Three Things

Cozy vegetarian dinners on a student budget, NA beers for football weekends, a mini New York restaurant round-up

Greetings eaters and readers. This is a long newsletter, so I’m going to keep my wind-up short: Hi! Hope you are well! Two reads of the week: Train Yourself to Show Up (gift link) and The Birth of My Daughter, the Death of My Marriage (New Yorker, thanks for the rec,

Joanna Goddard

). Here are Three Things I’m excited to tell you about this week…

1. Easy Vegetarian Cooking OR College Kids Cooking On Their Own

My daughter, Abby is studying abroad this semester*, which instantly levels-up the family group chat — even photos of lattes at her local coffee shop seem exciting to me when she’s sending them from 3,000 miles away. (Hard to type that number, tbh.) She’s living in a dorm but isn’t on a meal plan, which means that a very decent number of texts and calls from her involve the question most of us have been asking for the better part of our adult lives: What should I make for dinner? She and a small group of friends take turns cooking, and they’re all on a student budget, so almost all my ideas for her fall into the cheap, vegetarian, and simple category. So far she’s made her signature cacio e pepe with Brussels sprouts; a batch of miso-mushroom tacos (coming soon to a cookbook near you); last week, I pointed her in the direction of two Alison Roman stews (the famous one with Spiced Chickpeas with Coconut and Turmeric, and the famous-in-my-house one, Dilly Bean Stew with Cabbage and Frizzed Onions) both of which were big hits. And yesterday, I sent her this recipe for Pasta Con Ceci (photo above, PDF below), the ultimate throw-together Italian pantry dinner that food stylist Victoria Granof introduced to me nearly a decade ago. I had to chef up a batch for myself just to make sure it still worked and all. Breaking: It did. Thought you might like it, too.

Dals Pasta Con Ceci

76.3KB ∙ PDF file

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*as always, subscribers will get the full travel itinerary when we visit her next month

2. Three Great Non-Alcoholic Beers for the Game (or Anytime, Really)

I finally did what I’ve been meaning to do ever since listening to Matt Rodbard’s interview with Alex Delaney on the Taste podcast: I picked up a six-pack of Al’s non-alcoholic beer. On the podcast, Delaney, who has made a career out of his excellent taste in the good life* (food, beer, fashion, music) singled out Al’s as one his favorite NA beers so we tracked it down and tried it over the weekend. Andy called the classic lager “light and refreshing,” like a Miller or Budweiser, good for a summer afternoon or watching the game. I bring this up because of dry weeknights and Dry January and football playoff parties and all that, but also because I like having a decent non-alcoholic beer option for guests when they come over for dinner. P.S. When I was texting with Matt about all of this — he is also the editor of TASTE, co-author of Koreaworld, and the kind of enthusiast I’m so grateful to have in my rolodex — he started rapid-fire-texting more favorites, like Wisconsin's Untitled Art, i.e. “the most-ambitious NA brewing in America, a sharp selection from dark chocolate, Italian (hi Peroni), and German Weisse.” He also recently discovered Best Day Brewing's Kolsch-style, which is clean and refreshing, and “wins style points for its West Coast design vibes.” Thanks, Matt!

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3. New York Restaurant Round-Up

Speaking of the good life! It’s been a while since I rounded up my restaurant adventures. Here’s the lightning-round recap of stand-outs from the past few months: (Top Row, L to R): Breakfast by Salt’s Cure (two locations, I went to the one in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn) Known for their oatmeal griddle cake — don’t call them pancakes and don’t ask for maple syrup! Totally worth the hype; If you can’t get a table at James-Beard-Award winning bistro Frenchette, you can try one of its salad-pizza-sandwich sister spots Frenchette Bakery at the Whitney Museum (Meatpacking/West Village) Adam Roberts and I shared a white pizza with mushrooms and a truly memorable chicory salad with pomegranates, an A+ pre-game meal for seeing the Henry Taylor exhibit (fabulous and closing soon! Go!); Two Wheels (Upper West Side) We order takeout from here a few times a month, and usually go for the tofu bánh mì and pho, but the crepes made with coconut rice flour and stuffed with chargrilled pork, holy sh*t they will blow your mind; (Middle Row, L to R) Barney Greengrass (Upper West Side) Do I need to even explain? Arguably the best bagel-and-lox in New York in the most classic New York dining room, and everyone who walks in there looks like Richard Kind or Roz Chast; KazuNori (four locations in Manhattan) Wowowow! Leaderboard-level hand rolls from the Sugarfish masters — the loosely wrapped slightly crispy nori, the warm rice, the freshest fish, it is perfection perfected perfectly. And you can get three of them for 18 bucks; Inga’s Bar (Brooklyn Heights) Tucked away on a Hollywood-ready Brooklyn Heights corner, they’re famous for their celery salad and burger (and the warmest vibe), but last time I had the French onion soup, a winning order for a winter day; (Bottom Row, L to R) Balaboosta (West Village) Chef/genius Einat Admony’s Israeli/Yemeni/Persian-influenced menu equals my favorite kind of eating: modern Middle Eastern (order the shrimp kataif), and in a charmingly intimate dining room to boot; JG Melon (Upper East Side) another to be filed under “institution,” the place is no reservations and cash only. Last week, we had a deep craving for their famous burger but also for that quintessentially New York experience of coming off a cold, wintry street into a warm and cozy tavern (PS Don’t sleep on the key lime pie); Radio Bakery (Greenpoint, Brooklyn) In November, my daughters and I wandered around Greenpoint — they wanted to thrift, I wanted to go to a make-your-own Dashi shop — but the day’s winner ended up being lunch at Radio Bakery, a counter-service pastry and sandwich spot serving sandwiches on maybe the best bread I’ve had in NY in recent memory. (I ordered brie and caramelized onion on a thyme-walnut-sour-cherry baguette, the girls had focaccia pizzas.) I really want to go back to try their pastries but oh man…so many places to go/eat/see! The world’s best problem.

P.S. One night, we tried to grab a drink at Overstory, a bar on the 64th floor of a building in the financial district with apparently stunning views of the city — but I didn’t know it was one of those reservation/long-wait situations so had to abort the plan. (New York! 😡😡) It wasn’t a complete waste of a subway fare, though: On the way back to the train, I looked up from my phone just in time to see Jean Dubuffet’s Group of Four Trees, the first Dubuffet installation in the U.S. ever, in 1972. I’ve lived in or around New York my whole life and had no idea that was there, tucked away inside a corporate plaza, and yet so majestic (how high that highest candle lights the dark!) on packed Liberty Street. New York! 🥳🥳

Have a great week and thanks for reading.

Love,
Jenny