Malt and coffee
About a year ago I had an espresso malted milkshake in San Fran, at a hipster ice cream shop, and it was about the most genius thing I’d ever drunk. Two days ago, I made a Greek-style frappe, in which you whiz up Nescafe, sugar and water in the blender (or a cocktail shaker) to make it all foamy, then drink it over ice. Then I added Ovaltine (regular malt flavor, not choco-malt, but I bet that would be good too) and milk. Freakin’ great. Except don’t add the Ovaltine to the Nescafe/water blend, because it kills the foam. Instead, it’s like introducing two already high-quality drinks to each other, and then they hit it off fabulously. I feel like a yenta.
Chocolate and ginger
I went up to Boston last weekend and ate extremely well. Two nights were part of a three-night-in-a-row (plus a fourth night last week) binge of great cheeses. On Night One, after the cheeses, I also ate at Blue Ginger, a chichi place in Wellesley, where there was a big open kitchen and lots of people on serious dates. The kitchen, with a big long line, actually looked like the setup at, say, Macaroni Grill, which made me a little skeptical, but I noticed a quart container full of fried capers on the counter, so it couldn’t be bad. And it sure as hell wasn’t. I had some excellent scallops and some risotto made with sake, which was damn clever. I’m sure it was tasty more due to cheese and butter than to sake, but whatever. Anyway, for dessert, I went for the boring creme brulee because it came with interesting cookies: the best was chocolate chip and ginger. Why didn’t I ever think of that? It was especially good because it was a bar cookie–it looked all grade-school in-class birthday-party, cut into a little square. But it had that extra-hot kick, which I imagine would scare somebody if they didn’t know to expect it. Also, there was an almond macaroon with cardamom, which was good but I’m sure already exists in Sweden, and a butter cookie with a dab of passion fruit in the middle. I might actually be moved to bake or some crap.
Mayo and relish. That condiment inventory has inspired some creative uses of the lesser-loved jars. I did make some tartar sauce last week, for a fish sandwich with leftovers from Aaron’s Sunday dinner extravaganza (because Aaron was cooking, there were leftovers for a small family). It was damn fine in a white-trash way, and tasted great on buttery toasted brioche (which was dug out of the freezer–which is whole other terrible food-stockpiling scene).
Peanut butter and jelly. That’s what I’m going to eat right now. Using some jar of neglected jam.