A Few Good Meals, September Edition

Plus the debut of Marian's Restaurant Review Corner

Fall has hit New York swiftly. You’ll find plenty of people complaining about this but I’m not one of them. I love this fleeting shifting time. I love thinking, for the first time in months, soup, and quickly smiling. I recently realized that I’ve never fallen in love in summer. Summer is horny, yes, but it’s not romantic like the shoulder seasons. When we’re not sweating or freezing or burning, our hearts have time to swing through fall’s long shadows. Sign me up!!

This season of pants and open windows has me happily back in the swing of cooking. I’ve also returned to the gym, trying to counteract some mid-30s back problems by getting yolked, and so I’m reluctantly thinking about protein every day. This was awful for a week and now it’s easy. I’d like to write about this more, but have told myself I’m only allowed to if I stick with my program for a full fiscal quarter. For now you’ll hear me talking marginally more often about chicken¹. In October I’m finally going to buy a bunch of that steelhead trout from the Hudson Valley place that hilariously markets itself as, like, “the only fish that doesn’t have microplastics in it”. Awesome.

Before we get into recipes (and Mess Hall’s first-ever restaurant review)—I spoke to Kai Ryssdal for NPR Marketplace ² about the orange yolk trend. This was my first time on the radio and I am still too nervous to listen to it but feedback has been positive! If you haven’t yet read my five thousand work investigation into this trend on Eater, that link is here. Let’s also remember that roughly half an egg’s protein is in its yolk! 

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Three really good things I cooked this month:

sorry i didn’t take pictures of the below dishes (too busy living in the moment 😇) but here’s my new favorite nonalcoholic beverage at Macosa