Be Your Own Salt Bae

Hi friends,

Welcome to This Needs Hot Sauce (And Other Food Thoughts), a newsletter sharing something to cook, somewhere to eat out, and something to read. I'm a native New Yorker who spends far too much time thinking and reading about food. I love helping people find better things to eat and solving problems, so let me know how I can help. Let's dive in.

It was a very long week, with a bonus dose of freezing sleet on Friday. This weekend, luckily, featured lots of homecooked meals and some sunshine.

Something to make:
On Friday, a group of us cooked a Shabbat dinner featuring two types of tacos and some great sides. Free food alert: we got some of the food/wine costs subsidized by registering through One Table so if you have some Jewish friends and want to hang on a friday, look into this. You get $15 a guest to use at Fresh Direct or Whole Foods. 

Cauliflower Shwarma Tacos via Molly Yeh's Cookbook
1 head of cauliflower
1 white onion, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon garam masala (you can find this at most supermarkets but can DIY using this ingredient list)
1 tablespoon curry powder
Salt and pepper
Corn tortillas (2 or 3 per person)
1/4 cup tahini
3 tablespoons water
1 lemon
Toppings: Cilantro, sliced avocado, pickled jalapeño, hot sauce, cotija cheese

Preheat the oven to 450. Chop the cauliflower into florets and place in a bowl with the onion. Add the spices and olive oil and toss to combine, coating the florets with the spices. Transfer to a rimmed baking sheet (line with parchment paper for easy cleanup) and roast for about 35 to 40 minutes, until the cauliflower is crisp.

While you wait, prepare the toppings. Make a tahini sauce by combining the tahini, water, lemon juice in a small bowl. Mix it with a fork until it's nice and smooth. Add salt and pepper to taste. 

Heat the corn tortillas over the stove. I like to heat them over an open flame to get them a little charred on each side. Be careful not to burn your fingers.

Make tacos: Add cauliflower and onions to the warm tortillas, drizzle with tahini sauce and top to your heart's content.
You can use pita bread or flour tortillas if that's what you have, and the cauliflower would be great in a quinoa salad or as a side. 

The non-vegetarians had real shwarma, and we all had this vegetable side dish, which reminds me to eat more corn outside of the summer. You could use fresh or frozen. We used a mix of chili powder, cumin, oregano, garlic powder, cayenne, salt and pepper for the taco seasoning. 

To end the meal, Julia made the best dessert: BuzzFeed's official best chocolate chip cookies topped with flakey sea salt. These cookies are great, they have crispy edges, a nice soft center and the dough has a great toffee flavor. Five stars and unlike some other famous cookies, they're totally doable without an electric mixer. 

Thanks to these wonderful cookies, we now own Maldon Sea Salt and it's so good on top of everything. The flakes are really big and not overly salty so you can add just a little saltiness and a little bit of crunch to just about anything. My fried eggs got a major upgrade and it also helped my oatmeal this morning. Life is short, buy some flakey sea salt and be your own salt bae. I'm already a huge fan and it's been 4 days. 
I made a riff on this farro salad for lunch last week (substituting purple cabbage for green and dried figs for dried apricots and pistachios for almonds). So good and quick. The farro takes 30 minutes to cook and you can prepare the rest of the ingredients during that time.

Made this chickpea pasta again and wow it's perfect and fast. I roasted some broccoli with garlic and lemon on the side and it's an ideal quick meal. 

I also like this guide to get more comfortable cooking from recipes and this roundup of what to cook in March from Kate (if you haven't tried her thai quinoa crunch salad yet, make it!)

I made chili and quesadillas with friends for Oscar night (the reason you're reading this later in the week). A little swipe of refried black beans on the tortillas makes them extra good. 
One more thing: Reader Julianne wanted some tips on overnight oats, which I make for breakfast at least once a week. 
Here's how I do it.
Step 1: Buy some talenti gelato (or sorbet). These pint-size containers are the perfect vessels for overnight oats, and you get dessert, too. Eat the ice cream and then wash out your container.
Step 2: Add your ingredients. Use 1/2 cup of old-fashioned oats, 1 cup of liquid (you can use almond milk/yogurt/regular milk) as your base. I always add some fruit and something crunchy. For the fruit, my favorites are banana and berries and I like slivered almonds, chia seeds, and a little bit of peanut butter for crunch. Stir it up and top with a sprinkle of cinnamon and salt.
Step 3: Refrigerate overnight and then eat at your desk. Bring in a real spoon to keep in your drawer to take the experience to the next level.

Ideas:
Substitute mashed banana for some of the liquid.
Drizzle a little honey or maple syrup to make it sweeter.
I occasionally switch it up with store-bought jam, a drizzle of tahini or some dried fruit. Pumpkin puree is good too if you have a little leftover from baking.
The best way to nail this is practice. Some people like a more liquidy oatmeal and others like a thicker one. If you want to carry two containers, you can add some of the toppings in the morning to keep things crunchier Make the oats with a little less liquid and add some yogurt or nuts in the morning. May the fiber be with you.

In the regular daytime oats category, Lukas Volger finished his #28daysofoatmealchallenge and has some wisdom to share. Oatmeal is really a blank canvas.

Something to order:
I found a great lunch spot in Koreatown: Woorjip. It's got a hot and cold buffet with different types of kimchi, really good mung beans, kimchi pancakes, and lots of other goodies. I'm terrible at estimating weight at buffets and accidentally got enough for two lunches, which wound up being great. 

Had dinner at Little Beet Table with some Townsend friends and highly recommend starting with the spicy crispy rice (Dana knows what's up).

My favorite place Win Son got two stars from Eater's Ryan Sutton and thankfully, I was still able to get a table last Thursday. So much love for the scallion pancake and pea shoots and sesame noodles. They ran out of Georgian orange wine which is the only bummer.
Ovenly opened in Williamsburg and it's so cute! They updated their branding and the shop is super sunny. I stopped by for some free cookies (my favorites are the salted peanut butter and salted chocolate chip). Ovenly is a super progressive women-owned business and you should check it out next time you're looking for a sweet in Williamsburg. It's right by the water, which will be perfect for warmer months. 
I went to the Lower East Side on a Saturday (shocking) to see Shiffley at the Rockwood Music Hall. RPM Bar was a nice spot to hang out after with good drinks, no scary bouncers, and lots of french fry options. 

Coffee update: Charter Coffeehouse in Williamsburg has strong wifi and lots of tiny seats for solo laptop users. Also in Williamsburg, Oslo has great muffins and no wifi (they have this article hanging by the cash register). 

Something to read: 
Some strong opinions about the best way to make a PB + J (reminds me of one of my favorite articles ever, about the NBA's obsession with the sandwich). 

14 great Jewish bakeries in New York

I haven't tried Atla yet but this taco looks really good. Reminds me of the recipe at the top of this newsletter but with brussels sprouts

Inside the company working to make the next great squash

This Staten Island restaurant celebrates grandma's cooking and it's impossible to get a table

I'll Never Eat Perfectly and Neither Will You

Jada Yuan's latest dispatch from Montgomery, Alabama.  I visited in 2014 with Penn's Alliance and Understanding program and am still moved when I think about our visit to the Equal Justice Initiative (Founder Bryan Stevenson was onstage at the Oscars) and the SPLC. There are so many contradictions, with long lines for MLK's First Parish and the First White House of the Confederacy. 

Life as a line cook at one of New York's fanciest restuarants.

Inspired by last week's bagel sneaking escapades, a round up of movie eating behaviors 

Love to see Wafa's featured on this cheap eats list. 

Sweetbitter, the tv show based on this book based on Stephanie Danler's experiences waiting tables at Union Square Cafe, is coming soon. 

The pickled cucumbers that survived the 1980s AIDS epidemic  

Meet the lovechild of challah and Malaysian chicken curry

This experimental pop up lunch counter includes race in the bill.

What's the role of PR firms in the wake restaurant scandals and #MeToo? 

A wonderful grubstreet diet written by someone who actually thinks about money and takes public transportation! 

Why don't we talk about hunger in America? This video (and the whole series from Jessica Valenti) is worth a watch   Also: how does fatness fit into the food porn era? And one more with Cecile Richards. I loved them all. 

Last week, I asked you to share the foods that mean you're home and the answers were supremely comforting. Thanks for sharing.

It's got to be breaded chicken cutlets with Italian seasoning and then pasta with broccoli, parmesan and olive oil. Sometimes the broccoli is on the side and then the pasta might have sauce. That's it. - Ian

The food that's waiting for me when I step into the house from the AICM is a pile of quesadillas on a big ceramic plate. The simplest quesadilla made with tortillinas tia rosa, queso manchego (the Mexican kind, which is closer to a mild gouda, not the cured Spanish sheep's milk kind) topped with some homemade salsa verde which isn't really spicy because my mom likes it that way. At the first bite, I know I'm home. - Isa 

The homiest food to me is a plate of pasta. My parents made spaghetti every Thursday growing up, and we have some kind of pasta at every holiday (which is p much when I come home now). Anchovy pasta on Christmas Eve, homemade raviolis on Christmas day, etc. etc. etc. - Alicia 

The "dish" that means I have arrived home, especially in the winter, is hot water with lemon and chunks of ginger, that I shall consume all day long.  Doesn't matter if I have been gone for the day or a week! - Karen (my mom).

This week, I want to know what you eat or make to turn a bad day around. I woke up this morning feeling really bummed that it a) Was not spring b) Was Monday, and then the train left as I was walking down the subway stairs. The perfect storm, right? 
After work, I went to a workout class and then to the grocery store. I made the carrot saladfrom last week's newsletter for lunches this week and bought some not yet in season asparagus for tonight's dinner. I swear, as soon as I started peeling the carrots, I felt better. So a reminder: take your own advice, be kind to yourself, listen to some SZA, reread the GQ profile of Timothée Chalamet, and maybe make some time to cook. Reply to this email with any bad day remedies, food related or otherwise. 

Happy eating and thanks for reading.
xo,
Abigail