It is 2020 and We Are Food Blogging, Baby!

You, reading this—I believe you deserve a great sandwich. A luxurious sandwich. Now, a luxurious sandwich takes time and patience, something that is often in short supply. But now we’ve all got more time on our hands than we’d like, and so I say to you, my sandwich friend, indulge yourself. Cook yourself a grilled cheese with three cheeses and a homemade onion jam. The sandwich begins with a confettura, or onion jam. This is a surprisingly easy thing to make, and people will think you’re some sort of Kitchen Pope if you give them a jar of it as a gift. They will ask you to bless their cars and babies. I like this  recipe from Serious Eats , which I’ve modified slightly. Ingredients: 3 lbs onions (whatever variety you want; I use yellow) ½ cup olive oil 6-8 sprigs fresh thyme or, idk, teaspoon of dried thyme 3 bay leaves ¾ cup honey ½ cup balsamic vinegar ¼ cup rice vinegar ¼ cup red wine vinegar (A note on the vinegars: I think these are...

As a true planner, I rarely impulse buy so I have NO idea what compelled me to buy an 8-quart Instant Pot on ~a whim~ one day a few years ago. It takes up almost all the room underneath my sink (the only space that would accommodate such a large hefty machine) and although it is multi-function, I rarely use any of them. However, now that I am stuck at home for the foreseeable future, perhaps I will look into this "yogurt" function. I have made my own mayonnaise and whipped cream. Perhaps yogurt and some cheeses are in my future? But, I am getting ahead of myself because I'm here to talk to you about one of the easiest meals to make in your Instant Pot (or whatever pressure cooker you may have!). When I took a Lyft home with this 20 pound box (because I had no way of delivering it to my apartment), I watched a bunch of Youtube videos trying to figure out how to actually use it. I followed what I thought were the actual directions, failed, unplugged, reset, tried aga...

So maybe you’ve got a loaf of bread that’s about to go stale that you bought before you started social distancing and maybe you want to have dessert for breakfast because honestly what IS time anymore? I found myself in this predicament today and decided to make a delicious comfort food. Surprise, surprise: That comfort food was indeed comforting but also made me a little sad. I think it is normal to be confused and scared right now, and I also think it is normal to be sad. Obviously! And yet I still feel like it needs to be said. I also don’t think anyone should feel guilty for being sad about the way this pandemic is affecting their social lives and plans and day-to-day experiences. Yes we’re in a global crisis. But shit is nuanced, Susan! Being sad about personal things does not inherently mean you’re being selfish! It is a very weird time. Anyway, I got a little sad because my comfort food of choice today was bread pudding, and bread pudding is the favorite dessert of my f...

Everyone has their own version of a kitchen sink dinner. You open your fridge, furrow your brow, and try to figure out the best way to put the most ingredients together. Those who receive CSAs thoroughly understand this plight. Historically, for me, my kitchen sink meal has manifested in one of two ways: a rice and beans medley (with many more things than just rice and beans) or a stir fry. It makes things easy, if annoyingly predictable. The flavor profile remains generally the same, there are some new crunches, pops, and other sensations added to the mix. When I lived in Europe (yes, this blog is a chance for me to brag about living in Europe), I added a new one to the mix: quiche. It's so simple and beautiful—sauté whatever vegetables you have, stick it in a pie crust with some eggs and what not, top it with the cheese stinking up the apartment. It could also be a frittata if you want to really spice things up. What's so great about this vessel of ingredients is that I...

If you scroll through Instagram right now, you will be inundated with hot people socially distancing next to beautiful food. The bowls are framed just so, the shapes of perfectly julienned vegetables are contrasted alongside other shapes, perhaps of sliced meat. The colors are bright and vivid. Home, these posts scream at us, is their sanctuary to make beautifully plated food. They also contain inanely long captions that truly nobody is going to read entirely. Not I, reader. Case in point: two nights ago, I ate a Japanese Curry that was truly great. It came from bricks of congealed spices I had luckily made months ago (from this wonderful Tejal Rao recipe ). I sautéed some onions and garlic, then added some broccoli, potatoes, and sweet potatoes. Then came water and the bricks, which simmered for a while to cook everything through. The final product was beige-ish yellowy grey. There were imperfect chops fo various vegetables. It was clumsily ladled into a bowl that I slurped up alo...

This is a variation of my favorite dish from Night+Market Song. It's super salty, spicy, and comforting. I love wok cooking and I used to obsess over not having enough firepower at home, but I realized technique mattered more than the power of the flame.

Hello everyone! I'm here to talk to you about beer and wine. This will be the least helpful column on this beautiful food blog because I only know how to cook a frozen pizza and I don't know anything about beer and wine other than the fact that I like to drink it! Thankfully I was quarantined with my girlfriend so I won't wind up with scurvy from only eating cereal for two months straight. Onward! If you're quarantined with alcohol, good news, it's already happy hour. 10am?? Who cares, pour a glass. No one is judging you! People bought every roll of toilet paper from the grocery store. A man is trying to sell bootlegged hand sanitizer from his garage! You're doing great, sweetie. Today I would like to talk to you about maximizing your boxed wine consumption. Here we have a box of pinot grigio. I bought it (and five other boxes) because it was the significantly cheaper alternative without delving into the extremely dicey Franzia territory. You can use...

Eggs are really tasty and versatile, and every kitchen probably has a good amount unless you're vegan. I am not vegan, so I enjoy a crisply fried egg on top of some curry rice or poaching an egg in my instant ramen. I was not in danger of running out of eggs before the shelter-in-place notice went out to all 6 major counties in the Bay Area. I have never, in fact, been in danger of running out of eggs, even at work - the school I teach at houses a chicken coop and they produce some pretty superb eggs for our school lunches. At any rate, I had already purchased a dozen eggs before shelter-in-place, so it was all good. When I got to Berkeley Bowl West in...uh, Berkeley on Monday morning, I was still relatively calm about sheltering-in-place. I can cook! I'll be fine. Then I saw the crowds and just let the panic take me. I was no longer in control of my mind or hands, and when I got in line - about 40 carts deep, stretching from the front of the store all the way to the en...

Like Vivian, I too have been re-watching Vanderpump Rules for a significant chunk of the past several days. But I have also been cooking and trying to virtually help others with their cooking, because not everyone is used to making so many meals for themselves, and I wanna help!  Full disclosure: I tend to improvise a lot in the kitchen and rarely use precise measurements. My base knowledge for cooking comes from both of my grandmothers, and they seem to share a kitchen philosophy that's summed up by "idk cook it until it's done." I will try to be as specific as possible when sharing recipes but no promises! Yesterday, I had some fresh tomatoes that I needed to use up because access to fresh produce is probably going to be dicey for the next few weeks and I don’t want anything in my fridge to go to waste. Soup is always an easy thing to do with random shit I’ve got, and that seems to be especially true during self-quarantine. Soup! The ideal social-distan...

Hello friends, While I have been working from home since last May, the last week has been a stressful and weird time to be working from home! Usually, I can go two or three days of not leaving my house and be fine. I would eat breakfast, make myself lunch, and also dinner (with an occasional take out if I felt like treating myself). The only time I would leave my house was to do the occasional errand, go to the YMCA to swim with the senior citizens in my neighborhood, and see a friend or two. In the age of ~social distancing~ the only friend I have seen is Brian and, because we don't live together, not even that often! (Don't worry--he bikes to my apartment.) Anyway, while people are saying "THIS IS THE TIME TO BE PRODUCTIVE! WRITE THAT NOVEL! KING LEAR!" my first reaction is, "What if I just watched re-runs of Vanderpump Rules and stare at the wall?" and sometimes "What if I just start writing letters to friends and stare out the window like ...