The Rainbowiest Rainbow Cookies

Plus: Jonathan's Birthday Pavlova, Yang's Kitchen, and Lots of Links.

Hey everyone,

It’s Pride month! Last year, to commemorate the occasion, I made pink, orange, and yellow rainbow cookies for the L.A. Times. This year, I decided to take things a step further and go full rainbow (well, not the full rainbow: indigo and violet became purple).

How’d I do it? Behold this week’s episode of The Amateur Gourmet Show:

The recipe comes from Debbie Koenig — you can find it here — and it’s definitely a labor of love. There’s the big batter with two tubes of almond paste and five eggs, there’s the divvying it up into six bowls and coloring each with different combinations of food coloring. Then there’s the spreading it out on to the half-sheet pans, baking and cooling, repeating again (assuming you only have three half-sheet pans, like me). There’s the shellacking with orange marmalade (an idea I got from Nicole Rucker), the pressing for four hours in the fridge, and then the glazing with chocolate.

But the results are totally worth it. They’re dazzling!

I brought them to my friend Jonathans’ birthday party and they were a huge hit. And even if you’re not gay, you can make them. Just don’t tell anyone!

And speaking of Jonathan’s birthday, not only did he get these cookies for his party, I also had him over for dinner with his main squeeze Ryan and after serving up his favorite Mac and Cheese, I made a Pavlova with Whipped Cream and Berries.

Being the Gen Z-er that I am, I documented the whole process on TikTok. Double click to check it out (and be sure to follow me on there):

@amateurgourmetA birthday pavlova for my friend Jonathan! I used Nicole Rucker’s recipe from her cookbook Dappled and then made a macerated berry mix with blackberries, strawberries, and raspberries (cue Prince) with a splash of Framboise. Like a big, gooey marshmallow with a crusty outside… it’s a perfect summer dessert. #desserts #meringue #cooking #berries #birthdaycake #baking

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On Thursday last week, I went with my friend Chelsea Peretti on a field trip to Yang’s Kitchen in Alhambra. We’d both heard amazing things about it and we kept trying to go together, and finally on Thursday the stars aligned.

We ate so many excellent things, starting off with this drink of “Oolong Fresca” with Joimo oolong tea, farmer’s market oranges, lemongrass, organic lime, Makrut lime leaf, and mint.

It was very sweet, but there was so much flavor packed in there: all of those floral, fruity notes.

For our first course, we had the smoked fish dip, which reminded us of the best whitefish salad.

Next up: the cold sesame noodles with semolina organic spaghetti, house sesame sauce, organic Persian cucumbers, pickled carrots, crushed peanuts, cilantro, scallion, and a drizzle of house chili crisp.

They were so good: I ate the leftovers for dinner.

But my favorite bite of the whole brunch was this cornmeal mochi pancake made with Grist & Toll heirloom cornmeal and Koda Farms mochiko rice flour and served with whipped cream, condensed milk, and berries.

The texture of the pancake was delightfully crispy on the outside — especially the edges — and then incredibly fluffy inside. And the condensed milk offered a surprisingly complex alternative to maple syrup. I kept tearing off little pieces and eating them… before I knew it, half of the pancake was gone. But it was totally worth it.

Before I get to this week’s links, I just want to say that I was lucky enough to attend the Queer as Folk premiere on Friday — our friend Stephen Dunn created this reboot, and our friend Ryan O’Connell both wrote for it and stars in it — and it was absolutely terrific.

That’s Stephen on the right, Ryan next to him, and KIM CATTRALL in the middle. Crazy enough, when we were in the theater, Kim sat behind us and shook our hands. Turns out she’s from Vancouver Island, very close to where Craig is from. Small world.

Anyway, I highly recommend the show: it’s moving and funny and fast-paced with memorable characters and storylines. I can’t wait to see the rest.

Okay, now for the links:

• Molly Yeh is opening a restaurant in Grand Forks, Minnesota (Eater);

• Tejal Rao makes Chicken Mirabella without the chicken! (NYT);

• David Sedaris’s Grub Street Diet is a must-read (I read the last paragraph out loud to Craig) (Grub Street).

That’s all for today folks!

See you back here on Wednesday for this week’s pod.

Rainbow cookily yours,

Adam 🌈