Just polishing up some things on the back-end of the ol’ bloggaroonie and trying not to break the internet in the process. There’s lot of new content in the queue, so I’ll be back with a vengeance faster ‘an you can say I didn’t even notice you were gone…
Right.
Talk soon peepadeeps!
xo,
Em
PS. There might also be some drinking involved. Continue reading
A couple weekends ago, Chris and I were holed up in a Truckee hotel for a night during one of his mountain bike races. He was in the bathroom tending to one of his “it’s cool, I think a butterfly bandage should hold it together” injuries (ew) while I distracted myself with Food Network in the bedroom. Because that’s what married people do in swanky euro-mod hotel rooms. First aid and cable.
Anyway.
Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives was on, of course (is it not always?), and exclamations like BANGARANG and BOOYAH and TAKE ME TO FLAVORTOWN were shooting out of the TV like Cyclop’s laser beams.
HOLY CLAM, BATMAN.*
GIVE THAT BAD BOY A TASTE.
And that’s when it hit me.
Blind people probably think Guy Fieri is a porn star.
I mean.
Is that an OK thing to have people believe?
I don’t think so. I think not at all is that OK.
So, Public Service Announcement: Guy Fieri is the host of a food show. Tell your blind friends.
Moving on.
Bangarang-Booyah-Flavortown-Paletas!!!!!!!!!
Somehow, today marks two years that I’ve been blogging here with all of you (!!), and I’m feeling rather romantic about a number of things. About the blog, yes. And also: every stitch of clothing in the latest Anthro catalogue. This sofa.
Chef Sean Brock.
Be still my beating heart, this is a crush I won’t be shaking any time soon.
I had the chance to dine at the original Husk restaurant in Charleston, South Carolina when my mom and I embarked on our unforgettable Southern Eats birthday road trip this time last year. We arrived for lunch just as the restaurant opened, my pulse as tickled with anticipation as my skin was tacky with the coastal Carolina humidity. The burger lived up the hype. The impossibly creamy grits a whimsical celebration of a cuisine that, as Sean insists in his season of The Mind of a Chef, really is rooted to the soil of the South and the fruits, veggies and heirloom grains it pushes forth. Of course there’s pig, and fried chicken, white gravies — all of which is slap yo’ momma good (I refrained, as she was to be my travel companion for a good week or more). But it’s so much more seasonal in story than my Calicentric self allowed me to imagine. And Sean talks about it with an infectious joy that my Samsung flatscreen is powerless to contain. That has found me stupidly grinning to the point of cheek strain, fists curled into balls, on the literal edge of my seat, on more than one occasion over the past couple of weeks.
Netflix, you matchmaker.
With Chef Sean Brock, I maintain, I am irrevocably smitten.
Or rather the wannabe chef within me, I suppose. The green-thumbed heroine of farm to fork persuasion that wields a paring knife as one might wield poetry, skillfully exposing one sun-ripened verse at a time.
She and Sean are a match made in heaven.
I can only try my best.
Hey guys, and welcome to Day Two of Street Corn Two Ways. It’s a pretty efficient series. Yesterday, we started things off with this classic Mexican Street Corn thingy and today we’re wrappin’ it on up with an islandy (I guess? For lack of better descriptor?) spin that’s sweet and salty and soy-y and scallion-y and best of all bests — SPAMMY.
*contended sigh*
SPAM is, no joke, one of my most favorite food groups ever. Like, remember that time I was like, “out with factory farmed meat!”
Um, canni tell you a secret?
I never ditched the SPAM.
(Shhhhhhhhhh, fancy people think this blog is clean and legit and whole foodsie and stuff.)
Ok guys. Here it is: the post (or rather, posts) that’s officially gonna take your “waaaaaah it’s already August, Poopiecakes McBacktoschool” and turn it into “it’s peak sweet corn season beeeyahs, mah summer’s juuuuuuust getting started!!”
Because a summer without corn is just pool hair and ReddiWip.
Ear cuffs and Dippin’ Dots. Rollerblades and boy bands.
Oh, sorry, thought we were listing our fave childhood shit.
Are you still there?
The shameful thing is that corn actually isn’t all that commonplace in our house, even when it’s at the peak of candy-sweet, 10-for-a-dolla awesomeness. The simplest explanation would be that Chris is so neutral on corn that it breaks my heart a little each time he fails to give it even a passing glance. But really, it’s because corn in our house turns into, without fail, all the corn in my belly. Ever. Like six ears in one sitting and then it’s at least half an hour of “baaaaaaaaaaabe whydyoulemmeeatsomuch cooooooooooooooooooorn.” And then some corny bathroom comment, because together Chris and I have a combined age of, like, 11.
This season, though, I was lucky enough to find corn in our crisper more than once, and after seeing vendor upon vendor packing sweetly charred kernals of mayo-draped corn into tiny plastic cups along the Malecon, I kinda had to follow suit.
Is half a thinga jicama a balanced meal? What if I add chile salt? Because that’s what’s going down for breakfast this morning, and since I’m too cheap for therapy, I’m turning to you guys to ask if an intervention is in order. Yesterday it was green juice and pork rinds. No, not for breakfast, who do you think I — yes, 100% completely for breakfast. I mean you can totally drink away chicharrones with parsley juice, yeah? That’s what I thought. So we’re cool then. Healthy as a horse. Thanks guys.
Speaking of health (they call me DJ PiggySmooth), I put together a fun little post for Full Circle this week on How to Eat Healthy When You’re on Vacation. I realize how backwards it is that I’m making health recommendations in the same breath as admitting a Mexican root vegetable addiction, but I know you guys will cut me some slack. Featuring a few sneaky moves that my Momma and I employed during last year’s most epic road trip of Southern eats — plus some good old fashioned common sense — there are a total of 15 tips that’ll help keep things (read: your diet, pooping, all that good stuff) reasonably in check when you’re on the road. That snazzster graphic below offers a super quick snapshot, but be sure to visit Full Circle’s Good Food Life blog for the full deets on each tip.
Oh heyyo friendsies! Long time no chitchattle. Somehow those five days of Mexican bliss I referred to in my last post stretched out into more than a week of no bloggy blogging – and real talk, it was kind of splendid. Not that I don’t love hanging ‘round these parts talking about donuts and dranks, but it is just toooo nice to have someone else – yeah, like someone that’s not me – do the making of the dranks and the delivering of the dranks while I do the lounging on the beach. Which, I’ve determined, I kick major ass at, BTW. I am a superb beacher-upper. Er. Play on, playa. Heh. Also, pirate ships. And THE BEST TACOS I’ve ever had, ever, ever. WhAt!
So I made these croquettes (can we call them ‘quettes?) approximately forever ago with the intention of posting them up sometime before all that #soletspigout bidnit, and then. Well, life happened or something. And by life happened, I mean Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Because I’m like three seasons behind. And who needs sunshine.
Hello friends! Just a quick note to tell you little piggies that I’m jetting off to Mexico to join a mariachi band for the next week. Rumor has it they need someone to play that stick fish thing, and if second grade music class is any indication, I’m quite possibly the world’s best stick-fisherer. Who knew? (I knew.)
Ok, that’s not entirely true. But I am headed off for a few days of tacos and tan lines, so it might be a little cricketsy around these parts. A better blogger would have had posts prepared weeks (months?) in advance with this little summer vacay in mind, but that’s just not my game. Flying by the seat of my pants and all that.
If you can’t bear the absence of dated pop culture references and izzle-isms, maybe check out that time Gina interviewed me over on So…Let’s Hang Out. If you’ve already been there, done that, and you’re still here reading along — well, thanks. There was some scary stuff in there, so you’re a rockstar (and-a-half)(and a bag of chips?) in my book.
Speaking of rockstars, I think I hear a stick fish thing calling.
Back in a few!
xo and margs cheersies,
Em
You guys! It’s Friday! How excited are we! We made it!
I mean, not like Gaga playing Madison Square Garden made it, but you know — the rough equivalent in the world of food blogging. Or something. Sort of. You’ll have to excuse me. It’s been a long week. I blame donut brain. And donut tell me that isn’t a thing, because it totally is. It can happen when you eat roughly all the donuts in two days, supplemented only by thick wedges of key lime pie. To keep the scurvy at bay, of course. That’s real life.
Around these parts, #SoLetsPigOut week has been off the chizzain. It started with introducing all of you to my cohost Gina from So…Let’s Hang Out. (She’s the one on the right up there with the unmistakably how the eff did I agree to this look on her face.) We’ve spent the past four days grilling up chicken wangs, sipping on mocktails, steaking over your salad and sneaking superfoods into your sweets, all in the name of summer — and it’s only gonna get better.
In a #SoLetsPigOut Summer Potluck grand finale of sorts, we’ve invited 25+ bloggy friends ‘over’ to share their favorite summer recipes and they are majorly blowing my mind in a way that commands all the confetti pops that ever were. I mean srsly, if you’ve got a shareable eats shindig on your schedule this summer, BOOKMARKING THIS PAGE IS PROBABLY A GOOD IDEA.
I’ve learned the key to time travel. It’s called get busy, stay busy and maybe stress-eat half a key lime pie. Also, suggest a blog collaboration that runs a whole week long right in the middle of summer. The hours will just drop right away, all Heart of the Ocean style. Just “oop” and it’s Thursday. That’s some magick-with-a-“k” stuff right there.
If you’re not picking up what I’m putting down, the last three days of #SoLetsPigOut have been a blur. We’ve got THREE giveaways going, and yesterday I forced a Mad Men reference right onto your Grilled Thai Beef Salad. Things are getting batty. (Check out all the #SoLetsPigOut recipes and giveaways HERE.)
And, you guys, the best is still yet to come, because tomorrow 25 blogger friends are coming over for a virtual potluck that’s gonna melt the internet’s face off.
And today we’re talking donuts. Yay!
the pig & quill 