five of the best things I'm eating and drinking right now
This week, I was overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of cookies in my kitchen. I’d already offloaded two batches on my coworkers and didn’t have plans to go back to the office for a few days, so I had to get creative or risk tossing stale cookies.
My solution: I portioned the leftover cookies into Ziplocs and set them in a tote bag on the sidewalk, in case anyone wanted a mid-walk snack. I left a note on a piece of stationary printed with my full name, explaining that I write a food newsletter. I figured if anyone was worried about poison or razor blades, this might assuage them. I expected one of two outcomes: No one would take a single cookie (poison, razor blades), or someone would walk by and swipe the entire tote.
Instead, over the course of an afternoon, the cookies disappeared. By dusk, they were gone. Then, the next morning, PoPville, a hyperlocal D.C. news site, wrote a post about the cookies and tagged me on Twitter. Someone had submitted a picture of the cookies, complimented them and wondered how they could find my blog. Some people saw the PoPville post and subscribed (hi!), and I was just happy someone had derived some joy from the cookies.
I made a critical mistake, though: I read the comments on the PoPville post. About half the people speculated I was out to poison my neighbors, or I had unsanitary baking habits, or I was trying to give my block over to a horde of rats. (To the rats point: I was never going to leave the bag out there for more than a few hours. Come on. Also, my kitchen is pristine.)
I’m not even sure if I’m a person who’d eat a sidewalk cookie, but I’m glad there are sidewalk-cookie eaters among us. And I’m glad some of the commenters believed in me. One of my defenders made a particularly good point: Leaving a note on personalized stationary, and then referencing my writing, would’ve been a terrible way to set up a mass food poisoning. I’d be a much smarter criminal, if I were ever to break bad.
Yesterday afternoon, as I snacked on hummus and drank cold brew to rev myself up for a late night of work, I got to thinking about some of the foods and kitchen objects I can’t imagine living without. I’m not talking about elaborate recipes or enameled cookware; I’m talking things I’ve used for months or years, things I like to eat in a pinch, when I’m in a hurry or standing up or talking on the phone. Even when I’m mindlessly grazing, I hate to waste a bite on something bad. There’s too much good food out there.
It’s amazing how quickly a food can go from something I buy on a whim to something I fume about when it’s out of stock, or how an impulse Amazon purchase can become essential. So much of my purchasing is left to chance, but it doesn’t have to be that way, and the world’s best hummus doesn’t have to feel like a secret I’m keeping. With that in mind…
here are five of my favorite things I’m eating/drinking/buying/using right now:
Little Sesame’s herby jalapeño hummus is the fastest-disappearing food item in our fridge. I buy it two or three containers at a time at Whole Foods, and on the days it’s out of stock, my emotions verge on desperation. It’s just so, so good: packed with herbs (duh), super smooth and the exact right level of spicy. I love spice, my husband’s so-so on it, and we agree this hummus is perfect. I have designs on grilling some harissa-marinaded chicken thighs — maybe a riff on what Melissa Clark did here — and then making these yogurt flatbreads, smearing them with this hummus and stuffing them with chicken, crunchy lettuce and pickled onions.
In the true doldrums of the pandemic, my husband and I got hooked on Aperol spritzes. We are millennials, we had very little to do, and the liquor store was very close. When we told his sister and her wife about our new habit, their response was to immediately dispatch a Drizly order of Cappelletti to our doorstep. Now, I refuse to go without it. Cappelletti is basically the love child of Aperol and Campari: It’s not as alcoholic or bitter as Campari, but more alcoholic and not quite as sweet as Aperol. Spritz season is upon us. Get some Cappelletti in your life.
In my house, it’s also cold brew season. I’m not a huge coffee drinker, mostly because my palate isn’t quite sure what to do with warm beverages. Cold brew, though? Yes please, especially in warm weather. This OXO cold brew maker was another pandemic revelation, and it’s just as useful during periods of rampant inflation as it is when a deadly virus could be lurking in the corner of your favorite coffee shop.
I’ve always included a steady stream of English muffins in my diet. They’re such an easy breakfast staple, whether they’re buttered and jammed, covered in smashed avocado or bookending a bacon-and-egg sandwich. But until recently, they’ve always been an afterthought, or not even a thought at all. The point was the jam and the butter and the avocado and the bacon and the egg. No longer. I recently picked up a bag of Stone & Skillet English muffins at Whole Foods, and oh my god. Toast ’em, butter ’em, jam ’em, thank me later.
My local farmer’s market opened recently for the season, which means a lot of really wonderful things. It also means Hog Haven Farm breakfast sandwiches. They’re made on a griddle at the market, and I have never tasted sausage quite like the sweet, spiced sausage on these things. The cheese is melty, the eggs are cooked just right, I have no idea what the sauce is, and it’s so good I don’t care.
Love this👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻🥰