This is just a friendly alert that glow in the dark jellyfish ice cream exists, and that it costs $225 a scoop. If anyone out there has that kind of cash to burn, please sample this ice cream and let us know what happens.
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Posts in Category ‘Dessert’
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Dulce de Leche Brownies
illustration: tram nguyen
The very first dinner party I threw in New York was possibly also the only dinner party I’ve ever thrown that went off seamlessly; I prepared an elaborate three-course meal in advance and enjoyed a civilized evening with two very fun 50+-year-old women. The only hitch came after dinner, when my then-roommate blew into the apartment drunk and barged in on one of my guests in the bathroom. A minor disturbance.
This was right after college, so I was deep into my Argentine cuisine repertoire, and I was also still getting over the fact that in America dulce de leche — a sweet, caramelly spread — is not readily available at every grocery store, gas station, and street kiosk. To make up for this shortage, I decided to make my own, with which to dress the ice cream and sautéed apple dish I had planned for dessert. I found a recipe online and easily whipped up a batch. The process essentially involved putting a can of condensed milk into a pot with water and letting it sit there for awhile. I specifically remember how easy it was and how well it turned out.
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The Pies of Summer
illustration: tram nguyen
I don’t get people who say they hate summer. What? You don’t you like being happy? Tan? Dressing in slightly inappropriate outfits, just shy of mutton dressed as lamb? I just want to shake these miserable souls. By the time July rolls around, Chicago transforms into another city entirely. I love riding down the Lake Front Path on my bicycle in the summer, cruising past the absurd non-native palm trees that miraculously appear every June, pop-up stands selling aguas frescas and sweet juicy mangoes dusted with chili powder, and bikinied beach babes anointing themselves with coconut oil. As I watch the paddle boarders in the distant horizon, looking like so many perfect, tan, Jesuses walking on water, I remember that this is the reason I’ve decided to live in a place that is a completely unfit for human habitation six months out of the year.
I’ve been gorging myself on the best of summer produce, in the manner of a lab rat that has had it’s hypothalamus removed and can no longer tell the difference between hungry and full. All year long, I wait for and dream about the blueberries and peaches and Oh My God the tomatoes, which I consume by the pounds and pounds as soon as late summer arrives. Even as I bite into that perfect summer tomato, my joy is tempered by the fact that the pleasure is fleeting. That the season will be over in a few short weeks and it will soon be cold and gray and I will never be happy again.
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Chocolate Chip Ginger Cookies
illustration: tram nguyen
Back in college, I worked at this very magical scone shop called Kim’s Kitchen. Kim’s was a tiny place in Evanston, Illinois, where college kids and high school youths came together in the late afternoon hours to gossip and bake. It was a cozy, familial place on a leafy suburban street, and the proprietress was a stern but maternal woman who taught her young staff things like how to chop an onion and which brand of boxed wine is the highest quality. Kim also taught us to bake, sort of, but mostly she just gave us a recipe and told us not to mess up. Which we usually did anyway, because we were very busy gossiping.
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Grilled Pineapple with Chili Lime Salt
illustration: tram nguyen
Last summer, I was hanging around the guacamole section at the grocery store, gently squeezing the avocados in a non-creepy manner, as one does. These two cargo shorts-clad frat boys hovered nearby, presumably arguing over which avocado would pair well with the 24-pack of Coors Light in their grocery cart. I was mostly minding my own business, silently judging them for having crappy taste in beer, until one of them approached me cautiously.
“Excuse me, Ma’am…”
He then proceeded to explain the debate he and his bro were having. Should they get one of the rock hard avocados or a sad mushy one? Not that I heard any of this, as my mind was too busy lingering over that one word. Ma’am.
Ma’am.
Ma’am?!
This has been happening more frequently of late. I made a note to myself to make an appointment with my dermatologist for a vat of industrial grade Retin-A. And then I sent them back to the frathouse with a too-ripe avocado, which as soon as they cut it open, they would soon discover that like my own rapidly deteriorating visage, it too was speckled with brown age spots.
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