents into two packages. No, then I’ll be stuck with extra lady fingers which nobody has ever celebrated. Sell lady fingers in a unit that works for a normal batch of tiramisu. But actually, each package fit perfectly in a loaf pan except the sides of the pan were wider that the bottom so there was too much space on the long sides.
I had a package of Petit Ecolier that could have been a good substitute like an icebox cake with graham crackers but I decided the chocolate might be weird and too hard.
Modified Alison Roman Classic tiramisu (raspberry; wish I had had some cognac)
2 egg yolks
25g sugar
½ cup heavy cream
4oz Vermont creamery mascarpone
3 heaping TB of Trappist Red Raspberry seedless jam
1 cup leftover strong coffee
1 TB Dave’s coffee syrup
1 3.5oz box Natural Nectar Lady Fingers
2 TB Guittard cocoa rouge
Hate going out (AT NIGHT) but I went to meet up with a coworker who was in town.
Arancini: Fried Risotto Balls, Salami, Tomato Bechamel, Toasted Pine Nuts, Herb Oil per the menu. Was actually just cheese, no pine nuts. Tomato bechamel was basically vodka sauce. Risotto tasted like it was made with water.
My coworker got the burger and it looked amazing but was tall and messy as hell so I’m glad I didn’t order it; other coworker got steak frites which looked decent and I’ve had it before and Brian was disappointed by it.
Fish & Chips: Fried Cod, Fries, Parsley and Cajun Spice, Harissa Mayo
Minimal spice content. Fries are like hard MADdonalds fries.
Parlour ice cream was too sweet. My coworker got a white chocolate caramel flavor that he also said was too sweet. Other coworker got a lavender shake. When Maggie was in town she said to get the key lime pie but they only had it in pints for $11.
My coworker asked “what is OOB” (ube)
Arrived home to “Weird night with dad” as Brian calls it “from the moment I got home they were like nope nope nope” (if you were raised predominantly by a mother figure and then suddenly a father figure was in charge of you, things got dark. Literally. My dad would turn all the lights off and we’d all gather under one light like a bug)
I sneezed into the phone while talking to Brian while I was driving home and Brian said the sound was so crazy it sounded like I got into a car crash and daddy got scared
Speaking of dads I was texting my family group chat and my dad was asleep with his ringtone volume at full blast and my mom said it was so annoying she made a new group chat so then me and my sisters sent my mom loud sounds to blast on her iPad (imitating my dad’s ringtone, sound of an automatic juicer that Ina Garten would use that would always make my mom unreasonably mad)
My cat makes eating sounds in his sleep. I wonder if he’s eating something exotic or just eating more cat food in his dreams
May 5, 2026 (Tuesday)
9am: Counter Culture coffee with half & half, made at home.
11am: Milton’s salt and pepper crackers with Cedar’s garlic hummus.
2pm: A flour tortilla with horseradish havarti, navy beans, a packet of Taco Bell mild sauce, and a packet of Taco Bell fire sauce, made at home.
6pm: Spicy Big Tray Chicken with mixed potatoes, cilantro, and rice noodles, made at home, and a small pour of Bitburger pils.
7pm: Raspberry tiramisu, made at home, and a pour of Angus Barn Barn Yard lager
Folded over, medium-sized tortilla with cheese oozing out and crusting all over which was great but the tortilla itself was mediocre; “La Tortilla Factory” should have given that away. On sale at Whole Foods. Pack of six organic flour tortillas that were on sale but still way too expensive. Roth horseradish havarti tasted like it had been involved in a chemical spill; like it had rubbing alcohol in it or some sort of cleaning agent, which I guess was the horseradish flavor.
Tiramisu set up nicely. Ladyfingers could have been a bit more soaked through but were nice and soft, just not soaked through all the way to the middle. I used more than the suggested amount of liquid to account for the lack of alcohol. I looked at the NYT product photo and their ladyfingers aren’t soaked all the way through in the final product. This was so great I definitely won’t be buying tiramisu from Whole Foods anymore, which doesn’t hold a candle to this. Alcohol would have been the perfect touch. I should have made Brian a rum cake.
Bavarian Style Amber Lager from Angus Barn aka expensive Cracker Barrel tastes like a beer shot combo at a sticky bar. Bourbon barrel-aged and it’s potent. A collaboration with Carolina Brewing. “A barrel-aged amber lager with toasty notes and a subtle malt sweetness. Warm and boozy on the finish, with flavors of bread pudding and maple syrup. Faithfully recreated from the original handwritten 1990’s recipe by Carolina Brewing Co and aged 8 months in our 65th Anniversary Maker’s Mark Private Selection barrels”. Lighter-tasting than the description.
May 6, 2026 (Wednesday)
7am: Counter Culture coffee with half & half, made at home.
9am: A cup of coffee with half & half at the office.
Cake room: A copy of the London Review of Books.
4:30pm: Half of a Whole Foods Crispy Rice Treat.
6:30pm: Scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, cilantro, parmesan, Tacodeli Salsa Doña, refried navy beans with horseradish havarti and Texas Pete garlic hot sauce on a flour tortilla, made at home.
7:30pm: Leftover tiramisu.
Another beautiful day at the office. Landscape boy was vaping in a bush.
Weather was cloudy, windy, transitional weather that made me feel like I had just landed at an airport I had never been to that had a somewhat balmier, warmer climate than where I was from
Went into the cake / break room to wash out my coffee cup and one of the younger employees was silently hunched over the sink, motionless. I asked if he was ok and he said yeah, I was washing this bowl but I’m just tired.
Whole Foods rice krispie treats “are like a pillow” according to my sister. Almost turned around from my night drive home from seeing coworkers to get one. Skrrrrt
Tasted like a vanilla milkshake
Got home and couldn’t find my cats. They were both in bed because it was cloudy and rainy so logically it was nighttime
May 7, 2026 (Thursday)
7am: Counter Culture coffee with half & half, made at home.
9:30am: A sunny egg and parmesan over leftover beans and cheese with leftover bernaise and Texas Pete garlic hot sauce, made at home.
10:30am: A pour of Brew Dr Island Mango kombucha.
1pm: Milton’s salt and pepper crackers with Cedar’s garlic hummus and three Natural Nectar Petit Biscuit au Chocolat.
5:30pm: Leftover Spicy Big Tray Chicken over basmati rice, made at home.
7pm: Blue Bell cookie dough ice cream.
I thought I was buying LU Petit Escolier, which are better quality in my opinion. This Natural nectar brand is strange but apparently the cookies and the ladyfingers are made in france.
Brian got halal chicken and rice across from Bussin Pizza and Pasta at Grill & Go Deli
May 8, 2026 (Friday)
9am: Counter Culture coffee with half & half, made at home, and leftover Spicy Big Tray Chicken and rice.
1pm: Milton’s salt and pepper crackers with Cedar’s garlic hummus and Tacodeli Salsa Doña.
4:30pm: Three Natural Nectar Petit Biscuit au Chocolat.
7pm: Ridged potato chips and dip, grilled zucchini, grilled chicken marinated in yogurt, basmati rice, chole, sesame pita, grilled paneer with peppers and red onion.
Idk if I actually like hummus. Every time I eat it it’s like ok we’re eating this again. Even a beautiful pale restaurant hummus I’m like ok but I wish this was baba. I wish baba was as readily available.
No prior details about this dinner. What time? Where is it? Do we need to bring something? Brian didn’t know. This tends to happen a lot; people make plans with Brian and then I find out the day of when Brian tells me there are six people staying over in our 900 square foot house and they’re about to get here and they’re all really hungry. The last time I blindly went with Brian to a food-focused gathering through Brian I scrambled to make a cornbread so that we wouldn’t show up empty-handed and it ended up being a vegan, eastern european themed Thanksgiving. I put the cornbread on the table and then pretended not to know who made it the entire night.
“6:30 feels really late” - Brian; it is 2 hours past the recommended dinner reservation time of 4:30pm by the host of Top Chef
Spent most of the evening explaining Cook Out to a student from Mozambique. Burger King is popular among students for their unbelievable coupon deals.
A grad student made apricot upside down cake for dessert but I overheard her telling someone else that it wasn’t cooked all the way through so I did not eat it.
It was nice to finally taste Indian food made in someone’s home so I could get a sense of how far off I am when I make my own Indian curries at home and I think I’m doing ok. I liked all of the aromatics added to the rice: huge bay leaves, cumin, cardamom pod, turmeric
I drank two cans of cherry lime Lacroix; other option was blueberry cucumber or IPAs
I’m trying to order a bottle of nice limoncello to make a lemon tiramisu, and a bottle of Hamilton rum to make a rum cake for Brian, but you can’t get liquor delivered to your residence in North Carolina. Tried ordering it to CT but running into the same problem which isn’t surprising considering that growing up on Sundays in the grocery store, the employees would throw brown tarp over the beer with the word no stencil on it. God can’t see the beer if there’s a tarp over it. Feels like I’m living in the past. I got to taste a lot of rum when I made punch for Punch House in Chicago and I loved the spice profile of Hamilton. We used two kinds but I forget which one I liked the best.
https://woodencork.com/collections/hamilton/products/hamilton-jamaican-pot-still-gold-rum
https://woodencork.com/collections/hamilton/products/hamilton-demerara-86-proof-rum / 151 float / zombie punch
Zombie punch
3 qts falernum tea
2 qts grapefruit juice
2 quarts lime
2 quarts Vanilla syrup
2 Mount Gay Rum
1 Hamilton Rum
3 Goslings Black Seal Rum
May 9, 2026 (Saturday)
9am: Counter Culture coffee with half & half, made at home.
2pm: Chicken tenders with ranch dressing, macaroni salad, hush puppies, fried okra, sweet potato waffle fries from Debbie’s Drive-In in South Hill, Virginia.
5pm: A bite of a Krispy Krunchy Chicken Cajun chicken sandwich from Johnnie’s Travel Plaza (formerly Parhams Stop) in Kenbridge, Virginia.
6pm: A coffee flavored soft serve sugar cone from Lickety Split LKG in Bracey, Virginia.
8pm: Four Milton’s salt and pepper crackers.
My former supervisor told me that the former UNC library director submitted 5 frozen alcoholic drink recipes to their spiral bound community cookbook
Lagana was on my calendar and dinner hosts happened to also suggest it
Debbie’s instead even though Brian said that the food looked like a ball of trash
https://maps.app.goo.gl/i1EbqaBG7GACb4mG8?g_st=ic
Gratin dauphinois not on the actual menu
Seasoned fries were great, Mac salad, my favorite hush puppies I’ve had in the south so far; more corn flavor
Brian got a BLT and loved everything. He was shocked. Even got a free drink. A lot of the google reviews are low and talk about the horrendous customer service which is relevant but not as much for me. They left my drink off the bill but gave me a free one. Didn’t have fried chicken at the ready and they told me it would be 20 mins which felt weird because it was a Saturday around lunch — why wouldn’t you prep that for the lunch rush? Although most people were there for ice cream. Almost went back for softserve.
Stopped at Blue Heron home of the mega sub for a quick Coke Zero
Parhams Stop is now Johnnie’s Travel Plaza
Lickety Split ok let’s split the fuck out of this GOP fun center. “What the hell are we doing here, I feel like I’m someone’s house”
Parked in front of a giant cross with a white shroud draped over it
Someone washing a Tesla the entire time. Brian got a bahama mama smoothie. I asked him how it was and he said it’s horrible.
https://taylorfreezersales.com/flavorburst-soft-serve/
3 kittens. 2 goats hiding under a picnic table
Saw a rare combo Pizza Hut Quiznos
Stopped at Walmart on the way home so Brian could run in and grab tricolor pasta. I said make it quick, we have meat in the car. He starts sending me pictures of big screen TVs
Brian asked if there would be any food in the house while I’m out of town which sort of makes this feel like a child abandonment situation. I told him I would stock the freezer with Hungry Man’s, which I will actually not be doing. Is it Hungry Men when you have more than one? Accidentally ordering 4 gallons of egg drop soup again is his best case scenario.
Speaking of Brian!!!!!! and food Brian!!!!!! generously allowed me to purchase more Vintage bowls today, although he said that we need to get rid of some because the bowls are stacked in the cupboard so high that sometimes he doesn’t eat cereal in the morning cause he can’t fit his hands in to take the bowls out of the stacks and he’s afraid it’s gonna be too loud.
Got home to a brown paper bag of canned B&M brown bread that Brian’s aunt mailed to him from Boston, plus a jug of Vermont maple syrup
Brian made the saltiest nastiest tricolor noodles when we got home. Said it tasted like eating the sea and we should just go to Chili’s. The last time we went to Chili’s after 8pm they were like sorry only the people will Chili’s tattoos are allowed here past 9pm here’s a to go box.
May 10, 2026 (Sunday)
9am: Counter Culture coffee with half & half, scrambled eggs with Isigny butter, and Tender Belly bacon, made at home.
3pm: Milton’s salt and pepper crackers with Cedar’s garlic hummus and a brownie, made at home.
5pm: Navy beans with onions and bacon over basmati rice, made at home, and a pour of Miller High Life.
Tender Belly bacon is so strangely bad. Not very salty and not fatty enough to cook in its own fat; barely rendered any bacon grease and stuck to my cast iron. These factors, plus the addition of a spice rub, made it eat like pastrami. Used up the rest of it for the beans because it’s so oddly flavored I thought let’s just get rid of this. Not really going to impart a lot of great flavor as the base of a future meal.
Birch Benders Brownie Mix
There's a bear making brownies on the bag
Used half butter half oil
Bag said to bake 350 for 38-42 minutes which is insane
I cooked for 30 and they registered 225 degrees which is way overdone
These taste like water