New York Musical Trip: Surprise Street Fair

Over the third weekend in September, a friend and I went on a day trip to New York to see the musical Once, which was currently starring one of our favorite Doctor Who stars Arthur Darvill. On Doctor Who, he plays a pretty adorable character named Rory whose undying devotion and dry, self-deprecating humor gives me unrealistic expectation about the real world. You know, because the whole space and time traveling thing doesn't already. He essentially played the exact same character in the musical--minus the space, time traveling, plus some singing.

I know this is a food blog, but the musical was really really quite beautiful. It's based off of the movie, which I have never seen but if its anything like the musical it'll be great. One of my favorite things about the musical was that they used a fixed set which was this gorgeous old fashioned looking bar (they actually sold drinks from it!). For each setting/scene they would move around chairs and change the lighting to make a bedroom, a recording studio, ect ect. It was a story about love and how love pushes our lives forward (and a little backwards), so the use of a static set as a sort of reference and grounding point really resonated (I think). We all want that great adventure, that great love in our lives, and yet there is always something static we can return to. Seriously, go see it if you have a chance.

Musical aside, we had some time to kill before the musical started so given my obsession with food, I was given the job of finding us a restaurant near Times Square to get lunch. I almost resorted to Yelp before I remembered that Serious Eats is located in NY and surely they must have a best-of NY guide, which, yup, they did. After picking out Piccolo Cafe, we--this being New York--ran into a street fair along I think 8th Avenue and decided to stop and browse for a while. Along with the repeating pattern of stalls that were selling 5 for $20 scarves, pocket watches, ect ect, there was a number of repeating stalls selling some really tantalizing street food such as corn, arepas, smoothies, even fried oreos. We stopped for some corn which was so delicious I failed to stop to snap a picture.

When we finally arrived to Piccolo Cafe, we ordered and sat in the cafe to eat. It was pretty small, but we found some seats by the window and chilled for a while. I got the turkey signature sandwich, which I didn't think would be particularly special, but it was really quite delicious, filling and for a very reasonable price considering it was New York. Something about the slices of real turkey breast, the slightly toasted yet pillow-soft bread smeared with aioli gave it the perfect combination of flavors. The cafe is apparently known for its egg sandwiches (according to Serious Eats), so I'll have to come back again for those! (yea, for being a food blog, I'm pretty terrible about writing about actual food)

The plain plate made it even more rustic and charming.

We ended up chilling in the cafe for a while people watching. It was super hipster-style decorated with really worn down wood (in that cute way) and faux-newspaper tiled walls. Their music playlist was also pretty great as well, though clearly not hipster enough since Adele was on it.

Also! For those interested in music, here's a video of Arthur Darvill singing Falling Slowly. He's not the best singer in the world, but given that he essentially played Rory in the musical and and sang, I'd have to say, I'd wait a 1000 years for a guy like that.

A Story of Cupcakes: The Genesis of My Devotion

New Haven is apparently pretty well known for its food culture. As someone who follows not one, not two, but THREE food trucks on twitter and frequently checks such social media sites for their locations, I think I would have to agree. Oh, plus, we have 5 frozen yogurt stores within a 2 mile radius of one another. The fact that all of them are still currently open and operating probably says something about New Haven.

One of the best trucks, and the one I probably stalk the most is the Sugar Bakery cupcake truck. Heck, I don't even have to stalk them because I have their schedule memorized by heart. I've even gone above and beyond cupcakes and have had ordered cakes via phone from their bakery to pickup on the truck when its in town. While I know a lot of people are obsessed with cupcakes for the simple fact they're mini-cakes and so hip, these are legit some of the best cupcakes I've ever had. I've gone to a variety of other cupcake shops and trucks whose cupcakes while good, weren't mindblowing. They honestly weren't that much better from like, a Betty Crocker mix or something I could make (as in, my cupcakes are on par with Betty Crocker or worse). Sugar Bakery is the sole exception.

Clockwise from top left: Pumpkin Cheesecake, Tiramisu, Apple Pie, Carrot Cake

I can vividly remember the first time I realized Sugar Bakery cupcakes were special. It was summer 2012. The truck was brand new and I had just ordered a sherbet cupcake because it was late in the day and not many other flavors were remaining. This was the second cupcake I was trying after having tried some other one (probably cheesecake) that was pretty damn good. Now, when you think of sherbet, you think of that distinctive cool, sweet fruitiness that's light and not too dense. How could a cupcake possibly encapsulate that? Taking the cupcake out of its box, I fully expected to be disappointed with excessively sweet sugar and no sherbet. Instead, a whole new world of glorious tastes and cupcakes entered. IT ACTUALLY TASTED LIKE A GODDAMN SHERBET ICE CREAM. It obviously wasn't cold, but it was SO much like sherbet that if ice cream was room-temperature and cake-like, this would have been it. This was an entire new revelation. An entire new standard upon which all cupcakes would be compared to. If a sherbet cupcake was possible, a sherbet cupcake that truly captured all the essence of that sweet ice cream and its picture-esque summer time beaches, swim suits, flip flops and sun-kissed hair, there were no limits in what we as a human race could achieve.

White Chocolate Raspberry

It is because of that sherbet cupcake, I have no qualms about buying more than one cupcake when I see that truck. While it is no longer summer and sherbet has retired till the next summer, Sugar Bakery's fall cupcakes are better than any pumpkin beer or pumpkin latte you could get anywhere.

Apple Pie

West Coast Best Coast: Guac and Margaritas

I think as a half-CA raised child who has now spent enough time on the east coast to have adopted their dialect (trust me, I took a quiz), I have the necessary experience from both coasts to pretty confidentially claim that truly, the west coast is the best coast. Not even just California. People sometimes forget that Oregon and Washington can be as glorious as California. Granted, its a bit more wet, but it has that greenery that some east coast folks find lacking in California.
Thus, I feel pretty ok with posting this picture in an obnoxiously large size.

With that being said, one of the best things about the west coast is that the fantastic sunshine weather makes it perfect for growing, producing, and making, amazing food. I forget the exact percentage but something around 60% of all US fruits and veggies come from the CA. And of course, the one fruit that shines the best amongst those is the glorious avocado. Yes, it is a fruit--quick science fact--fruits are plants that produce seeds surrounded a juicy delicious flesh that we like to eat. For them, its their ovaries essentially. Vegetables don't have this.
Sadly, the east coast, and Yale especially severely lacks in the avocado department. Don't even get me started on my Yale-Dining-what-is-this-crap-you-call-guacamole rant. Since I first realized Yale Dining doesn't know the first thing about guacamole, its been my mission to share authentic, or close to authentic as reasonably possible guacamole to my poor non-west coast friends. When the convenience store on campus had avocados in stock (why, I have NO idea), I of course had to spend all my lunch money (literally) on as many as I could buy (4) for a little guac night with suitemates and friends.

Unfortunately, our store doesn't also sell onions, tomatoes, cilantro ect ect, so I took the easy route and mixed avocado with salsa. Still 10000x better than dining hall guacamole though. To finish it off my budding-bartender friend made us margaritas (frozen margaritas) to enjoy with the guacamole. If only all Friday nights could be like this...sigh.

side note for those concerned about the timing and logistics of this blog: this was all done in early September. I didn't think I had any interesting food related stories until now, so I'm playing a little bit of catchup. Expect lots of retrospective posts.

September College Drank

Special emphasis to Drank, since zomg ~college~ (but not really).

There was a "Labor Day Weekend" post saved as a draft here, but:

1. It is clearly no longer labor day
2. The only thing in the draft was a picture of an Old Fashioned from Ordinary.

I'm struggling to decide what I want this blog to be when I'm not baking. Perhaps I lack the genuine passion for an authentic food blog since I allow the patriarchy that is college dorms hinder my creative baking. Perhaps I could simply review cool foods and drinks I've eaten while out and about? But then I turn into an instagram foodie, which, god forbid, I actually have become. (let me know if you want to follow my instagram!) Feel free to judge me, because I am mad judging myself.

I've never been very good at making decisions--I spent an entire week driving everyone insane over class decisions this year. As a result, I have scattered pictures of food taken quasi-half-heartedly just as incase I ever wanted to post them on a blog. Which I've now decided, heck, why not? I'm not writing deep, emotional posts about my food. I'm not writing for an acclaimed audience. Heck, I'm not even writing. I'm just spewing stream of consciousness onto the internet, and as we all know, the internet REALLY needs less of that.

So to reference number 2 of my short list from above, Labor Day Weekend was the first, and currently most recent going-out-to-bars-with-friends outing I've had. Yea I know, I'm super cool. We went to both Briq and Ordinary that evening. Briq was rather disappointing for several combined reasons of poor drinks, poor service, and strange liability forms attesting that should us, 21+ students get excessively drunk, we won't blame Briq...

Ordinary was great though! I had an Old Fashioned pictured below in grainy, instagram glory. 

look! #nofilter. Its that good.

To be quite honest, I've always enjoyed just the simple act of drinking and having light and reasonably intelligent conversations with friends over the going out aspect of college. There's only so much juice that can mask ethanol-like Kirkland signature vodka (actually, no amount of juice can mask that horrid smell and taste). I'm not much of a dancer either. Say what you will about what that means about my ability to let loose and be confident in myself. (But seriously, my attempts to dance usually involve me trying to be funny and looking like a frightening jellyfish). 

But I'm liking the trajectory my last year of college is heading towards--less dark dance floors, more dim-lit conversations.

Simplicity: Plain Old Biscuits

Simplicity is a word deeply twisted in the notion of nostalgia. We all feel that looking back, things were easier, less complicated. But it's only because we're looking at them through rosy hued glasses, to use a cliche. But at the end of the day, things were hard and not simple then, and nor are they now.

 I mean, when I see biscuits I think, oh, Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder, well mainly when she was still just Laura Ingalls. And man, those were not simple times. Come on. But even Laura wished for easier days. One story line that sticks out to me from the series was in the books after she married Almanzo, they move in and start a life together that is essentially a struggle bus. I think this was in the book The First Four Years, but basically their farm is a total fail, Almanzo gets sick, one of their babies dies, and there's a huge ass fire that burns everything, and the most important thing that Laura saves is this huge shiny plate they got as a wedding present. I really don't know why I remember that plate. But yea, those were hard years. And I'm pretty sure I thought they would have gotten a divorce at some point, but I guess divorce wasn't really a thing back then.

Lucky for me and my random impulses to bake biscuits, biscuits are 20000 times easier to make than farming or running a little house on the prairie. Probably because they needed all that time to well,  actually farm instead of whip up intricate macarons or something.

Recipe from Joy of Baking. As one would expect, best served hot. Also #nofilter #toolazytoiphotoediteven #suchapro.

Food Update: Yes I've Been Eating

In case anyone was wondering, yes I have been eating. Albeit, its been a scattered mix of being lazy and eating out at various places around New Haven. 

Anyways, without further ado, some pictures and rambling comments!

Chicken Arepas from Ay Arepas. My favorite food cart around these parts of town. I forgot HOW much I loved these until I too my first bite into that sweet, cheesy, corn goodness.

Peach Pancakes from The Pantry! I really really wish I could just still live in the fad that is The Pantry, but while these pancakes were good, they weren't trekking-1-mile-worthy-good. The peaches weren't ripe enough, and the batter was a little salty. All in all, tasted very homemade, which is good, but also, I could have done better homemade. Oh well, I'll just stick to Benedict's and cinnamon roll pancakes next time.


A dinner of homemade cheese sticks and a roasted sweet potato. Cheese is a weird thing when melted. It looks so alarmingly sweaty and wrinkly when heated into a gob. Well, a delicious gob.
Mozzarella sticks recipe from Skinny Taste.

Anddddd a mug cake that could actually pass as a mug cake!

Yellow Mug Cake recipe from the book Mug Cakes: 100 Speedy Microwave Treats to Satisfy Your Sweet Tooth. This was in one of the first preview pages. Needless to say, I will be buying this book at some point in my life. If I was cool and a pro-blogger, this would be an excellent giveaway. But I swear, I will never ever ever ever force you to like a page on Facebook for me. Hell, I won't even make a Facebook page since thats my own personal peeve about the giveaways I never win. That doesn't mean you're off the hook for things like twitter or tumblr though. Bwahahahahaha.

Mac and Cheese Pizza: a la Parks and Rec

If Ron Swanson were here, he wouldn't even call my Mac and Cheese Pizza real food, let alone pizza. He'd probably call it rabbit-food, or no, Magikarp-food. Well, if he was into pokemon. Which he wouldn't be. Because, you know, real men hunt real animals.
Anyways, this pizza isn't about Ron Swanson. Maybe next time I'll make a bacon pizza with bacon-infused cheese with a bacon stuffed crust, but this pizza is for Leslie.

As a principle, I don't usually go for the carbs on carbs food combinations. Its typically way too bland for my taste. More specifically, mashed potato pizza is the worst. Even when its garlic mashed potato. Fortunately for mac and cheese, its cheesy goodness helps makes up for the carbs and carbs dilemma on this pizza. Oh, and the spinach and mushrooms I needed to get rid of anyways that I tossed in probably helped too.

Flattening out the pizza dough was probably the biggest struggle bus of the entire process. I bought premade dough, but it still needed to be rolled, or in this case stretched, tugged, yanked out into some semblance of a pizza shape. I then proceeded to not oil the foil enough and then slightly overcooked the pizza, resulting, in another struggle bus of cutting the pizza and peeling away the flow.

check out those poorly distributed breadcrumbs, yo.

Nonetheless, if I ever want carbs on carbs again, this is the way to do it. With maybe even more cheese next time. Man Leslie Knope is lucky to have Ben Wyatt.
Mac and Cheese recipe from SkinnyTaste (sorry, I couldn't bear the idea of whole-milk mac and cheese AND pizza).