Kitchen arts & letters

During the ol' pandemic (for the record I never once called it a panini or a panda or whatever), much hay was made about our new national hobbies. Sourdough and puzzles were the obvious power players, but let's not forget "kitchen herb gardens," "banging on pans," and "staring listlessly into space."

Abby and I didn't do that stuff, not really. Bit of Zoom yoga, a handful of socially distanced park meet-ups, some binge-watching (arguably at no higher frequency than before). Life was obviously quite different, but I didn't knit any sweaters or start chain letters.*

One practice did change meaningfully, but it was gradual enough that we've only noticed in hindsight: We started cooking seriously. For the record, Abby and I have always been decent-enough cooks. Some of our earliest dates were home-cooked, "come over and be impressed" situations (cloth napkins lol). Still, cooking remained a sideline skill, something we could call on when needed, but interspersed with a lot of restaurant meals. We live in NYC after all, and work in food media. There were frequent reasons not to cook for ourselves.

That's why teaching ourselves to cook, to really cook, felt less like a Duolingo-style quest for self-improvement or the adoption of a new hobby. More like, "We're cooking much more now that we're stuck inside, so it makes sense we're gonna try new things and improve as we go." Mercifully, we never got sick of it! (This essay is such a bummer.) It helps that we switch out chefly duties so neither of us feel overwhelmed or overburdened. Also, not having kids makes dinner prep feel much less like a slog. Most things feel good about not having kids, but I digress.

Flash forward to like 2 weeks ago. I was trying out a new-to-us recipe for pork giniling, a Filipino dish. It's a hearty stew, and of course we incorporated a bunch of surplus grocer ingredients (frozen peas, 6 eggs, an entire stick of butter). It was quite good, a real chef's kiss, and not just because of all the butter.

But after we'd eaten, I got weirdly sad. It's all so ephemeral, no? We make all this great food in the privacy of our home, we enjoy it, then forget we made it within a couple of weeks. Time marches on, we eat well, watch our programs, go to sleep, eventually die. Who cares about giniling?

Well that is a bad attitude, mister, and me and Abby are fighting back! Inspired by my former colleague Tina, a fellow home cook who started using a schmancy cooking diary during the pandemic, we bought ourselves a simple Moleskine journal. Now we're gonna start chronicling our cooking adventures, a way of preserving the good memories and asserting that there is meaning in the mundane.

It's mostly just for us, though I'll give you a sneak peek next week. Until then, my fellow non-nihilists.

xo,

Jesse

*feel like there's a country music lyric in there

Featured Items

These were not Takis-level hot but they were no sleepy stroll on the promenade either. The lime flavor took the temperature down a bit, methinks. Funnily, there was nothing about these duders that bore any resemblance to a classic Dorito, not taste nor shape nor texture. They aren't even made by Frito-Lay!

If you look in the top right corner of the bag, you'll see a logo for "Sabritas" — a portmanteau of Sabrosas y Fritas, aka Tasty and Fried — a Mexican brand that Frito-Lay purchased decades ago. Lay's snacks continue to be sold as Sabritas in Mexico today. Isn't it kind of wild that the surplus grocer ends up with items not even intended to be sold in the U.S.?

I had never cooked with seitan before, despite my parents' ambient hippie sensibilities. First try, knocked it out the gate! Made a veganized version of P.F. Chang's Mongolian Beef, topped with sesame seeds and scallions and served over rice. The texture of this stuff is so interesting, very springy, a really solid chew. It's basically like pure gluten though — celiacs beware!

How many of these $1 Big AZ sandwiches have I eaten? I'm gonna ballpark more than 30, less than 50. This is a quintessential "gas station sandwich," made by the weirdly named AdvancePierre corporation (longtime readers will remember I shouted this company out in my first surplus grocer story). AdvancePierre boasts the wonderful slogan “With the best microwaveable bread in the business, we set the standard for microwaveable sandwiches.”

I have no idea why these sandwiches are called Big AZ, by the way. Is it ass-related? Arizona? Hard to say, but I'm kinda addicted.

This is more of a category than an individual product, something we like to call "adult Lunchables." I never ever bought stuff like this before the surplus grocer but at 3 for a dollar they're such an affordable snack!

Abby is calling this purchase of bulk foodservice lobster bisque a "stunt for my readers" and I'm not sure if she's wrong. I mean, I'm legitimately intrigued, but would I have actually taken the plunge if all you weirdos weren't there to read about it? Hard to say, really. I can barely stomach that photo, though, which isn't a good sign.