Today in completely random discoveries that I am now uncertain how I ever lived without: the butter crock.
Does a butter crock deserve its very own post?
It does.
You Didn’t Know You Needed A Butter Crock…But You Do
Recipes
I Just Ate One of the Best Meals of My Life…In Rural Ohio
OK, so over the years I've been a little obnoxious about Ohio. Mostly because it refuses to let me have my luggage and makes my family throw up, but also because it's freezing whenever I visit it. And flat. (And yes, it also has amazing antiquing and Quaker Steak 'n' Lube and all sorts of other things I love, but whatever: 10-hour journeys with children make me grumpy and trips to Ohio always involve 10-hour journeys with children, so I'm grumpy. Sue me.)
One unexpected byproduct of these trips: I've discovered that the rural and suburban areas around Cleveland have some seriously good food. (I discovered this because my father-in-law is deeply invested in the quest to cement his status as Awesomest Father-In-Law Ever Who Feeds His Daughter-In-Law Awesome Food.) Sure, I've had terrible, horrible garlic-pickled eggs and bologna-slab sandwiches at (the otherwise very cool) Lehman's Hardware Store, but I've also eaten artisanal pizza at Gervasi Vineyard, phenomenal seafood at the Main Street Grille in downtown North Canton, and perfect aged Swiss at Guggisberg Cheese. So I think it's safe to say that I'm respectably well-versed in how truly excellent the food around here can be.
I've also been lucky enough to have the chance to eat at some of the very best restaurants on the planet. Nobu; Blue Ribbon; Daniel; Blue Hill Farm. I may not really know what I'm talking about when it comes to *why* a restaurant is remarkable - I vastly prefer Burger King Whopper Juniors to Minetta Tavern's Black Label Burger, so it's safe my palate couldn't be called the "refined" sort - but what I can say is whether a restaurant's food is delicious. To me.
Just a Few Cozy Recipes to Get You Through the Rest of 2017
Yesterday a news alert from PopSugar dinged my phone, announcing that I could totally cure my holiday "food hangover." With these seven healthy meals!
PopSugar, I love you, I do, but I have a question: WHY, exactly, might I want to cure my holiday food hangover when it happens to still technically be "the holidays"? And beyond that - speaking as someone who has worked in many, many bars over the years and who knows that how you fix alcohol-related misery is with more alcohol - you know how you *actually* cure a food hangover?
With butter.
…At Least There Were Muffins?
Christmas trees! And MUFFINS! Glorious.
This year, the decorating process was a little…ahh…rough. I’d spent the entire previous day flat on my back with the plague, and when I emerged from my cave-bedroom I wasn’t exactly a bundle of joy. But ornaments and lights have a way of making you feel - if not “peppy,” perhaps - certainly festive.
As do muffins.
Worms ‘N’ Dirt
Now THIS is the kind of dessert I could have gotten on board with as a kid: Oreos that have been decimated to the point where total potential cookie intake is maximized like whoa.
Sidenote: somehow fifteen whole cookies translate into one teaspoon of ground-up cookie, and while I'm not exaaaaactly sure how to explain the physics behind this, I do know that my daughter ate 90 Trader Joe's Halloween-themed Jo-Jos in the course of an hour via six cups of worms 'n' dirt. And honestly, to me that seems...
Well...
Like a job extremely well done.
