Banana cake with peanut butter frosting; Photo by Joy Summers
Easing into the new year means that I’m mostly staying home, cooking dinner for the fam every night, and spending every spare moment I can catch reading.
I sped through John Hodgman’s Vacation Land and am devouring Lindy West’s Shrill right now. Both have had me in hysterics. What I didn’t expect to find was that my third favorite thing to read is a sassy little cookbook from Hola Arepa’s former pastry chef and current tattoo artist, Heather Kim. This, her first cookbook, is called Sweet Revenge: Passive-Aggressive Desserts for Your Exes & Enemies. Kim’s writing is smart and funny, and her recipes are a blast to cook. (This is the woman who brought Hot Cheeto brittle into my life.) Like her desserts, her book adds just enough salt to keep things interesting. Sections include “Grab life by the milkballs” and “I never kneaded you anyway.” This appeals to my deep appreciation for evil glee and easy baking.
Here are three things to eat this week while poring over a good read:
Banana Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting, from Sweet Revenge: This is everyday cake that has bananas in it, so it totally and completely counts as a healthy breakfast option. It’s basically what would happen if banana bread and a cupcake had a baby, and that baby didn’t have any nut allergies.
Chicken Sandwich at Bardo, Late-Night Dinner Menu: Just when I thought I couldn’t find more to love about Remy Pettus’ Northeast restaurant Bardo, I discovered this useful little nugget of knowledge: There’s a late-night happy-hour menu! Wednesday through Monday, the kitchen stays open. Which means, if you’re me, stumbling in around 9 p.m. and ravenous on a Monday night, it’s possible to order a fantastic fried chicken sandwich at the bar.
Old Fashioned at Martina: The cocktails inside this Linden Hills restaurant are next level. Not only are they stunning to look at, the flavors knock expectations sideways into a whole new realm. The Old Fashioned—which, as the original cocktail, has just about been done to death—finds new life with a house-blended batch of aged rums (so, so good). It’s also given a soft edge of sweetness with a bit of banana, and comes served on a rock that looks like the thing that took down the Titanic.
