Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
What I ate last week. Ranked #182 in food podcasts in Mexico according to an email I just got.
NEWS & UPDATES
Got a spam text today from an Iowa number asking if I want to come over for dinner and that they were making seafood tonight. Not if you’re in Iowa.
Update: https://www.seriouseats.com/foolproof-onion-rings-food-lab-recipe
I don’t think it’s necessary to freeze the onions and then peel off the outer membranes. I did this the first time I made them and it was so tedious that we gave up halfway through and cooked the rest with the membrane on and we couldn’t tell the difference.
Correction: the ice cream sundae that I ate last week at Brian’s parents’ house that was served alongside a slice of yellow cake with chocolate frosting also contained Cool Whip, which will probably not surprise you. Vanilla ice cream, jarred hot fudge heated up in a microwave, Cool Whip, and a maraschino cherry. I once started a fire in my parents’ microwave by microwaving a jar of hot fudge.
Meat stick update: Brian tried one of the uncured pork sticks from Studley General store and asked “are these for people?”
https://abcnews.com/US/usda-confirms-detection-new-world-screwworm-texas/story?id=133576447
License plate update: 3PM NAP; imagine seeing that car on the road at 3pm driving off the road.
The red lobster in Times Square is closing. Never been to a red lobster. Might miss my chance at this rate. The chain is not doing well. It occurred to me that I wouldn’t eat vegetables grown in a landfill or pork from pigs that are fed loaves of bread with the plastic bag still in but I do eat fish that grow in an ocean filled with trash without question.
Eating at Madison 11 Park when I was 10 in overalls; my uncle made me a grilled cheese and a chocolate dome
Well fired roll consumption discouraged by Scottish government. Just awful. I would like one with sausage and a tattie scone. https://www.tastingtable.com/1364006/scottish-well-fired-rolls-blackened/
Sour apple apple cider vinegar updates
Started on May 31 in a gallon jar; in a cabinet in an air conditioned house with a paper towel and rubber banded top; a week later it’s fizzy and cloudy and smells like cider
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/P5i3AYX94ro
SCENTS
Brian said that the magnolia blossom smelled like garbage so to each their own
Balloon flower smells like a beach ball or a balloon
Le Labo Poivre 23
Official Description: POIVRE 23 translates into Pepper 23, and it’s Le Labo’s pepper statement. Why pepper? (And we’re talking true Bourbon Pepper, the crown jewel of peppers.) Because it’s the spice of all spices, widely used in perfumery, and we wanted pepper to finally get what it deserves: the limelight. It is very warm, ultra spicy, truly ambery, and it’s only for London for most of the year.
That told me close to nothing to here is a description from Fragrantica: Poivre 23 London by Le Labo is a. Oriental fragrance for women and men. Poivre 23 London was launched in 2008. The nose behind this fragrance is Nathalie Lorson. The fragrance features Pepper, Labdanum, Vanilla, Incense, Styrax, Guaiac Wood, Sandalwood and Patchouli.
My review: This is not the freshly cut tropical plant peppery smell that I was looking for. Old instead of fresh. Vanilla extract, a waiting room with wall to wall carpeting and women's magazines, a closet with at least one piece with feathers on it, a plastic tub of toys in a pre school classroom, faded red color, opening up a glass jar on my dad’s bureau filled with cough drops, binder clips, and big red gum, a chipboard box of Domino’s powdered sugar, sharpening a pencil in sixth grade, boarding an early morning Delta flight in 1994, Aussie shampoo, makes you think that you’re uncle is in the room
INTERNET
TOP CHEF: As a society we’ve moved past the need to know who the top chef is. Despite this I decided to catch up on Top Chef.
Episode 11
Falling asleep. Everyone accidentally makes the same crostini for the quickfire. This is what people make when they don’t know how to cook and don’t own pots or pans. We have run out of innovations in food. Let’s just let them make random food like macaroni salad and call it a day.
Anthony goes home for making three versions of dry ass rabbit.
Episode 12
They go meet folks who cooked for people after Hurricane Helene and then they have to cook an appalachian dish using appalachian ingredients, such as sour corn, for a crowd of 200. They go to Chai Pani, no surprise, to taste local food.
Sieger makes chicken liver pate and nobody comes to eat his food which is sad. I would have been first in line. The judges then said that it was wet so nevermind.
They all stand around in the woods for judges table and get attacked by a snake.
Sieger gets sent home and then argues with the judges. He is too sassy. The other guy in the bottom keeps whispering to chill. Yikes get this guy out of here.
Episode 13
Quickfire: Tom Colicchio is in the kitchen making Billy Bi for a game of 20 questions where everyone has to make it without knowing what it is. Sherry nailed it. She said she could smell that there were mussels. Rhoda wins regardless and gets $20k.
Elimination challenge: create a dish that is plated in a unique vessel. They roll in a table of junk that they found at a thrift store for them to choose from. One is a giant platform stiletto that Tom pours a beer into and then drinks.
Rhoda, Sherry, and Lawrence make it to the final. Johnathan goes home. Rhoda and Lawrence makes sense but Sherry was surprising. Nobody was really a standout this season besides Rhoda and Lawrence. Sherry and Jonathan are kind of the middling Randos in traitors that happen to make it to the finale because nobody noticed that they’re there.
90 Day Food Updates
A Turkish man abandons his beautiful life on the Aegean sea and heads to Alabama with his American fiance and she says “we’ll go to Chik-fil-a one day baby”. Their friend in the car says “their chicken is halal” and the Turkish guy says “hello” and everyone says halal back to him and he says hello back and they keep on doing this for a good while
The Ohio State Highway Patrol arrested online political writer D.J. Byrnes, also known as The Rooster, at the statehouse on June 1 on a misdemeanor warrant. A patrol spokesman said Byrnes, who posts his stories to his Substack subscribers, was arrested on an outstanding warrant. He was booked into the Franklin County Jail, records show. The patrol did not provide further details. Byrnes' colleague, Max Littman, said he believes the arrest is related to Byrnes texting photos of cartoon character Shrek's penis to a state senator. "If that is in fact true, that he was arrested over that, then it's blatant targeting a political opponent and journalist," Littman said.
INNER DIMENSIONAL SOUND CHAMBER
"The Millennium Machine"
"An Angelic Gift to Human Kind"
While riding his three-wheeler a few years ago, the throttle of his vehicle stuck. This act threw Tom violently into a tree. Tom's injuries were massive. His ribs had been snapped off at their ends, his neck was in spasm, and a specialist in the hospital told Tom that his neck was broken. He was even told that he would have to have three ribs cut out and some vertebrae in his neck musi be permanently fused. Instead of undergoing operations, Tom choose to work on himself by doing meditations, past life regression therapy, massage therapy, and sound therapy with the Sound Chamber.
Hawaiian pizza https://www.instagram.com/p/DGQxfKkyxgB/?igsh=MXF5ZTVma3dlaGlyaA==
MSG in desserts: small quantity according to America’s test kitchen; people use milk powder. I keep meaning to use malted milk powder in desserts. Malted milk tiramisu.
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8sjm5TT/
Max from Tasting History made this recipe
https://archive.org/details/CAT92970475
https://www.seriouseats.com/pesto-alla-trapanese-sicilian-pesto-with-almonds-and-tomatoes
Wild ham https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8sRw3U1/
Birthday cake tiramisu https://www.instagram.com/p/DZJDYYyDfGq/?img_index=1&igsh=dWlwYjJ1OTI3MzJ6
https://www.bonappetit.com/story/where-to-stay-philadelphia
Scotty’s donuts in TikTok; they also sell hot wheels and DVDS https://maps.app.goo.gl/2uBwqxnx3BgEezR37?g_st=ic
Middle food https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8sLNmVo/
There’s a creator on TikTok named AmericanLovelyASMR who claims that she eats fish wife tinned fish every day, multiple times a day. This seems like sponsored content, so I don’t know how true her claim is. regardless you should not be eating tin fish every day. Her mercury levels are probably through the roof. Her grocery bills must also be through the roof. We need a new round of PSA for all the tin fish girlies. Consider this a PSA do not eat tin fish every day.
Green onion garlic bread for a sandwich — why aren’t we always doing this? When I see TikTok or YouTube cooking channels called things like “The toasted table” it makes me want to die. So contrived. “Basket and barrel”. Be quiet. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8sRTDms/
Trixie said she’s following a girl on instagram who thinks Sandra bullock is trying to kill her
Corre Larkin creme fraiche chicken salad https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8sYWjq7/
I finally found the first chocolate covered key lime pie on a stick that I had and was blown away by in Carroll Gardens from a food52 TikTok video. Also had my first huarache. This was at a block party that I helped put together for the last day of my internship at an event company. Steve’s authentic key lime pie in red hook: https://maps.app.goo.gl/AvhAiXqsYfcyyqBe9?g_st=ic
June 1, 2026 (Monday)
8am: Counter Culture coffee with half & half, made at home.
9am: Half of a leftover Bubba burger patty.
11am: A bowl of bran flakes with milk.
3:30pm: Bake to Nature sour cream and onion mini crackers.
5:30pm: Thai green curry with green beans, a yellow bell pepper, and an orange bell pepper over basmati rice, made at home.
7pm: Blue Bell cookies and cream ice cream.
Stress ate almost an entire box of crackers
Being back at work is hard
American store brand coconut milk is always whack as hell; had to add milk and cream to the curry to make it feel like a Thai curry, even with a full can of Whole Foods coconut cream. I ran out of Chaokoh.
June 2, 2026 (Tuesday)
8:30am: Counter Culture coffee with half & half, made at home.
10:30am: A bowl of bran flakes with milk.
1pm: Leftover green curry and rice.
3:30pm: Back to Nature sour cream and onion mini crackers.
6pm: Tagliardi with cured black olives, lemon, and charred broccolini, made at home, and a small pour of Sierra Nevada pilsner.
Sierra Nevada pilsner wasn’t bad for an American pilsner except it came in a skinny little 8.4oz can that was confusing. Never seen a can like this.
Tagliardi is Cipriani’s take on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maltagliati
Bacon fat, a shallot, 2 cloves of garlic, 1/4c chicken stock, handful of chopped cured black olives, a lemon, 2 tb butter, parmesan, 250g tagliardi, charred broccolini, black pepper
Cut the broccolini nice and thin and cooked with salt and olive oil at 450 for 7 minutes and then turned the oven off and let it ride, door propped open a bit; super crispy like kale chips
June 3, 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 partially eaten package of yellow marshmallow rabbit Peeps, NYT Cooking Page-a-Day calendar recipes for Inside-Out Cheeseburgers and Rhubarb Crisp, and tickets to Beaver Rivalry, a beaver queen pageant in Durham.
10:30am: Leftover curry and rice at the office.
4pm: A slice of Applegate deli turkey and half a can of Sierra Nevada pilsner.
6pm: Macaroni and cheese with sprouting cauliflower, red bell peppers, and onions, made at home.
6:30pm: Lemon tiramisu, made at home.
https://beaverqueen.org/
Applegate deli turkey was very herbal / rosemary
Macaroni and cheese
1 head of sprouting cauliflower and 1 red bell pepper roasted in olive oil in the oven at 425 for 15
1 onion, sliced along the grain and cooked in 4 tb butter
Remove onion and add 2 more tb of butter and 5 tb flour
Splash of pilsner, 2c chicken stock, 2c milk, 1 cup half & half, 1 tb whole grain mustard, garlic powder, 1 tb Kewpie, 1 tb garlic texas pete hot sauce
8oz block Tilamook sharp cheddar, half of a Boxcarr Doeling chive studded goat cheese, 5 slices yellow American cheese
1lb De Cecco large elbows
Buttered 2qt pyrex
Panko breadcrumbs and butter on top
Lemon tiramisu recipes; neither of which include egg yolks
https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/lemon-tiramisu-recipe
Why does this have so much water in the soak?
https://giadzy.com/blogs/recipes/lemon-tiramisu?srsltid=AfmBOooaCMwXxcwVJ_A9pxjPRnEWCBuzJeNBdGo1uBHQqDNZBsrdFw7x
My lemon tiramisu in a 9x9 glass pyrex that Brian rated 10/10; I put a whole cup of limoncello in it and could have easily done more which is scary because I easily could have eaten the whole 9x9 thing and blacked out. Maybe that’s why Brian thought it was so great.
200g or 7 ounces of lady fingers
Soak:
1 cup Luxardo limoncello
Juice from 1 lemon
Filling:
zest of one lemon
312g heavy cream
½ tsp vanilla
8oz mascarpone
4 tablespoons 10x
pinch of salt
11oz jar of Wilkin & Sons LTD lemon curd
Topping:
Zest of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons powdered sugar (this melts so do it for serving)
Other tiramisu flavors I want to make (sorry that this has become a tiramisu podcast)
Cherry & brandy
Passionfruit, rum, cocoa
Basil
Whipped chocolate mascarpone ganache
Malt
June 4, 2026 (Thursday)
8am: Counter Culture coffee with half & half, made at home.
9:30am: Leftover green curry over rice.
12pm: Applegate turkey, yellow American cheese, arugula, expired Kewpie mayonnaise, and mustard on olive oil toasted La Farm sourdough, made at home.
2:30pm: A small bowl of cherries.
4pm: A small scoop of tiramisu.
7pm: Leftover macaroni and cheese.
Woke up thinking about how I feel about bubblegum flavor, Tutti Frutti flavor and fruit punch flavored things. I don’t like bubblegum or Tutti Frutti flavored things and I wonder. Is because actual flavor itself or because the flavor is not identifiable in nature. Is the reason that I do like the fruit punch flavor because of the flavor itself or do I tolerate fruit punch because I can pinpoint it back to a particular product an image that is related to food. Fruit punch is a real beverage bubblegum is a real food itself, but the flavor bubble gum is made entirely made up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bubble_gum
“A natural bubble gum flavoring can be produced by combining banana, pineapple, cinnamon, cloves, and wintergreen.[23] Vanilla, cherry, lemon, and orange oil have also been suggested as ingredients. “ SOUNDS AWFUL
Trying out a new lifestyle: eating a big breakfast and a fat sandwich because I’m always grazing and feeling hungry all day at home eating crackers. Really wasn’t hungry for dinner. I understand how europeans eat late at night now. The tiramisu carried me through.
“Life is just a chair of bowlies” Mary Engelbreith
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_Is_Just_a_Bowl_of_Cherries
June 5, 2026 (Friday)
8am: Counter Culture coffee with half & half, made at home.
12pm: Applegate turkey, yellow American cheese, arugula, expired Kewpie mayonnaise, and mustard on olive oil toasted Whole Foods heritage grain sourdough, made at home.
1:30pm: A can of Sierra Nevada pilsner and a small bowl of cherries.
3:30pm: A small scoop of tiramisu.
7pm: Leftover curry and rice.
I realized that I don’t really eat meat or protein until dinner which is maybe why I’m so hungry all day. If I eat a turkey sandwich during the day I don’t even need dinner.
Woke up to do a few loads of laundry because Brian’s friends and their child were coming to stay with us sometime during the night - again I never know when people are coming to my house when they make plans through Brian and don’t include me, which is one of the biggest mistakes you could make because he will not be doing anything to prepare for your visit and it’s gonna be chaos - and the dryer broke. Rigged up a weird clothesline from some of our greenhouse set up and went to go change out the laundry and felt like someone was watching me. Brian’s cousin’s daughter (cousin niece?) was standing at the mouth of our driveway, behind some trees. She screamed hello and I waved at her and said hello and she seemingly walked away. 10 minutes later I realized she was still standing there. I decided to drink a beer.
It’s 90° out or in a mega drought there’s grass growing at the bottom of the lake. I’m gonna drink a beer at 1 PM, technically a half a beer.
Anyway after essentially dehydrated my clothes like sundried tomatoes I tried to fold them up and they were so stiff I could have standed Brian’s carhatt pants up on their own and they probably would have walked away
Brian came home early to fix the dryer and ended the night with it even more broken than we started with
June 6, 2026 (Saturday)
8am: Counter Culture coffee with half & half, made at home.
10am: Scrambled eggs, sautéed lacinato kale with sesame oil, and spiced fried potatoes with fried shallots, made by Brian, and a small piece of a leftover Bojangles biscuit.
2pm: An iced coffee with half & half, tomato bisque with ciabatta and half of an Italian hoagie at Strong Arm Baking in Oxford, North Carolina.
5pm: A leftover fried chicken thigh from Bojangles and leftover macaroni and cheese.
8pm: A pour of Hopewell Brewing Neon: Mixed Melon
We had people over so Brian made breakfast. Potatoes were really good.
Leftover Bojangles / Sassool
Went to Strong Arm before our guests took off. I don’t love going there because it’s too busy and kind of a small space but they since seem to have moved some production elsewhere / offsite. Plus I worked about 4 shifts there and then quit so there’s that. They wouldn’t pay me what I wanted or let me work in the department that I wanted and everyone kept asking me what church I was going to so I needed to leave. This is a place that the community needs and I think that’s great but it just wasn’t for me at this point in my food career, which pretty much ended after that. I was also interviewing at ideals and Brightspot and then my food career basically ended when I realized I didn’t want to start this shit all over again. I still regret not working at ideals sometimes.
Bojangles chicken is trash. Smithfield is far superior and makes great cold picnic chicken. The first time I went to Bojangles before the pandemic it was great but Bojangles has different regional ownership so I may have hit a different franchise.
Mixed melon is super sour, no melon flavor
https://theliquorbarn.com/products/hopewell-neon-mixed-melon-750ml
June 7, 2026 (Sunday)
8am: Counter Culture coffee with half & half, made at home.
12pm: Grilled American cheese on olive oil toasted Whole Foods heritage grain sourdough, made at home, and a small pour of Hopewell Brewing Neon: Mixed Melon.
5pm: A chicken quesadilla tray with cheese curds and a Cajun chicken ranch wrap, and part of a vanilla malt milkshake from Cook Out in Oxford, North Carolina.
Brian panicked and ordered a crunch wrap at cook out