Some Thoughts From A Chill Foodie

Or, always happy to talk about what we're eating.

There are a lot of things I love in this world but food is a big one. I love cooking, pattering around my kitchen and putting flavors together. Baking at the end of a lazy Sunday isn’t a task to me, it’s calming if not meditative. I love the ritual of restaurants, the crunch of Maldon between my fingers, the excitement of discovering a new sauce at the market. Food is the great unifier—I love how it consistently brings us together.

I love food.

So let’s talk food. Or rather, five food or foodie things I’ve been eating, enjoying, or at least thinking about as of late. Bon appétit.

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1. I can’t stop eating cottage cheese.

   

   This is a rye sourdough with caraway seeds toasted with cottage cheese, garlic powder, and sriracha and it is DIVINE.

   There are a bunch of foods I thought I hated simply because I didn’t grow up with them. My mom was a very good, Midwestern wife. If there was a food my dad didn’t like, it didn’t even enter the house. I didn’t try mac & cheese until I was in college because my dad thinks it’s gross. He once threw something akin to a tantrum because I put spinach in a stew (he was fine, they make the same recipe all the time now) and that freaked him out. The only access I had to peas until I was an adult was eating them raw out of the garden because my dad assumed they were only planted for rabbits. If my dad said something wasn’t appetizing, I essentially just believed that.
   
   So another food I grew up thinking I would hate simply because it was never around was good ol’ cottage cheese. Honestly, I don’t even know that I knew what it was. I just heard it was gross, never tried it, and believed the former to be true.
   
   Maybe it’s the curds, maybe it’s the word “cottage” being in the name that gives the essence of curdled to it, maybe it’s just because men are weird and picky but I literally never had it until about two months ago when I thought, “Hmmm that might be good on a cracker let’s give it a go.” And now I can’t stop.
   
   On crackers with everything bagel seasoning, on toast with hot sauce or chili crunch, mixed in with tuna for a tuna salad sando. I can’t get enough! I love the texture, the creaminess, the ease of getting in extra protein. I’m addicted. What a perfectly white person addiction too lol.
   
   Something I really love about time is how it can change us. It can make or break habits, change your taste buds, or even just make you think about trying something you’d previously believed you’d hate—even if for no reason at all.
   
   So I’ve been loving cottage cheese and that has been a really delicious discovery for me.
   

2. More of us need to embrace keeping milk around again.

   twinbrookcreamery

   

   A post shared by @twinbrookcreamery

   Okay but one thing I WAS exposed to regularly in my youth (as so many millennials were) was being forced to drink milk with dinner. And not like, “here’s your little shot of calcium for the day” alongside an actual beverage. I’m talking a full ass pint glass of 2% Land O’ Lakes that I was expected to down alongside my pot pie or what have you.
   
   I’m sorry to the milk lovers out there but that is explicitly nasty.
   
   Is there anything refreshing about a thick glass of milk? Anything satiating? How is one supposed to wash down a bite of a pork chop with milk?
   
   Which is to say, I have rejected milk for a very long time. On the rare occasions when I want a coffee it is always with a milk alternative. For years I never bought it. I’d Google “milk substitutes” for recipes or simply avoid any that included it entirely. I wasn’t dairy free; I live for cheese. But liquid, ice cold milk? For a long time I was pass, pass, pass.
   
   And then I decided, one random afternoon to make bolognese for the first time. To spend three to five hours making a thick, meaty, luxurious sauce to eat throughout the week. Bolognese requires the use of real, ideally full fat milk. The emulsification of the dairy helps create a rich, velvety, delectable texture while also cutting through the acidity of the vegetables, tomatoes, and whatever other spices you’ve added. Basically—adjectives aside—if you don’t use milk it’s not bolognese. It’s just a meat sauce.
   
   Am I ever going to suck down a glass of milk again? Absolutely not and I’m so sorry for that sentence. But do I see the value in keeping a good bottle around for cooking, baking, and in between? Yeah I think I do.
   
   Plus the cows from the creamery I buy from are very, very cute.
   

3. This is real, this is me.

   

   @vjpla @vjpla ♬ sonido original - Retro Music 🤟🕺

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4. If you want me to rant about something stupid, ask me about truffle.

   

   Truly, I think this doesn’t look that good and is kind of stupid.

   Food trends are unavoidable.
   
   Sometimes I think they’re totally fine. I’m completely on board with Girl Dinner. I love nothing more than to skitter skatter around and eat bites of this and bites of that. See above for love of cottage cheese on a cracker or a bell pepper slice. I always have a jar of Calabrian chilies on had. The fruity yet spicy pepper is a must have for me when it comes to soup bases, pizza drizzles, and more. I fucked around with the Emily Mariko salmon bowl, and still do! I recently bought two packs of sushi snacks so I can eat them with mashed up salmon, rice, avocado slices, cucumber, and sauce.
   
   I can fuck with a food trend, even if I think you should simply cook food with the intent of it being good and not worry about whether or not someone will think it’s “interesting.”
   
   But we, as a society, have beaten truffle to death.
   
   I honestly don’t even think it’s THAT good, so maybe I’m just being a hater. But I genuinely feel the same about truffle that I do about those crazy, VooDoo-esque donuts that rose in popularity during the late twenty-teens. No one is adding mountains of truffle to a perfectly good plate of tagliatelle because it’s going to be particularly delicious, they’re doing it for the ~*show*~ of it all. You don’t put Monster into a donut because it’ll be yummy, you do it for shock value. Mountains of Truffle = Monster in a Donut. It’s ostentatious, it’s often overpowering, it’s done more for the spectacle than anything else.
   
   And I think it’s kinda dumb!
   
   I think you should only go with a trend or an ingredient or a “thing” if it’s genuinely adding something to what you’re making in the first place. I don’t need fucking truffle on every pizza, pasta, or in my hot sauce or chips ffs. You simply cannot convince me that mountains of something you’re mandolining over my dish has somehow greatly improved it. I actually think you’ve now just made me eat nothing but truffle, and I (personally) would never order that.
   
   This does all ultimately come back to the chefs and recipe developers, because no one is forcing truffle upon anyone unless instructed. But I’m over it! Let us find another additive, because truffle isn’t it.
   
   I said I was being kind of a hater and if truffle has no haters, I’m dead.
   

5. And lastly, there isn’t a lot in life that can’t be fixed with a roasted chicken.

   

   The ‘Chicken for Two’ at Zuni in the Bay. I cannot recommend her enough.

   But where I am a lover and not a hater will forever be next to a roasted chicken.
   
   Picture this:
   
   You’ve had a long day. You come home, kick off your shoes and rub your sore feet ready to make your way towards your couch. Immediately though you’re greeted by the smells of butter, salt, garlic, citrus, shallot, herbs, and leeks. There’s a chicken in the oven, with small, perfect little potatoes boiling on the stove ready to be smashed and met with more salt and pecorino to be served on the side. Arugula has already been dress in olive oil, lemon, vinegar, and a touch of mustard to lay down as a base. Basically, the perfect dinner is moments away.
   
   There are a lot of things I believe in.
   
   I believe that there are hoodie people and there are crewneck people and you have to meet the opposite of you to find your real match. I believe that setting alarms is an atrocity. I believe no one should have to oversell how good of a person they are and anyone who tries to convince of their goodness is someone to avoid. I believe there’s not much more healing that climbing into clean sheets with an open window and a new candle burning.
   
   The only thing better? Having a chicken roasting in an oven. Especially if someone else is roasting it for you.
   
   Ultimately, food is a love language. It’s a “here, this will make you feel better” or a, “come try this” or a, “tell me if this needs more salt” or an, “I thought of you so I made this” or an, “I want you to have this from me.”
   
   So if someone offer to make you a chicken, take the gesture. You won’t regret it.
   
   It might just give you something worth believing in.