Hola amigos,
Cheese: For the first time in the history of Cheese, Book, Restaurant, Thing, I have no cheese to recommend; I’ve tasted at least five cheeses recently that haven’t been up to snuff (not naming names!). Instead, here are three cheese-laden recipes I can recommend, and cook regularly:
Tomato & Cheddar Bread Pudding (Food52): My go-to dish when hosting brunch. It’s easy to put together, can feed a crowd, and has a great mushy-meets-crunchy texture.
Cheesy Cabbage Tteokbokki (NYT, gift link): This is already an easy recipe, but I often simplify it even more by skipping the eggs and shallots steps. Also, if I’m making this for my kids, I also skip the gochujang, and just make a soy-butter sauce. My whole family loves the chewy, mochi-like texture of rice cakes mixed with the cabbage (crunch!) and cheese (mozz or cheddar both work great for melty deliciousness). Plus, it’s easy to add heat at the end in the form of chili oil, or the recommended gochujang…it just might be slightly grainy uncooked.
Crusty Baked Cauliflower and Farro (Smitten Kitchen): At a glance, this looks like a drab recipe, but it is far from it. As Deb writes on Smitten Kitchen: “together this was exceptional, wildly flavorful, weeknight-friendly, vegetable-centric and entirely whole grain that tastes luxurious because did I mention the pockets of ricotta throughout?” I would gladly eat this once a week, in perpetuity.
Book: Syme’s Letter Writer by New Yorker writer Rachel Syme is an excellent addition to your neglected coffee table. Syme covers a truly impressive amount of ground, given that “letter writing” already feels like a pretty niche topic. She shares a plethora of letter-related topics—how to be a pen pal, how to write about secrets, to perfume or not to perfume—that is perfect for skimming a few pages at a time. Buy it in hardcover to really appreciate the amazing illustrations by Joana Avillez. This would make a fantastic gift for that friend who you’ve been thinking about.
Restaurant: If you find yourself on I-495 or in the College Park, MD vicinity, do stop at Northwest Chinese Food for excellent knife-cut noodles. They are delightfully chewy and bouncy. This was a big hit with our whole family—the kids loved the oh-so-slightly-sweet minced pork and mushroom sauce (if you don’t tell them there are mushrooms then they won’t notice the mushrooms, bwahaha!). The rice noodles (not knife-cut, still bouncy) with spicy sesame dressing offered a familiar mix of welcoming textures: crunchy bean sprouts and raw carrots, crispy chili oil, cooling cucumbers. This month, the team also opened Li Chun Cafe down the street, which specializes in handmade bing and rice dishes. It’s a great casual spot, and the kind of place I would frequent regularly if I lived closer.
P.S. I recently wrote this profile of Susan Bae, partner and pastry chef at Moon Rabbit for WaPo. Go eat her desserts!
Thing:
For DC people: I’ve been enjoying the earnest and warm-hearted public television vibes of Signature Dish, from WETA (available to watch online). The show spotlights DMV-area restaurants and their, well, signature dish. There have been three seasons so far with a solid mix of “buzzy” places and more under-the-radar establishments. Host Seth Tillman clearly loves food and meeting chefs, and is excited to try new-to-him flavors. He’s not a food expert but it doesn’t really matter; he has a curious mind and knows the right questions to ask. It’s a quiet, calming watch that highlights local businesses with good stories. One sad part: Since the show started a few years ago, I’ve noticed several restaurants have already gone out of business.
For everyone: This short Oscar-nominated film about a music class for 6-year-olds in Japan has been stuck in my head for the question that film creator Ema Ryan Yamazaki asks in the YouTube description: “Where should the balance lie between discipline and freedom?” Watch it and let me know what you think. Regardless, I want to give Ayame a big hug!
Hasta pronto.
-c