Plating Peanut Butter and Jelly

Plus: Sky Pavillion, Broccoli Farro Salad, and Another Apple Pie.

Hey everyone,

I’m not a normal person. That’s what I realized yesterday when I decided to be really laid back and cutesy and casual and just make peanut butter and jelly for lunch.

Of course, the bread had to come from the farmer’s market: a sourdough Pullman loaf from ACQ Bread, which I cut thickly and toasted in my toaster. The peanut butter was from The Meat Hook, a high-end butcher in my neighborhood that has a very curated pantry. The raspberry jam came from the CSA.

By the time I got to making the sandwiches, I realized they’d be prettier open-faced. And also that if they were open-faced, they should have some variety: so for one I slathered on peanut butter and dolloped the jelly in the middle. For the other, I sliced an apple very thinly, drizzled with honey, and sprinkled with Maldon sea salt.

Is the stuff bestselling food newsletters are made of? I’m not sure. But as you can see, I take food very seriously. Even food that’s not meant to be serious.

In a similar vein, I take my restaurant meals very seriously too. Which is why I feel like I’ve discovered gold in finding a dreamy new Chinese restaurant in the theater district: Sky Pavillion.

We went there with our pals Mark and Diana before seeing Audra McDonald in GYPSY (an iconic performance: get your tickets now!). Finding a genuinely good place to eat in the theater district is a huge accomplishment; and the food at Sky Pavillion is extraordinarily delicious (and spicy) Szechuan cuisine.

We loved everything that we ate, but highlights were the potted tofu (the dish on the bottom) which came lots of chilies and peanuts on top; the spicy chicken with fried dough on the right; the cumin lamb up top; and the dry sautéed string beans on the left. I want to buy more theater tickets just so we can go back.

Last night we had some friends over and I made my usual spicy spatchcocked chicken with salsa verde:

Only instead of serving with couscous, I decided to make Smitten Kitchen’s Broccoli Rubble Farro Salad.

It’s a really brilliant recipe. You take broccoli, you boil it for two minutes, then you chop it up and sauté it with lots of garlic, chili flakes, and lemon zest before stirring into cooked farro and adding Pecorino cheese.

I made it because I still had leftover broccoli from my CSA, but I also wanted to put some veggies on the plate. The only tricky part was the farro that I bought was really hard (I don’t think it was pearled) so it took almost an hour of boiling to become tender and even then, it was still pretty al dente. So when it comes to farro: buyer beware.

For dessert I made an apple pie, because it’s just the right thing to do in December.

Also I’m really into pie-making this year because even though I’ve done it a ton of times now, I still find it a challenge to get it just right. In this particular case, I didn’t roll out the bottom dough enough; but I corrected by rolling the top dough thinner and creating a seal with lots of pinching and folding and crimping.

Remember my motto: even an imperfect apple pie is still an apple pie.

Hey, let’s look at some links:

• The Most Popular Recipes of 2024 (NYT);

• The Best Cookbooks of 2024 according to Celia Stack (KCRW);

• A Bourbon, blueberry, and bitter cocktail (The Guardian);

• If this Dick Van Dyke video doesn’t bring a tear to your eye, I can’t help you (Kottke.org).

That’s all for today, folks! Oh check out my pantry pasta with miso and fish sauce on Instagram:

amateurgourmet

A post shared by @amateurgourmet

See you back here on Thursday….

Your pal,

Adam