🍴:
Mon — TJ’s Garlic Gondolas + pancetta and extra cheese, salad
Tues — half a head of cauliflower and all the beans from Rancho Gordo Bean Club led us to this (sub kale we needed to use up) with simple grilled boneless pork chops and a repurposed Dijon gravy hanging out in the fridge.
Wed — we don’t usually cook chicken breast but are now good enough we didn’t dry this out? Also, we added some kale to the pan-roasting spuds for a green veg to balance all all the butter and salt.
Thur — company night off meant an involved meal to pair with the new TJ’s barolo. Bavette, risotto (made with bean broth from two batches of Rancho Gordos), and a simple endive salad with evoo and red wine condiment from Cantina del Vesuvio, all featuring some TJ’s summer truffles in olive oil we’ve had in the pantry for a while. The store also just got in a Diamond Reserve so it was a fun taste test to compare the two.
Fri — squid ink pasta in a champagne (ok, blanc de blancs)/butter/caper sauce with shrimp and toasted breadcrumbs, salad
Sat — Mezze night at Flat 493: lamb koftish (toasted pinenuts, mint, feta, dried currants, panko, egg, Savory’s Tan-Tan Moroccan seasoning), za’atar pita, pomegranate molasses-glazed carrots, Lebanese radish salad + cucumber, all with a yogurt/tahini/lime/cucumber schmear. No recipes, just vibes.
Sun — I was only supposed to have an hour break for dinner, but the afternoon run went so well, we got the night off! By the time we knew this, however, Hampton already had brie and truffle burgers with fries and a side salad prepared. Is ok, we just got sooner to the teevee.
🥃: This week, we got our newest shipment of Two Wolves Wine — aka, the singer P!nk’s wine. The Winter 2025 release is a sauvignon blanc, a sémillon, and a group song. Not gonna lie, before we made it into the Two Wolves Tribe, I had never heard of sémillon or group song, but we’ve gotten them in other releases, and I can’t wait to plan menus around them. The wine just so happened to arrive the same day as Chef Karen Akunowicz’s olive oil collab with Bona Furtuna — that I won in a giveaway from Nosh With Tash! Nice to know I can still win things through enewsletters since I’m off Instagram (; Big fans of Karen, we had been talking about getting a bottle when we ran out of the fancy stuff from Cantina Del Vesuvio, so now we have two fancy finishing evoos.
🐶: Early spring allergies were bothering me Thursday, so I worked from the couch in the afternoon. Raz was all IT’S 4:58 YOU’RE DONE NOW.
📚: As an 80s kid, I am a sucker for a good Goonies-esque tale and this was hilarious, delightfully self-unaware 12-year-old lead and all.
🎭: Gail Simone is a kickass lady comic writer whose Twitter trolling was a thing of glory I missed when I left there. But she’s got her act on Bluesky now and this thread is everything.
Also, she followed me and reposted me four times and as if I weren’t already dead from the replies to her OG…. I will never be cooler on the internet than this night.
Also, Man of La Mancha continues its steady pace in an abbreviated rehearsal period to tech next week, and while Hampton has been a champ helping get dinners ready, I soon get to return the favor!
Ann Davis-Rowe 
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