Welcome to Hill Reeves, a blog where I write about the things I cook and bake in NYC.
Reach me at Hill.Reeves@gmail.com
All in Cooking
Tomorrow is my birthday, so I should be talking about cake but here I go talking about vegan bulgur bowls instead. I didn't have time to bake a cake this weekend because my lovely mother came for a semi-surprise visit so instead of baking, we did fun things like go for long walks through Prospect Park. (I did have time to make a big ol' batch of banana pudding though and it was deeeeelish. More on that soon.)
I went to the US Open with my colleagues this week which was very fun. In the wee moments when I wasn't trying to figure out how tennis matches are scored, I was thinking about how incredible the athletes were. Who knew the ball went that fast? (Tennis fans knew.) Those players are STRONG. (Duh, Hillary.)
My shower is broken! So if you could all send me some condolences until I get my $h!t together enough to arrange for a plumber to come to my house, that would be great. I swear I'm trying; plumbers are just very, very busy people, apparently. You have to call a lot before they answer their phones and leaving just one voicemail takes a lot out of me because I am a millennial and Twitter is how I communicate.
Oh boy, it's so darn hot. I visited my mom in Florida, FLORIDA last week and it was not this hot. I usually try to conserve energy and deal with the summer heat like a European, but the AC has been on pretty much non-stop at our house for the past few days. I even baked some cookies last week cause I was like, how much hotter could it possibly get?
July was absolutely bonkers around here. Dan and I pretty much tag-teamed real-life, as we took turns going out of town all month long. The pups were NOT happy about this arrangement. Jelly's gotten extra clingy as a result, and is never not snuggled up next to me now, but I suppose there are worse things in this world than having a cuddly 1-year-old yellow lab hanging around. It's pretty buhnnoying when I'm trying to do yoga, though.
Everything inside me told me not to do this. Who was I to believe that I could make decent breakfast sandwiches at home? I live in New York, for heaven's sake. There's no way my dinky skillet could ever compete with the flavor of a bodega griddle that's made thousands of egg sandwiches and seen few, if any, cleanings in its lifetime.
Most of the time, I cook for cravings. When your life revolves around dinner, like mine does, there are a lot hours in the day when you're tossing together ingredients in your mind until you come up with an idea of what sounds exactly perfect. That's how I've discovered favorite meals of mine. It starts with thoughts like "how can I eat as much cheese for dinner as possible?" And ends with a chorizo and poblano queso fundido with warm tortillas. An out-of-hand appetite begets genius.
Risotto is a food that I love to eat when other people make it for me. It's not the challenge of getting it just right that intimidates me; if I happen to turn away from the rice for a bit too long to answer a text message, and the mixture gets a little dry, I'm still happy to eat it. Generally, though, the attention risotto requires doesn't justify the taste.
I don't have a lot to say about this recipe because Dan did the cooking. While I'm the kind of cook who likes to wing it (even if I've never cooked something before, I like to maybe look at a recipe or two and then just try to figure it out, tasting along the way) Dan is a very deliberate and thoughtful cook who does tons of planning before he gets into the kitchen. That probably tells you a whole lot about our relationship.
In our new neighborhood in Queens, there are lots of little shops to explore. Our old 'hood on the Upper West Side definitely had a lot to offer—from Central Park nearby, to the best bagel shops a girl could ask for—but I'm really enjoying all of the ethnic alcoves tucked away into Sunnyside and Woodside. From Peruvian chicken joints, to some of the best Thai food in the city, to authentic Irish pubs with a selection of roasts on Sundays, it's easy to get lost in the flavors of Queens. You're less likely to find the trendy spots you'll see in Brooklyn, or hit on the bustling Manhattan feel, but in terms of food quality and diversity, there's nothing like this borough.
