Always money in the banana bread
Plus, the waffle fries I'm still thinking about and the scoop on Win Son Bakery
Hi friends,
Welcome to This Needs Hot Sauce, a weekly newsletter about cooking, dining out and making the most of it. Remember to save September 19th for our next happy hour (details coming soon). It’s September, fam! I’m happy you’re here.
Now, let’s dive in (on Tuesday for a change).
Something to cook:
I got some avocados in a gift bag last week and made many variations of avocado toast, using Nick and Son’s olive loaf (I also love their seeded one). My avocado toast formula is pretty simple, but I got to mix it up with some pesto that my mom gave me. She had a basil surplus and I was the happy beneficiary. Pesto is also fantastic with sautéed zucchini if you have extra this time of year (this also looks really good).
My new go to snack is greek yogurt (I buy 2%) with Soom silan. It’s a date syrup with a deeper flavor than honey and so good on yogurt with some nuts or berries. The squeeze bottle is so useful and not messy. Thanks to Erica for suggesting the pairing.
I made banana bread for the first time as an excuse to use my loaf pan and my new hand me down KitchenAid. I love a recipe that doesn’t require a lot of tools (see: most cookies I make), but I was thrilling to cream the butter and sugar for four whole minutes. The resulting bread was so delicious—and stayed moist for two days (it was gone after that but did not seem in danger of getting stale. I made BA’s Best Banana Bread inspired by a video of Carla making it. The tweaks I made were: adding vanilla, cinnamon and cloves and making a little crust with turbinado sugar and flakey salt. Carla does this in the video, just sprinkle some on top before you bake.
Dale and I went to the Farmer’s Market and put together a little cheese plate with local cheese, heirloom tomatoes and some strawberry jam. Nothing makes a weekend at home feel like a vacation more than a pre dinner appetizer. Also, good cheese plates are really memorable: Nicole made us a cheese plate in Philly back in March and Dale liked the crackers so much he looked for similar ones at the store here.
Julia and I are really good at making breakfast together with whatever’s left in our fridge. We made scrambled eggs with some mascarpone folded in (which I had from the banana bread), sliced tomato and avocado, banana bread, and some sautéed kale with scallions and lime. Odds and ends can be so delicious.
One last suprise: last week, I got to celebrate my birthday with a very special guest: Antoni Porowski from Queer Eye. He hosted an event with Country Crock plant based butter (a clever and accurate rebrand for margarine) and did a demo before a dinner (thanks to Lissette for including me!). Omg, meeting him was such a treat! He’s really funny irl and speaks with lots of digressions and anecdotes sprinkled in. Lover faves. It was nice to not have to take a lactaid before an event and the food was really good, especially the eggplant with a buttery miso sauce. My cousin Teal doesn’t eat dairy so we used a lot of Earth Balance growing up. I got some of the Country Crock stuff to sample and I’m excited to bake with it. (Had to share this photo).
Something to order:
Win Son Bakery is now open! I’m so excited about it (and wrote about it for Bushwick Daily). Julia and I attended family and friend’s night last week and wow, everything is delicious. The fried chicken was Julia’s favorite, it’s got a thick breading and a soy glaze. I had an amazing eggplant parm on their milk bread and also loved the seasoned wedge fries. They also have a great white caesar salad and the orange wine is so good that you’ll be ordering a second glass as soon as you have a sip of your first. Breakfast is also great (that egg sandwich…) Go and support them and let me know what you think!
Allison and I caught up over dinner at Ruffian in the East Village. It’s a small wine bar specializing in natural wine (and they’re opening a restaurant this fall). We shared an orange wine from Slovakia that tasted like sunshine and flowers and some great veggie dishes, including an eggplant with tahini and a red lentil hummus with homemade crackers.
For a nitecap, we stopped at Amor y Amargo, which I had never been to. It’s a small bar that specializes in bitters. Sother Teague, one of the owners, was tending bar that night and knows everything about spirits. I got a grapefruit/aperol/tequila thing and Allison had a custom negroni. A fun way to end the night.
Long weekends require a mental kick off, especially if you’re staying in town. Emma and I spent Friday night at Grand Army in Downtown Brooklyn. It’s a really great bar and restaurant with an oyster happy hour. We split little neck clams, this amazing bread with seaweed butter, and a grain salad. If you go, get the bread and some clams or oysters. So good.
On Saturday, Dale and I tried to go to Lillo Cucina, which we had heard so much about. We got to Cobble Hill and realized they were on vacation for labor day. Boo! Sandra, who lives in the neighborhood, came to the rescue and suggested we try River Deli, which was a seven minute walk away. She also told us Lillo has declined in quality, so it’s off our list for now. River Deli is really cute and they served trofie, my favorite pasta shape after our Paris trip. It’s not destination dining, but definitely a good option if you’re in the neighborhood and starting to get hangry. After you eat, walk down to the Promenade, look at the skyline and appreciate this crazy city. You can also get Ample Hills, which is pretty overrated imho.
I had first heard of the Candlelight Inn because the Infatuation’s Andrew Steinthal grew up in Westchester and frequently mentions it on the site. Dale and I were up there visiting his old stomping grounds when he mentioned this wing restaurant he loved but couldn’t remember the name of. I guessed the Candlelight Inn and what do you know, that was the place. It’s a roadside inn known for its wings. The clientele ranges from babies to douchey teens to people in their 70s and the menu has something for everyone. If you eat wings, Dale recommends the hot wings with a side of extra hot sauce and blue cheese. Get waffle fries (I am still thinking about these waffle fries) and dip those in the sauces, too. Vegetarians, get a veggie burger or their veggie cauliflower bites with wing sauce. If you’re in Scarsdale or passing through, stop here. It’s cash only, there’s usually a wait and it’s worth it.
We ended the weekend with a big fam dinner at my fave Ops. Going with a group of seven is ideal because you can order lots of pizzas and magnums of natural wine. Make sure you get a salad, a square pie and the special pie, which tends to involve pesto in the summer (I also wrote about how to order there last year). The service is really great there and the pizzas are so dang good.
Something to read:
This cooking diary is both aspirational and impossible feeling
National grid is making it very difficult for new restaurants to open in Brooklyn
An interview with sommelier and community builder Cha McCoy.
Carla Lalli Music’s approach to weeknight cooking
Acknowledging African/Black influences in traditional Latin American foods
A heartfelt essay about the magic of sesame noodles made with industrial peanut butter
This is useful: The World of Olive Oil Is Murky. Here’s Help for the Home Cook.
Three cheers for transparency and this Serious Eats list of banned words
In case this applies to you: how to bring a baby to a bar
Marissa A. Ross has me wanting to try this new to me Greek wine (also loved this interview with her about women in the wine industry)
Make sure to read my recent stories about shopping for natural wine (many of the tips are also useful if you’re ordering a glass or bottle at a restaurant) and Win Son Bakery.
Thanks to everyone who shared blender recipes. I currently use mine to make hummus but am upgrading later this month and want to up my sauce game.
Gemma’s fave looks so refreshing: My fave blender recipe is this one from otttolenghi! best part is no chopping, and you can sub whatever herbs & nuts are on hand.
Jamie has a pesto routine that I love: I make basil pesto like once a week in a blender! It's a staple for me. Occasionally I make a smoothie but I use an immersion blender for soup and don't really blend anything else.
This week, I’m turning this section on its head! Please send in your food questions, which will be answered in an advice column in a paid edition of This Needs Hot Sauce! (This will launch in October and weekly newsletters will always be free, more to come very soon). I’m really excited to share more with you guys and serve as a resource on all things food, so please send questions on cooking/first date spots/good food blogs/meal prep or whatever else is on your mind! I’ll share some sneak peeks here too.
Happy eating and thanks for reading.
xo, Abigail