What's Your Favorite Soup?
No sales, but we have recipes and even a party!
Hi friends,
Welcome to This Needs Hot Sauce, a newsletter about cooking, eating out, and making the most of it.
Thanksgiving is over, it’s still November, and we are headed into a crazy time of year. Calendars (and inboxes) get packed and days can pass without vegetables. Cooking at home always offers a nice break and if you shop for stuff that will last a while in the fridge, you’ll be able to prepare quick meals when you get home late and need to eat. Some staples for meals like this: eggs, frozen spinach, canned chickpeas, farro and quinoa, cabbage and kale, hot sauces, salsas, pestos, nuts, and avocado. A shopping trip will serve you well.
Speaking of cooking, this week is our potluck with She Spends at Greenwich Treehouse in the West Village. It starts at 6:30 on Thursday. I’m so excited to hang with you guys and try lots of treats. Feel free to bring snacks, desserts, or any recipe you’ve been meaning to try and sign up here. The bar will have drinks and we’ll have a grand old time.
Now, let’s dive in.
Something to Cook:
I posted these cookies last week and got lots of request for the recipe. They’re Half Baked Harvest chocolate chip oatmeal cookies and they’re full of oatmeal. They don’t spread much so make sure to flatten them out a bit before baking for a more traditional cookie shape. Otherwise, it’s a great one bowl recipe that doesn’t contain butter and comes together v quickly. Top with Maldon salt, because that’s how we roll.
For lunch this week, I made a version of farro salad I described here. It’s got roasted cauliflower or broccoli, cooked farro (about 1 cup, cooked according to package directions), scallions, cilantro, mint, thinly sliced jalapeño, almonds, kale or arugula, and a sesame maple dressing (1 tablespoon sesame oil, 2 teaspoons of maple syrup, 1 lemon’s worth of juice, 1 lime’s worth of juice). Make the dressing in the bottom of the serving bowl and add the cooled farro first, then everything else. Season and top with hot sauce to taste. I also top it with avocado sometimes.
I made a quesadilla while I was babysitting this week and realized it’s been way too long since I’ve made charred cauliflower quesadillas. I make a version of this recipe with some additions I learned in Guatemala (always add refried beans) and wrote up the recipe here.
Clearly on a cauliflower kick and here to remind you that roasted cauliflower can take a lot of seasoning. I roasted some cauliflower at Dale’s this weekend with savory grill seasoning and the flavor actually worked, especially once the cauliflower got caramelized. Use high heat (400 or 425) for best results.
For the potluck, I’m bringing party nuts because I love them so.
Is it soup season yet?
My mom made her signature minestrone (we skip the pancetta and add parmesan rinds instead for flavor) for a pre thanksgiving lunch and it’s a fall classic. The parmesan cheese makes it, so splurge for the real thing and add extra stock or water when you reheat since it thickens up.
Something to Order:
New Haven pizza is one of the country’s great regional styles (great history here), distinguished by a coal oven and a thin, almost burnt crust with a thicker center. After a delicious thanksgiving dinner in Woodbridge (thanks Tanta!), we got to Pepe’s early the next morning…and were met with a line. About 25 minutes later, it was all worth it. We tried the classic tomato pie with mozzarella and the clam pie, which is a white pie with lots of garlic, red pepper flakes and lemon. The pizza was SO good and like nothing I’ve tried before. The atmosphere is part of the charm as you can see the massive oven and watch families from all over enjoying the magic.
One pro tip: If you’re waiting for Pepe’s, visit another longstanding Italian business: Libby’s Italian Pastry Shop. Their version of a milano is excellent and the cannolis are also quite good.
On Thanksgiving eve, Dale and I went to Lighthouse, my bad day/all days restaurant. I usually get some salad thing (the farro or the escarole or the big salad) and gently suggest he get something that comes with fries, like the burger. Their wine list is always really good, too.
Sarah and I got dinner on Friday and wanted “the opposite of thanksgiving food.” We headed to Lovely Day in Nolita. The cocktails were really good and I’m still thinking about the papaya salad which was super refreshing and a little spicy. It’s cash or Amex only there, so come prepared.
I finally visited Four Horseman, a Williamsburg wine bar owned by James Murphy of LCD Sound System with my family and we had lots of fun. The food menu doesn’t have that many vegetarian options, so we got a bunch of appetizers and tried lots of wines by the glass. The selection is really cool, it’s stuff that was unfamiliar, at least to me, but they let you try everything before committing to a glass. The house bread and butter is a must order.
In true #sokoffler fashion, we followed up the wine bar with another wine bar: Pinkerton, which has $1 oysters all night. Their food menu isn’t groundbreaking but there is a cheese plate and the wine selection is good and reasonably priced. It’s a super comfortable neighborhood spot that’s never been crowded when I’ve been there.
Somehow my mom had never been to Win Son. We had to rectify that and went for a fam dinner last night with Dale and Julia. Since the waits can sometimes be long, making a reservation (which you can do for groups over 5) is a great way to avoid the wait and you’ll sit at a table with a lazy susan for easy sharing. My favorites are always the pea shoots, the scallion pancakes, the clams with basil (now featuring kabocha and butternut squash for winter), the sesame noodles, the eggplant…I could go on. Going with a group is a great way to sample lots of the menu. Choosing a favorite restaurant is hard (it’s more of a tier), but Win Son is firmly in there.
Something to read:
One of my former favorite coffee spots, El Rey, is closing. For some El Rey vibes check out the former chef Gerardo Gonzalez’s spot in Chinatown, Lalito.
Tech bros are coming for sourdough bread
Hosting tips for the holidays, including rules about drunk people and knives.
How did friendsgiving become a thing?
A little behind the scenes look at how Thanksgiving magazine covers come together.
Found this old essay via Jordana Rothman’s instagram: how a family’s Thanksgiving changed after one brother became a rabbi and started keeping kosher.
How NYT Cooking reached 120K paid subscribers. Does anyone subscribe?
Something I wrote: My approach to gift giving (that doesn’t involve much $) for She Spends.
This week, I’d love to know your favorite soup. My spin instructor used this question as an icebreaker in class last week and one girl said her favorite soup was broccoli. Not broccoli cheddar, just broccoli. We do not judge at This Needs Hot Sauce, but I was surprised at her choice. Reply to this email with your favorite soup, even if it’s broccoli! Slurp, slurp.
Happy eating and thanks for reading. I’ll see you on Thursday!
xo, Abigail
P.S. Unrelated to food, I’ve been loving the Origins Podcast on Sex and the City. It’s three long episodes with juicy behind the scenes details and great interviews. Check it out.
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