Raccoon girl summer š¦
Wandering round town making a mess.
Hello and welcome back to Five Things I Ate! This week we try to keep it together but mostly fail, and thatās okay. Read past posts here, and please follow my Instagram, @fivethingsiate.
Lemon Rosemary Chicken Family Meal at Whole Foods
It looks like this.
After a family and fun-filled birthday week in the āburbs (thank you to everyone that made it so special!), my husband dropped me off back in the city on a 90 degree day so I could get back to the rat grind. Within 24 hours of flying solo, I managed to bruise both of my arms (????) from carrying groceries that were too heavy in the cursed Whole Foods paper bags, break my beloved matcha whisk holder, nearly shatter a tupperware, and sleep at 2 am on a work night because I lost track of time. Suffice to say, my survival skills have not improved with time. For example, I have absolutely no sense of how to feed myself on my own. I was starving after I finished my second job at 9pm and decided that I should buy a family-sized tray of cooked chicken breasts and sized from Whole Foods, even though I am one small sized human who hates leftovers. This foil tray of food was so large that it did not fit in my small Hello Kitty reusable grocery tote so I had to carry it 10 blocks in the 90 degree heat which was an awful experience with lemon sauce dripping off the sides. However, I am proud to say that Iāve eaten half the tray, which is more double-dipping than I usually do.
Peanut butter miso cookies from a friend
From NYT Cooking.
Speaking of birthdays, my friend Liz brought me a batch of peanut butter miso cookies for my birthday gathering! Iām almost certain Iāve written about these before, but I forgot just how good these are. Theyāre honestly my favorite peanut butter cookie of all time, and for picky eaters, no you canāt taste the miso. It just makes the cookie taste more buttery and savory. 10/10, and an easy recipe, too. They have the perfect chewy texture and sugar crust.
Matcha tea float with matcha soft serve at Matcha Cafe Maiko
132 Bowery, New York, NY 10013
Back to the theme of being a hot mess, I am sad to report that my Favorite Little Treat of All Time has been downgraded on account of public humiliation. You see, the matcha tea float with matcha soft serve at matcha cafe Maiko is aesthetically perfect, but extremely functionally flawed. A tall cup of bright green matcha tea topped off with a beautiful swirl of soft serve, the minute you stick your straw into the soft serve the matcha underneath starts gushing out of the straw hole due to the laws of physics and buoyancy of the ice cream. On a very hot day, the soft serve melts exceptionally fast, which meant I was speed running to the nearest trash can in Chinatown with matcha spurting all over my shirt and ice cream dripping down my pants. It was so bad that strangers started to hand me napkins, which means Iāve reached a new level of mess. Somehow, I managed to stain nothing, because Iām an expert in chaos, but unfortunately I can never order this again.
Aperol spritz at Eataly
101 Liberty St, New York, NY 10007
Thankfully, after 24 hours on my own I slowly started to adjust. I stopped breaking stuff, and decided to treat myself after a long work day by going to Eataly for dinner. While I thoroughly enjoy the contents of Eataly, itās not a top 10 place Iād want to be in the case of an emergency, because I find it very confusing to navigate. I decided to really live large and get myself an Aperol spritz at one of the island bars, but then I was left wandering around the grocery aisles precariously clutching my sweating spritz wine glass trying to find a place to check out. Where can I check out? I asked the Italian man at the wine bar. Everywhere! He said emphatically. I went to the nearest checkout. The lady said sternly, you cannot check out here, pointing vaguely to the next cash register. On and on this mystery went, until finally I made it to the end of the store, where finally I found a register. My Aperol spritz survived this saga, but my patience, just barely.
Giardiniera at Eataly
101 Liberty St, New York, NY 10007
If youāve made it this far in the newsletter, congrats! We can finally sit down with our half melted Aperol spritz and ENJOY our girl dinner together. I found a nice bench in the cafe in Eataly where plebes eat (I was politely redirected out of the restaurant seating). At first I was going to sit at the bar tables because I thought the view would be nice, but then I sat down and realized it faced a Burger King and an alley of trash so I politely redirected myself as well. Ah, New York. Now we can sit down here and drink our Aperol spritz and eat the ultimate girl dinner of giardiniera, or salty Italian pickled cauliflower, celery, carrots and pepper. I have a theory that if left alone, girls would just eat enough pickles to pickle their stomachs themselves. Regardless of whether or not you spiritually identify as a Girl, give this combo a try. If you havenāt tried this before, itās absolutely divine with the sweetness of the spritz. As for me, Iām going to wrap up writing this āletter in the corner of Eataly before a fresh batch of tourists spill in, and eat my $5 fancy Venchi chocolates all the way home.
Stay cool,
Soph