The one sad thing about moving away from home is that the meals I have with my family come once in a blue moon. The meals with all 4 of us, rare. Those meals being home-cooked around our family’s dining table, even rarer.

In fact I don’t even think I’ve had a meal like that with my family since holiday season last year, almost 9 months. Somehow, and for whatever reason, the planets aligned just this past week. I was back in my hometown in Maryland for the weekend going to the dentist (yay!) and getting my haircut (yay!). My brother and dad had just flown back from L.A. on a “work” trip. And my mom is always home so she’s the easy one to pin down.

I learned to cook cooking for my family in our small kitchen. Thankfully, that kitchen has been newly renovated and is now a good deal larger than closet-sized. But my family cooking ethos stays the same nonetheless: don’t dirty the kitchen + clean up after myself to the nth degree, serve potatoes in some form, serve tomatoes in some form. If I just follow those 3 philosophical tenets, my family will be more than happy.

A lot of my most memorable cooking experiences and memories are from that first year I learned to cook (2020). Hunkered down in covid spring, then trapped during covid summer, I had nothing to do but cook and experiment. And I recall this one day in the summer when I decided to make paella. For whatever reason, my parents own a massive paella pan, so it seemed ideal enough. I bought shrimp, mussels, chorizo, chicken, fish, paella rice, saffron — the whole shebang. We invited our family friends over and they were a. positively confused b. extremely excited. At that time, an onion took me like five minutes to cut, so I remember it being a laborious meal. I decided to give this paella another go.

the menu

seafood & chicken paella

roast patatas bravas

heirloom tomatoes with frizzled olives, garlic, and citrus

blueberry cobbler

The thing about paella when I was doing my recipe research: it’s actually not that hard. There aren’t even that many ingredients. Besides the protein, it’s really just rice + tomato + stock + saffron. And the other great thing is that they are completely customizable. Like a loaded cookie dough or a loaded ice cream, just throw in whatever mix-ins you want (cooked vegetables, various proteins) and it’ll turn out just fine.

My ideal paella has both chicken and seafood — I like shrimp and fish out of accessibility and ease. Chicken thighs lend so much depth of flavor, so they are a must for me, too. And personally, I don’t really want my paella loaded with a random assortment of vegetables. Onions and peas suffice. I’ll have my vegetables elsewhere on my dinner plate. It’s really crazy how, through just a few high-quality ingredients, the paella rice transforms into something special. It tastes like Spain, at home. I like topping the paella with some homemade chimichurri, for both bright green color and a fresh hit of herbs, but that’s optional.

Roast patatas bravas are the second special treat (out of four) my family got. I like roasting the potatoes in the oven after a brief boil, just like as if you were making smashed potatoes. All that time in the oven allows you to whip up the two sauces for the patatas bravas. A basic hot salsa and a rich, lemony aioli.

The third dish is heirloom tomatoes, my ultimate summer treat. I like adorning them simply with umami-rich ingredients like toasted garlic, olives, lemon zest & chili flakes. They don’t need any extra acidity since tomatoes are always acidic. But a few dashes of sherry vinegar wouldn’t hurt if you’re inclined.

Finally, summer wouldn’t be complete without a cobbler. I like presenting my cobblers in deep dish plates. Not to beat a dead horse, but they are just more ~chic~ that way. Like I’m not trying to convince you I made a pie (because clearly I did not), but I do want you to believe I put in the same amount of effort as a pie by presenting it in a pie plate. You feel? A cobbler in a pyrex is giving “I don’t care about you,” Cobbler in a pie plate: chic. I like cobblers because effort wise they are between pies and crisps. I mean, really, like if I’m trying to say I don’t really care what we have for dessert, I would make a crisp. A cobbler is at least 10 steps beyond that. I went through the effort to make biscuits, but I’m not baby-sitting a pie crust. A good middle ground.

Ok with that explanation over with, this is a very classic cobbler that I like to make slightly fancy with a little ground fennel seed and cardamom in the berries. It goes even more lovely with vanilla ice cream that way. Ever so much more appealing to eat sweet, tender biscuits with just-cooked summer fruit than a streusel topping IMO (they are also so ugly… I’m not even kidding I’ve never seen a good-looking crisp, a well-photographed crisp, or even a well-styled crisp). Ok, I’m gonna end this newsletter before I rant on about how much I dislike crisps for 4 more paragraphs.

Ryan

recipes

[Note: Only paid subscribers will have access to all 4 recipes below. Printable PDFs are also now available thanks to a subscriber’s recommendation!]

seafood & chicken paella

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One of my least favorite questions to get asked is: “What would your final meal be?” or “What would your death row meal be?” Frankly, I don’t have an answer to this and probably won’t ever have an answer to this. I simply don’t think it’s possible for me to somehow reduce all the infinite food possibilities down into one theoretical meal. Too abstract. I’m too much of a realist.

Would my final meal be mussels and french fries? Possibly. Could my final meal involve an extremely large slice of chocolate mousse cake with 2% milk? Likely. But would I really commit to that? Actually, why would I even have mussels when I could just have a really well-seared and well-seasoned bone-in strip steak? And would I actually neglect mint chip ice cream over chocolate cake?

So maybe I can use my friends and family as foils to figure out my final meal journey. Maybe seeing their ideal meals will trigger a response in me like: oh yes, I most definitely don’t want broccoli for my last dinner. Or even: yes, I must have mint chip.

I picked out of a hat and decided my friend Molly would be the first one on the chopping block. Except I didn’t actually tell her or anyone else coming over that this would be her final meal and left it up to her if she could figure out what my intention was LOL. Midway through the dinner she started to question the menu. Then when I mentioned the dessert we were having, the coincidences ended up being a little too strong for her not to ask me if this meal was curated towards her in a specific way. So I told her it was her final dinner. Surprise! What a lovely way to end a night.

the menu

crispy chicken cutlet sandwiches with honey mustard kale slaw (recipe below)

mini brioche sandwich loaves (recipe below)

giant california roll crispy rice (recipe below)

blackberry cream pie (recipe below)

So the entree for the evening were crispy chicken cutlet sandwiches on homemade brioche loaves, adorned with a honey mustard kale slaw, sliced tomatoes, and drapings of Swiss cheese. This is a copycat Hillstone recipe; Molly’s favorite restaurant. And the odds are likelier than not whenever I see Molly that this sandwich comes up in conversation. The trick is a hefty amount of honey mustard that dresses the kale slaw and you use as extra sauce in the sandwich itself. Turns out honey mustard does actually make anything taste better and needs to be used more often.

The other main part of the dinner menu: a giant California roll crispy rice. After I had made my original version last week, I wanted to test out a California roll version using crab stick, cucumber, and avocado. If you’re concerned about using fresh fish / sushi-grade fish, this is a great option for you since crab stick is fully cooked. It works just as well as using tuna and salmon but definitely looks a bit crazier. I sort of like that visual though.

And finally, for dessert, a blackberry cream pie. Molly had said I messed up a bit and should have developed a blueberry version, which is actually her favorite fruit. ALAS, I can only get so close. Pies are exceptional as always. And I do think that there’s a possibility that my final meal could involve a pie in someway.

To be continued,

Ryan

recipes

[Note: Only paid subscribers will have access to all 4 recipes below. Printable PDFs are also now available thanks to a subscriber’s recommendation!]

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So it was my 27th birthday this weekend…Yay! (I really don’t care that much about my birthday. It’s not really ever something I feel excited about. I prefer Thanksgiving or maybe like any other day of the year.)

And as a present to myself I wanted to make 2 of my favorite foods: crispy rice and mint chip ice cream (not together, very much separate).

One of my biggest gripes with crispy rice is that shallow-frying the little rice squares always takes so long, like way longer than you think it would take. To get both sides crunchy sometimes takes as long as 15 or 20 minutes. But I had a revelation that you could just as easily form the sushi rice into a circle using a cake pan and fry the whole thing as one large golden disc of crispy rice, thus eliminating the hassle of babysitting like 40 individual crispy rice squares.

It does in fact work. And it works way better than you’d think. You get all the drama of a sushi cake with all the crunch of a crispy rice. To serve, people can cut off their own slice or square and it becomes the perfect, fun appetizer!! Which is exactly what I did on my birthday after developing this recipe.

I also made mint chip ice cream, using both fresh mint and mint extract, mint oreos and lots of chopped chocolate, and lots of sea salt. My ice cream machine isn’t that great, so I wasn’t completely thrilled with my ice cream. I need to buy a better one for myself next year.

Enjoy the rice!
Ryan

recipe

[Note: Only paid subscribers will have access to the recipe below. Printable PDFs are also now available thanks to a subscriber’s recommendation!]

giant crunchy rice cake

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On the Italian carb spectrum people fall into one of two camps: pasta lover or pizza lover.

I, personally, will never settle for pizza — ironically, because my family owns a pizza restaurant. In fact, I’ve polled my entire extended family of 11 what their favorite food is (actually multiple times, like an annual Gallup poll of sorts), and out of all possible possibilities, at least a majority of them answered pizza, including both of my parents and my brother.

I, however, will always be on team pasta. Pasta is whimsical. Pasta is limitless. Pasta is a kind of food you never stop trying to master (I mean, the same can be said about pizza, but please ignore this reasoning for my sake).

What an opportunity, I say, to host a pasta picnic outside. After all, the color of a picnic blanket and an Italian American restaurant’s tablecloth are strikingly similar as you can see in the photos.

I had the idea to host a pasta picnic as a follow-up act to the dessert party in June. I pondered, what other food category feels summery but lends itself to a buffet? Salads, sure. But “salad picnic for 30 friends” doesn’t have the same ring. Cold soups, sure. But, and this is my biggest gripe with soup, how the heck are you supposed to serve it? Does everyone walk around with a plate balanced with a variety of mini cups, attempting to try all the soups simultaneously? Absurd!

Pasta in the summertime feels neither right nor wrong. Pasta is for all times of the year. Sure, I won’t make 17 different kinds of ragù. But pasta is surprisingly still craveable even on a very exposed patio surface at the end of July. Everyone loves pasta, so it seemed like the clear answer. And like dessert, it gives me the chance to go BIG on some dishes. I’ll call these my cash cows. Lasagna. Ravioli. Mac n’ cheese.

So this is the menu I came up with:

the menu

french onion mac n’ cheese (recipe below)

gnocchi alla vodka with a pesto spiral (recipe below)

lobster pasta with a burst cherry tomato sauce (recipe below)

super green pesto pasta salad

lemon brown butter ravioli with candied kumquats

carbonara arancini with prosciutto

tomato tower with whipped ricotta and oregano oil

amatriciana lasagna pinwheels

To get my ingredients, I knew I had to make many, many trips to Eataly. They have the ultimate selection of pastas, specialty ingredients, produce, meats and seafood. And honestly, their meat and fish counters are superb. Every cut of beef and pork. Every kind of poultry is available. I saw rabbits. I saw cornish hen. The fish counter had cooked octopus, lobsters, and all sorts of seafood. They also stock my favorite kind of pasta shape - large shells - which are seemingly impossible to find elsewhere. Almost all of the food I bought I sourced from their shelves. Approved!

The french onion mac n’ cheese was a must. One of my most popular and viral recipes, I knew it had to make an appearance. Actually not just an appearance, steal the show. I made a double batch of it. And I kid you not, it was the first recipe to go. There was so much mac, I didn’t have a big enough casserole and sacrificed one of my Dutch ovens to bear the load. It weighed probably 30 pounds between the sheer amount of cheese, many pounds of pasta, and all that cast iron. So good.

I also knew I wanted to include my gnocchi alla vodka recipe. As you can probably tell, I’m very inclined toward the visual presentation of food. There’s a pizza sold at a restaurant called Rubirosa in Soho that has a spiral of pesto etched onto the top of the pie; so I had the epiphany to apply the same technique to an ultra-saucy, rich, cheesy, and comforting casserole full of gnocchi. The red and green contrast was iconic. My brother actually commented upon seeing the dish that it reminded him of the Rubirosa pizza. Bingo!

And for my third recipe, my favorite lobster pasta, based off of a pasta I had in the south of France in a shack a few years ago. Served in the lobster shell, meters away from the waves, accompanied by a nude man fishing for clams to hand to the chef in a plastic bucket to then cook for the patrons minutes later, that pasta was exceptional. Highest quality cherry tomatoes, lots of olive oil, wine, and tarragon (plus lobster meat), there’s nothing really more that screams “summer! eat me now”.

The other highlights: pinwheel lasagna based on Don Angie’s. Instead of their bolognese, I opted for amatriciana sauce (carbonara, but instead of egg yolks, you use tomatoes. following?). Such a pain to make. But so delicious.

I also made a ricotta, mascarpone, brown butter, Meyer lemon filling for some homemade ravioli. Then drowned them in a healthy amount of even more brown butter and olive oil. Topped with slightly candied kumquats. I like to salt this filling a decent amount because it almost ends up tasting like a preserved lemon.

how to pull this off

Honestly, don’t do a pasta picnic, or at least don’t do it all yourself. This level of absurdity I think is only meant to exist online. It was impossibly hard to maintain cooking the gnocchi, ravioli, and lobster pasta on the stove top at the same time, all while attempting to bake the arancini, lasagna, and mac n’ cheese.

What you can do and probably should do, is coordinate a potluck with all your friends where you each bring a pasta. Pasta salads work great for this concept by the way, as do baked pastas like lasagna and mac n’ cheese, which are always good at room temperature. Sure, throw in one or two a la minute pasta, but not more than that.

how did my picnic go?

Pretty good! Aside from me accidentally ejecting one of my casseroles of lasagna pinwheels onto the buffet table minutes before people arrived, then me hacking the tablecloth with scissors to extricate any last trace of red sauce stain from the table.

The weather was spectacular, which is so surprising for New York July.

I had the incredible help of my cousin Lily, both as my sous chef and as my videographer. She just moved to New York City a couple weeks ago! And I’m so beyond proud of her and excited for her. She’ll be a large part of team Ryan moving onward.

And it ended up being the most hodge-podgy of gatherings in the best way possible. My dad, brother (the pizza one), and two cousins were in town for a padel tournament, so they all made surprise appearances, also bringing along 2 semi-professional Argentinian padel players, plus one of their girlfriends. The lovely woman who produced my memorial day TODAY show segment was also there. All in all, we had a great time with plenty of pasta, spritzes, negronis, and sun.

Ciao,

Ryan

recipes

[Note: Printable PDFs are also now available thanks to a subscriber’s recommendation!]

french onion mac n’ cheese

serves 6

ingredients

• 1 stick unsalted butter, divided

• 4 large sweet onions, thinly sliced

• Kosher salt and black pepper

• 1 lb. large shells or cavatappi (no other shape is allowed, sorry!!)

• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

• 4 cups whole milk

• 1 lb. gruyere cheese, coarsely grated

• 8 oz sharp white cheddar cheese, coarsely grated

• Chives, for garnish

instructions

1. In a large pot (non-stick works great) or Dutch oven over medium-high heat, add 2 tbsp of the butter, the onions, and 1/2 tsp kosher salt.

2. Add the lid and cook for 10 minutes undisturbed to help sweat the onions.

3. Remove the lid, reduce heat to medium, and continue cooking, stirring occasionally until the onions have reduced significantly and start to turn light brown / stick to the bottom of the pot. Reduce heat to medium-low and continue cooking and stirring frequently until the onions have turned a rich brown color, about 1.5 hours in total. If onions are sticking too much, add a bit of hot water and use that to scrape them off the bottom. Remove onions to a small bowl.

4. Meanwhile, toward the end of cooking the onions, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Season with a large handful of kosher salt.

5. Boil the pasta until al dente. Drain (to keep pasta from sticking together, either drizzle with some oil or keep it sitting in a few cups of the pasta water).

6. Preheat oven to 400 °F.

7. In the pot you just used for pasta again, heat over medium and add the remaining butter and the flour. Cook, whisking constantly, for 2 minutes.

8. Gradually whisk in the milk. Then add the cheeses (reserve about 20% for topping the mac) and half of the caramelized onions. Season with salt to taste and A LOT of pepper. Then stir in the drained pasta. Taste for seasoning again.

9. Add to a large baking dish. Top with remaining cheese and dot with the remaining onion. Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes. Then remove foil and continue baking until golden brown, another 20 minutes.

10. Garnish with chives and serve hot.

French Onion Mac N’ Cheese

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Tip: The entire mac and cheese, unbaked, can be left in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. Proceed with cooking the same way.

gnocchi alla vodka with a pesto spiral

serves 8

ingredients

• 6 tbsp olive oil

• 6 large shallots, minced

• 12 garlic cloves, sliced

• 2 Calabrian chilies, chopped (or substitute 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes)

• 3 (4 oz.) cans tomato paste

• 1 1/2 cups heavy cream

• 1/2 cup grated parmesan, plus more for serving

• Kosher salt

• 32 oz shelf-stable gnocchi

• 3/4 cup homemade or store-bought pesto

instructions

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.

2. In a large skillet, sauté pan, or braiser over medium heat, add the olive oil and shallots. Cook until the shallots turn translucent, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the chilies and garlic and cook for 30 seconds. Add the tomato paste, season with 3/4 teaspoon salt, and cook for 3 to 5 minutes, until the color deepens slightly.

3. Stir in the heavy cream and parmesan cheese. Keep warm over low heat. Optionally, blend with an immersion blender (or in a standard blender) for a smooth sauce.

4. Season boiling water with a handful of kosher salt. Boil gnocchi until they float and are al dente (according to package instructions). Transfer gnocchi to the sauce with a slotted spoon. Use pasta water to thin out the sauce if needed. Make sure the sauce is simmering and hot. Taste for seasoning.

5. Transfer your pesto to a piping bag, snip the tip, and pipe a spiral over the top. Sprinkle heavily with parmesan cheese.

   

   Gnocchi Alla Vodka With A Pesto Spiral

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lobster pasta with a burst cherry tomato sauce

serves 4 to 6

ingredients

• 2 large fresh lobsters (2 1/2 - 3 lbs.)

• 3 tbsp olive oil

• 1 shallot, sliced

• 6 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

• 1 small bunch tarragon, chopped

• 1 tsp red pepper flakes

• 1/4 cup vermouth, white wine, or rose

• 32 oz high-quality cherry tomatoes, halved

• Kosher salt

• 16 oz long or short pasta of your choice

• 3 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into cubes and chilled

• 1 small bunch chives, minced

instructions

1. Bring 1” of water to a boil in a large pot over high heat.

2. Place a lobster on your cutting board. Using a sharp chef’s knife, quickly insert the knife into the lobster’s head just behind its eyes and cut down to dispatch it. Repeat with the other lobster.

3. Drop your lobsters into the pot and add a tight-fitting lid. Steam the lobsters for 6-7 minutes, until the lobsters are bright red and the tails have curled up slightly. Remove lobsters to a cutting board.

4. De-meat your lobster tails, claws, and knuckles (watch a YouTube video on how to do this). Wash and save a few of the more beautiful lobster tails or claws for presentation. Set the lobster meat in the fridge.

5. Bring a large pot of water to a boil.

6. Meanwhile, set a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the olive oil and when it’s shimmering, add the shallot and garlic. Cook, stirring occasionally, until they are softened, about 5 minutes. Next add the red pepper and tarragon and cook for 30 seconds. Then add the vermouth or wine and cook out the alcohol briefly.

7. Dump in all the cherry tomatoes. Season with salt. Cook, occasionally stirring and pressing down on some of the tomatoes, until the tomatoes have broken down and are jammy, about 20 to 30 minutes. Reduce heat to low.

8. Season your pasta water with a large handful of kosher salt. Drop in the pasta and cook until al dente according to package instructions. Save 1 cup of pasta water.

9. Drain the pasta. Add it to the tomatoes along with the reserved lobster meat, butter, half the chives, and 1/2 cup of the reserved pasta water. Stir well with tongs to bring all the ingredients together and melt the butter, about 2-3 minutes. Add more pasta water if necessary to keep the sauce glossy. Taste for seasoning.

10. Dump onto a serving platter; garnish with the remaining chives and reserved lobster shells.

Lobster Pasta With A Burst Cherry Tomato Sauce

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My mom and I always joke that my dad is the absolute most complicated man on planet earth when it comes to deciding what’s for dinner.

My dad’s dinner M.O. is typically ignore what either of us say the menu should be and just buy whatever random assortment of proteins the butcher counter convinces him to purchase on that given day. In consumer / capitalistic terms, my dad is what you call “a whale”. So, for example, my mom and I could suggest we make seared tuna for dinner, and he would go out and buy a half-pound of scallops, 1 strip steak, and a little foie gras “for us to try”. Then my mom and I would be confused as to why he wouldn’t just buy one protein for us to figure out what to do with, instead foisting upon us an ingredient box akin to a Chopped episode, with no clear direction as to what to do with any one item.

This past weekend, this same complicated dad decided to come to New York on business with my brother, and somewhat coerced me to make dinner for them two plus one of my dad’s good friends and his family (who are absolutely lovely btw). The coersion part comes in when my dad was trying to tell me what the menu should be. This is his literal email to me:

Regards, Rod….

I think the most absurd part is how he wanted me to make Peking duck (and occupy my entire fridge space to hang-drying out the poultry), but put my brother on the pancake making duty, as if that would make my life easier within the context of this meal.

Upon receiving this menu, my defense mechanism was to basically shoot down every following modest proposal or menu suggestion coming from him, empowering myself to come up with the menu for the evening. I actually did like his idea of a surf n’ turf, just instead of lobster salad + “crunch shrimp” + peking duck, I would opt for lobster rolls + rib-eyes. I swapped out truffle pasta for smashed potatoes with truffle creme fracihe. And swapped out banana cream pie for the best raspberry cream pie I’ve ever had. And removed the other 5 recipes that frankly just had to be struck down.

the menu

rib-eyes with brown butter garlic-anchovy sauce + breadcrumbs (recipe below)

chilled lobster rolls on homemade buns (recipe linked)

hamptons raspberry cream pie (recipe below)

parmesan smashed potatoes with black truffle creme fraiche (recipe below)

chrysanthemum caesar salad

The inspo for the steak recipe came from a dinner I just had on the Lower East Side at an Italian restaurant called Forsythia. They serve a homemade pici (long-ish, thicker pasta that sort of look like worms) in an anchovy, garlic, butter sauce and topped with breadcrumbs. The official name for the sauce is bagna cauda, and it’s typically served as a dip with bread.

With pasta, it worked excellently, and I realized that it could work equally well with a well-seared rich cut of steak. I call for rib-eyes but feel free to swap in whatever steak you’d like. You could even grill the steaks if you wanted to, since all you’re doing after searing is drizzling over the sauce and sprinkling over the crumbs. If you’re sensitive to salt, you might want to decrease the number of anchovies fyi. This sauce to me sort of replaces the need to baste steak with butter + garlic + herbs, which feels unnecessarily restaurant-y to me and doesn’t contribute much to the steak on the flavor front. Instead, making a drizzle for the steaks that also contains garlic, butter, and aromatics is much better bang for your buck (or bang for your effort).

My brother decided he would sear one of the steaks, leaving me with the other two, as sort of a sear-off type faux competition show. He decided to sear in olive oil + butter, which immediately burned and smoked up my entire apartment. So please use neutral oil (as I did and as I call for, of course), and don’t be like my brother.

I also knew my raspberry cream pie would be a must for this meal. I developed this recipe last summer, to much admiration and adoration from my friends, and knew it would hit once again. It was somewhat risky using raspberries given the ~ explosive bacteria ~ going around. But since you cook the raspberries down into essentially a jam, I was pretty secure in knowing that would eliminate anything potentially dangerous. Raspberry pie for all!

I’ve realized that this pie is so insanely delicious because it’s essentially a perfected form of a raspberry cheesecake, except with an unbaked yet still dense cream filling. The raspberry sauce is bright and summery. The crust, if you make it right, flaky and buttery. No other dessert I’d rather eat in July. And as I’ll say again, if you’re scared about making pies / pie crust, the more practice the better. You’ll get better each time, and it’s such a rewarding learning curve. So try it!

Serendipitously, we had a marvelous summer Sunday weather-wise. The air cooled off perfectly with negligible humidity, and we had a cloudless dinner outside in the sunset. Wouldn’t have it any either way (except maybe chilly or freezing cold).

Ryan

recipes

[Note: Only paid subscribers will have access to all 3 recipes below. Printable PDFs are also now available thanks to a subscriber’s recommendation!]

rib-eyes with brown butter garlic-anchovy sauce + breadcrumbs

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We’ve gotten to that point in the summer when I start having a mental breakdown upon turning on my oven or stove for even the mildest amounts of time. For being born in early August, for being raised in the swampiest of American regions, for then going to college in a separate swampy American region, I ironically cannot handle the heat. I would rather frost-freeze my appendages in polar temperatures (happened exactly twice this winter), then schvitz in my kitchen for even a single minute in summer heat. My friend questioned me last night about this exact opinion actually. I said: “Yes, I would rather be freezing, cold, and in the dark.”

The only thing that prevents me from going truly off the walls in the summer is produce and food. Somehow seeing vegetables and fruits at the farmer’s market on a Sunday morning makes me compose myself and brace myself for week upon week of never-ending heat. Tomatoes and cucumbers, herbs and peppers, peaches and cherries make it alright.

So in the spirit of blessing you with the same joy, peace, and ease that I get from summer food, I present to you 3 recipes that are perfect for the summer. The best fried chicken I’ve ever had. An excellent pasta salad. And an excellent dense bean salad.

On the fried chicken: I was particularly enamored with pippara peppers. Their curvy, whimsical nature called out to me. Typically, fried chicken is brined in buttermilk + hot sauce, both quite acidic, sharp ingredients. So using a similarly briny ingredient like a pippara to make a more balanced aioli for dipping made sense to me. This is an excellent fried chicken recipe, aioli aside. Feel free to serve it with hot honey or even a special sauce instead.

On the pasta salad: as someone who isn’t really that inclined toward the pasta salad category of foods, I like to treat “pasta salad” more like room temperature regular pasta (if that makes sense). And my only goal for this dish was to bring a lot more texture to pasta salad than typical. Hence, we have two crunch factors. 1. Crispy thick-cut bacon flavored with porchetta spices. 2. Crispy halloumi crumbs. The cherry tomatoes help cut through all the richness in a lovely way.

On the dense bean salad: This is a great recipe for meal prepping. Dress the salad, and it’ll stay for days. In fact, it’ll develop more and more flavor as it sits in the fridge. This method for cooking shrimp is superior. The key is to not overcook your shrimp. They tell you when they’re ready. Once they start curling and turn opaque, they’re done. If they curl up in a tight little ball like a cute lapdog (idk find a better simile, but one of my dogs imitates an overcooked shrimp when he sleeps), they’ll be tough and chewy. You can also grill your shrimp; that would be lovely.

Ryan

recipes

[note: paid subscribers will have access to all 3 recipes below. Per the request of a subscriber, I’ve started including printable PDF documents of all the recipes for easier reading and usage.]

fried chicken with piparra-tarragon aioli

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As I alluded to in my last newsletter, I’ve been gearing up to cater a 20-person cocktail party for my mom. When I private-cheffed my friend’s mom’s birthday brunch a couple of months back, and all of her friends were gathered around the dining table eating amazing food and chatting, I realized that my mom could have the same experience with all of her friends. All she needed was for me to make a trip down to Maryland to cook all the food.

I had originally envisioned this cocktail party as actually being for both of my parents and all of their friends. But when push came to shove, my mom and I realized that it would just be easier if my dad was simply cut out of the picture LOL (he has a tendency to overcomplicate food, drinks, vibes, etc.). So with him out of the house, I took full rein.

My mom, ironically, hates hosting. But with me essentially serving as the caterer, and my cousin Lily serving as the caterer’s assistant, there wasn’t much for her to worry about. A good symbiotic relationship: I use the lovely kitchen, she uses me to make the food.

My mom barely gave me any direction with the food menu. Every morning when we talked on the phone for the past like 3 or 4 weeks I would bring up the menu and try to hone in on it somewhat, which was always met with an immediate deflection toward another topic, leaving me quite in the dark as to what I was expected to make. The menu thus became whatever fun hors d’oeuvres ideas popped into my head in the span of us sending out the Partiful and me going to the Whole Foods in Maryland.

In the vein of my mom hating hosting, we decided to “have people over” for our “cocktail party” at 4pm on a Saturday. By setting the time at 4, we avoided any possible pressure to provide any sort of complete meal. Too late for lunch, too early for dinner. Hovering in this purgatorial time of day, I still felt the need to provide a couple bites of protein, a couple bites of carb, a couple bites of fiber, and a couple desserts.

the menu

tuna tartare endive cups (recipe below)

Calabrian chili arancini (recipe below)

caprese skewers (recipe below)

focaccia BLTs with green goddess

twin crudité platters

strawberry tower with creme

cherry financiers

lemon poppy seed tea cakes

The protein: tuna tartare endive cups. The simplest dish to make and without a doubt the most popular bite of the evening. People ofc go crazy for spicy mayo with fresh tuna. I had debated serving the tartare on top of fried rice paper. But I was worried the tartare would sog out the rice paper too quickly. And my priority for the event was actually to become a guest of the party eventually and not be stuck as the caterer / server / chef. So endive cups became a natural, more refreshing, and cleaner vessel. Plus, effortless. I’ll use the rice paper some other time.

The carb: arancini. Another huge hit. Throughout the “gathering,” people kept coming up to me saying: “oh my god, the arancini are incredible.” So relieving because I was actually pretty nervous serving them at room temperature. They are obviously incredible right out of the fryer, but somehow the arancini stayed surprisingly well for the next couple hours. I didn’t even bother re-heating them. Helpful tip: it’s completely fine to serve things at room temperature if it saves you stress and energy. Always.

The fiber: caprese skewers. A couple weeks ago I went to a pottery painting class at East Fork (one of my favorite ceramics brands) in Brooklyn. Even with me being so stressed about painting pottery for the first time in 15 years, I noted the venue had these delicious and retro-chic caprese skewers, coated in pesto and olive oil, visually striking and graphic. I adapted them for my own party but did in fact make way too many skewers. I think they were a bit redundant with the two massive crudité platters, but still great bites and easy enough to make. I recommend.

It ended up being a completely rainy weekend. So it was nice to have a kitchen party of sorts.

Hope you enjoyed the party mom since I know you’re reading <3

Ryan

P.S. If you're in the DC area, my parents’ kitchen designer is Sharon Dougherty Trifilo, and you can find her website here. She’s amazing!

recipes

[Note: Printable PDFs are also now available thanks to a subscriber’s recommendation!]

tuna tartare endive cups

makes around 20 - 30 hors d’oeuvres

ingredients

for the spicy mayo

• 1/2 cup mayo

• 3 tbsp gochujang

• 2 tsp toasted sesame oil

for the tartare and assembly

• 1 to 1 1/4 pounds tuna (bought the same day at a high-end grocery store), cut into small dice

• 2 scallions, thinly sliced, plus more for garnish

• 2 tbsp soy sauce

• 2 tsp toasted sesame oil

• 1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds, plus more for garnish

• 4 to 5 endives, large leaves peeled off, small leaves and cores discarded

instructions

1. For the spicy mayo: Stir together all the spicy mayo ingredients in a bowl. Taste for seasoning. This can be made up to 3 days in advance.

2. For the tuna tartare and assembly: In a separate bowl, stir together the tuna, scallions, soy sauce, sesame oil, and sesame seeds. Taste for seasoning. This can be prepared up to 2 hours before serving, covered in the fridge.

3. On a large platter, lay out all your endive petals. Use a small spoon to spread about 2 teaspoons of the spicy mayo inside each petal. Then spoon a bite-sized amount of tuna tartare on top. Garnish with scallions and sesame seeds. Serve immediately.

   

   Tuna Tartare Endive Cups

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calabrian cacio e pepe arancini

makes around 20 - 30 hors d’oeuvres

ingredients

for the risotto

• 6 cups high-quality chicken stock, or 6 cups water + 1 tbsp Better Than Bouillon

• 2 tbsp olive oil

• 2 large shallots, minced

• 1 1/2 cups arborio rice

• 1/2 cup white wine

• Kosher salt and black pepper

• 6 oz grated parmesan cheese

• 2 tbsp unsalted butter

for the assembly & presentation

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 4 large eggs, beaten

• 4 cups Panko breadcrumbs

• Neutral oil, for frying

• Flaky sea salt, for garnish

• Chopped Calabrian chili, for garnish

• Homemade or store-bought pesto, for garnish (optional)

instructions

1. For the Risotto: Add the stock to a medium saucepan. Bring to a boil over high heat. Once at a boil reduce heat to low.

2. Heat a large sauté pan over medium heat and add the olive oil. Once the oil is shimmering, add the shallots. Season lightly with kosher salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the shallots are translucent, 2 to 3 minutes.

3. Add the rice and cook until it’s slightly translucent in color and starts to sound like glass as it hits the side of the pan, about 2 minutes. Add the wine and allow it to reduce until almost completely evaporated, another minute.

4. Using a ladle, add about ½ cup of hot stock to your risotto and stir until almost evaporated, 1 to 2 minutes (if it evaporates too quickly, reduce heat to medium-low). Continue stirring, adding stock every minute or so, until the rice is al dente and appears creamier. This can take as fast as 15 minutes but could take up to 25, so taste as you go to avoid overcooked, mushy rice.

5. Stir in the cheese, butter, and plenty of black pepper. Taste for seasoning. If the risotto feels a bit lackluster, stir in additional parmesan cheese or Better Than Bouillon. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Dump the risotto onto the sheet and spread out. Cover with plastic wrap and let chill until completely cold and set, at least 2 hours or up to 2 days.

6. For the assembly & presentation: Add the flour to a shallow dish, the eggs to another, and the panko to a third. Use a 1/4-cup ice cream scoop and scoop out about a 3 tbsp-sized amount of risotto into your palm. Form lightly into a ball. Then coat in flour shaking off excess, then eggs allowing excess to drip off, and then pack on the panko. After the panko is on, you can more easily form it back into a ball shape. Place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Repeat with remaining risotto.

7. Add enough neutral oil to a large Dutch oven or pot to come up 2 inches up the side of the pot. Preheat over medium-high heat until the oil reaches 360F on a cooking thermometer. Drop in arancini evenly spaced in the pot (about half of the balls). Fry for 3-4 minutes until golden brown. Remove to a paper towel-lined wire rack and season with sea salt. Repeat with remaining unfried arancini. The arancini can be refrigerated or even frozen at this point and reheated from frozen in a 350F convection oven until hot again.

8. Plate the arancini by spreading pesto onto a large platter and garnishing with a teaspoon or so of chopped calabrian chili.

Calabrian Cacio E Pepe Arancini

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caprese skewers

makes 20 - 30 hors d’oeuvres

ingredients

• 24 oz high-quality cherry tomatoes

• 16 oz “cherry-sized” mozzarella balls, drained

• 3 oz basil leaves

• 1/4 cup toasted pine nuts or almonds

• 1 garlic clove

• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for garnishing

• 2/3 cup + 3 tbsp olive oil, divided

• Kosher salt

instructions

1. Skewer a tomato, mozzarella ball, and another tomato onto a large toothpick. Repeat until all tomatoes and mozzarella are exhausted. Arrange on a platter, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until ready to serve, up to 1 day in advance.

2. Bring a medium pot of water to a boil. Set a bowl of ice water off to the side. Blanch the basil in the hot water for just 10 seconds, then immediately plunge into the ice water. Squeeze excess water out and then add basil to the bowl of a food processor.

3. Add the pine nuts, garlic, and Parmesan to the food processor. Pulse until everything is evenly combined. Then process and stream in the 2/3 cup olive oil. Season with salt to taste. The pesto can be covered with plastic wrap and refrigerated for up to 5 days.

4. Stir the remaining olive oil very briefly into the pesto, just enough to “break” the pesto and loosen it somewhat. Brush the pesto all over the skewers. Season the skewers with additional flaky sea salt and parmesan cheese and serve.

Caprese Skewers

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My friend Emma hosted her birthday party last weekend at her parents’ home in Westchester. You all might be more familiar with it as the “raspberry cake private chef brunch house” from last month. See, Emma was so inspired by her mom’s birthday brunch, that she said: “I also want to host my birthday here!” And funny enough, I also had such a great time cheffing the brunch for her mom that I convinced my mom to do the same thing with her friends. Stay tuned for that content. The raspberry cake brunch was very inspirational, apparently.

So when Emma invited me back up to her house for her pool party / birthday party / bbq / sleepover, my first thought naturally was: “What are we eating?” The dinner was loosely planned already — burgers, kebabs, hotdogs, you get the gist. With dinner handled, I offered to take on breakfast for everyone. Emma asked, “Why?” And I said, “I’m just a giver, what can I say.”

I love opportunities to make brunches (IRONIC! please ignore the name of my substack) since I’m a man of habit when it comes to my own breakfast. I typically just have a Greek yogurt bowl with whatever fruit I have lying around in my fridge or freezer, some nuts or granola, toasted sourdough, olive oil, and coffee. Making a brunch menu exposes me to a side of culinary creativity that I don’t get to exercise all that often. And honestly, for this job, all I really knew was that I had to re-use raspberries somehow.

the menu

raspberry almond babka bread pudding

turkish eggs

homemade english muffins

smashed cucumber tomato salad with sumac vinaigrette

red fruit salad

turkey sausages

Babka bread pudding, that sounds heavenly, Ryan. I know, I know. I do have to provide some context though. Back when I hosted my Martha Stewart Easter and made her twin babka loaves as part of the ungodly (more irony) 10-recipe menu, I had so much babka leftover. Honestly, because it was really, really dry. I enjoyed it, especially with tea or coffee, but my friends didn’t even want to take it as leftovers. So I had an entire extra loaf of babka all to myself.

So what did I do? I turned it into the most spectacular bread pudding, froze it in 3 separate deli quart containers, and then ate the entire bread pudding (from frozen) over the course of like 5 days.

The bread pudding is so immaculate because the drier babka simply absorbs all of the rich custard insanely well. I adorn the pudding with raspberries, almonds, and raw sugar for crunch. To note though: this is Polish babka, not Jewish babka. So if you want to use a store-bought, non-Martha loaf, you should substitute with cinnamon raisin bread, Panettone, or brioche, not Jewish babka (although that sounds amazing turned into a bread pudding, too.)

I also knew I needed an egg element of some sort. I didn’t really want to cook fried eggs or sunny-side up eggs or omelettes to order (Midnight Omelette Party for 30 will have to wait). I settled on Turkish eggs since poached eggs are incredibly easy to make in advance. After poaching the eggs, the dish comes together quickly. Just a bed of Greek yogurt, the eggs, then a duo of flavorful, punchy, resplendent oils. One crimson with pepper, the other mossy from dried mint.

My friends thought I was Jackson Pollock or something, in complete awe as I assembled this platter of the most gorgeous eggs. The yogurt and poached eggs are really canvas-like I will say. If you’re ever in need of impressing someone who likes color, this is a good dish for that (Emma used to work as a color expert, I might add).

It’s necessary to serve Turkish eggs with bread of some sort. I made Claire Saffitz’s English Muffins since my dad was nagging me to make crumpets for some reason. They were fine. I think high-quality toasted sourdough or sesame bagels would be better. Or better yet, make sourdough english muffins.

And I also made a duet of fresh salads. The red fruit salad made an appearance for a third time this spring. The other salad was also fresh and chilled, based on the classic Israeli salad. Instead of teeny, weeny cut vegetables that frankly nobody needs to be micro-dicing, I keep my tomatoes and cucumbers large. It’s absolutely necessary to salt them in advance. If you’re going to cut corners there or skip that step, you may as well just not make the recipe, sorry. By drawing out the extra moisture and discarding it, you’re making the vegetables that much better at holding the dressing. I top the salad with capers and sesame seeds, which you can fry if you’d like, or just use them raw for simplicity.

The pool party was such a blast. I helped grill the burgers and kebabs for 12 with Emma’s boyfriend Daniel. We ate our dinner at 9:45pm, I think, and in the dark. We projected the final game of the NBA finals outside onto some sort of screen, and I didn’t really care that the Knicks won, sorry again. I showered and went to bed around 1am to wake up early, get myself a coffee from the Stop and Shop, and make brunch for everyone. Nothing like cooking on fumes.

Happy birthday Emma,

Ryan

recipes

[Note: Only paid subscribers will have access to all 3 recipes below. Printable PDFs are also now available thanks to a subscriber’s recommendation!]

turkish eggs

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NYC lunch event with me on 6/21!

Surprise! I’m hosting a lunch and cooking demo on Sunday 6/21 from 12-3pm :) Thought I would give you all the first chance to snag tickets HERE!! Should be a great time. The venue is at Maxwell Social in Tribeca, which is an absolutely gorgeous space. I’ll be cooking the whole lunch spread (with my friend Jordan), so it’s a great opportunity to try my food, meet me, and hang <3

I think before progressing into this week’s substack, we have to clear the air about something: I consider corn a vegetable. Always have, always will. No matter what the FDA says (like I’m going to trust what they say at this point…), whether the food pyramid is right-side-up or upside-down, or if said pyramid becomes a sphere or even a tesseract, corn will still be a vegetable.

I came to realize just how absurd food categories were when a couple weeks ago I was at a food demo, and the chef mentioned that peas were a starch. She was making pea, mint, and ricotta fritters and said something along the lines of: “And don’t pretend that peas are a healthy vegetable because we all know that they’re just a carb”. My eyebrows immediately furrowed. My thoughts halted for a few moments as my brain tried to process this sentence.

Like, no, actually, I didn’t know peas were a carb; they are quite literally green and vegetal. Upon Googling it, the most-trusted automatic AI overview categorized peas together with potatoes and corn as starches. Starches!!!!!!! Upon further research, other sources also lumped parsnips, sweet potatoes, butternut squashes, and even lentils into this “starchy vegetable” characterization.

So for the sake of my own sanity, given that half of vegetables are already fruit and another quarter are apparently starches, I’m just going to say that I believe all vegetables are simply vegetables, including corn, but not including potatoes. Potatoes are most evidently a carb, given they are the color of white bread. Join my boat or not!

And my boat is sailing toward corn dinner. All I knew going in was: I’m going to make cornbread and bake it inside of cornhusks like one big tamale. I’ve seen the excellent pastry chef Natasha Pickowicz bake her cakes inside of fig leaves. Surely, corn husks could also work? They provide literally 0 function, but there’s something joyous about unveiling corn bread from corn husks instead of parchment paper. And unlike parchment paper, the cornhusks come free, included when you purchase the corn.

The cornbread itself though — I prefer mine to tilt heavier on the cornmeal side, just bound together enough with flour to stay together. It creates such a tender and deeply savory bread. To lean into the savoriness even further, you brown the butter and toast the cornmeal in that fat. The key though, as we all know, is to serve cornbread with honey butter. In my ideal world, that honey butter is spiced with kashmiri chili powder for a vibrant red color and a perfectly complementary heat for the cornbread.

That same method for toasting cornmeal in brown butter I use for the dessert, too. There was some recent, dubious internet trend where you take store-bought chocolate chip cookie dough and bake it over frozen fruit to create a “2-ingredient, healthy” dessert concoction. That sounds awful tbh. But let’s run with the concept and make a brown butter corn cookie dough to bake over blueberries. And I really am sorry. I’m usually good with coming up with names but for the life of me I cannot think of a good name for this new dessert. The word cookie does not mesh with either crumble or cobbler. Crookie? Cobblkie? Crumbkie? Horrid. I’m just going with Cookie Crumble (not to be confused with Crumbl Cookie), unless someone comes up with a better name.

The cookie dough gets crisp on top, but the bottom sort of melds into the juicy berries. The result is somewhere between a fruit crumble and a jammy skillet cookie. Either way, it’s delicious. Please serve with good-quality cream.

And for the savory recipes, for whatever reason, I was drawn to the concept of a wedge salad. (Another reason corn is a vegetable — try to argue with me that the vegetable known as iceberg lettuce is more nutritious than corn.) A simple blended dressing of buttermilk, mayo, corn kernels, and lime zest is surprisingly refreshing. On chilled iceberg wedges, it’s a perfect salad to eat outdoors on a hot night. You can strain the dressing if you’d like. But once you load the salad up with the toppings, you can’t notice the flecks of corn. These toppings are crucial, by the way. You need something very salty and very savory. I’m calling for toasted, crushed corn nuts to be in theme, but you could also add crumbled bacon or bleu cheese. Or all three!

Finally, what would a summer dinner be without a steak salad? Except since we already have a literal salad, this salad is all “vegetables”. That is, corn, poblano peppers, and green onions. If you’re not a poblano fan, you can use leeks or spring onions. The inspo for this salad is elote, paying homage to corn’s American (continent, not country) roots. There’s a little mayo to bring the salad together but most of the dressing is fresh chimichurri and extra lime juice. Some of the chimichurri you reserve for garnishing the steak. The result is a perfect summer entree, bounding with color and texture. And also full of vegetables!

Ryan

recipes

[note: paid subscribers will have access to all 4 recipes below. Per the request of a subscriber, I’ve started including printable PDF documents of all the recipes for easier reading and usage.]

loaded corn chimichurri steak salad

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I’ve lived in New York for just over 3 years. The entire time I’ve been in the same one-bedroom. I was living at home for a couple years after college, saved up a decent amount, and moved to the city. My apartment, and specifically my kitchen, have been amazing…almost too amazing. The number of people who have told me I can never leave my kitchen has been uncomfortably ever-growing. The larger my platform grew, the more iconic and attached I was to my kitchen, my counter, and the sunlight.

More than that though, my content has always sort of been built around the limitations of my apartment. I don’t have a dining table. I have a pedestal table with 2 chairs and a coffee table “eating area” that fits 4-5 people squatting around it or 11 people just sort of in the general vicinity of the table (12 is simply too many). So for every apartment cafe, or Chinese banquet, or Easter buffet, it’s been around that coffee table. My kitchen doesn’t have a garbage disposal. Truthfully the kitchen doesn’t even have that much counter space. People who come to my apartment for the first time to witness my kitchen frequently say: “Oh, it looks so much bigger on social media…” The sink is unnervingly small and shallow, and the hot water takes forever to turn on. But I feel like all of these constraints make my content feel so much more real and personal, that I’m doing all of this cooking not in some grand apartment or chef kitchen but in a regular one-bedroom apartment with regular appliances and subpar dining situations.

So I guess what I’m saying is that I felt torn between the fact that my kitchen is iconic to my followers and brand, but that eventually I would outgrow the space. There was a single, narrow solution to this conundrum, however: there’s one other unit in my building that has the exact same layout as mine but with a large patio that could fit an outdoor dining table.

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The day, or quite possibly the hour actually, that that other unit became available earlier this year, I immediately applied. I got accepted, hired a moving company, moved everything into the exact same spot it was in the old place, and hung all the items on the walls in the exact same orientation. And voila! Same apartment, more space. I’ve actually been in the new apartment for almost a month and half … have any of you noticed? (You can actually see how my view is slightly different out my windows. There’s a large concrete grey building that’s a little more…obvious than before. And the outdoor patio is very clearly right outside since I’m now drawing your attention to it.)

And now I’m in my outdoor era!! And my dining table era!! WOOH. And I knew I had to have a housewarming to celebrate, especially with summer just starting. I thought through potential hosting concepts and landed on a dessert party. Like an apartment cafe or a cake picnic, but if it wasn’t a potluck and I did almost all the work. Sounds like fun!

This idea actually sort of came from Martha Stewart’s Entertaining. She has a menu concept called Dessert Soiree Dansante for 40, where you choose between 8 to 10 desserts among a curated selection of 14 recipes, invite 40 people over, and I guess wear black tie and dance and eat the food … idk. I was about to cook the retro desserts and then realized: “Why would I eat floating islands or glaceed oranges when I could eat chocolate chip cookies and dot cakes?” So I pivoted to me coming up with all the dessert recipes.

It took me a while to hone in on the menu. Choosing 10 random desserts among infinite options is a surprisingly difficult task. The one useful constraint was choosing desserts that wouldn’t immediately melt in the sun / outdoor heat. So with that we have:

the menu

1. 4 mega-mini funfetti dot cakes

2. brown butter double chocolate chunk cookies

3. a huge pistachio cherry tiramisu charlotte

4. coconut rice pudding pavlova tutu with mangoes

5. strawberry tower with whipped cream

6. two-foot-long black and blue olive oil chantilly long cake

7. lemon meringue pie coupes

8. s’mores bars

9. sushi dot cake (not dessert, but a savory item is always warranted)

10. brambleberry fritters (these were actually axed last minute, but I’m keeping them in the menu so I can say there were a round 10 desserts, sorry)

These aren’t random desserts though. They are actually all references to desserts and moments of the last 3 years that I was especially proud of. The stolen funfetti cake alluded to via the dot cakes. The engagement lemon meringue tart for Jonah & Jane alluded to by the meringue coupes. The raspberry brunch cake alluded to via the black and blue long cake. The massive pavlova I made for Passover two years ago reincarnated. The massive tiramisu I made for my uncle’s birthday party for 50 people in Virginia also reincarnated. You get the idea.

It took me 3 whole days to bake, decorate, and film these 10 desserts. Luckily, this is my job now, and I can spend all day just baking random things and playing Tetris with my refrigerator to make it all fit (maybe the worst part of the whole experience). I had my cousin Lily come into town to help me with all the last-minute execution (she actually constructed the strawberry tower under my supervision. Thank you, Lily.)

Do I recommend any one single person take on all of this by themselves? No, not really. I think a potluck is way more fun and way easier on the host, unless the host is a try-hard culinary creator who wants to challenge himself with making an entirely from-scratch dessert buffet.

I was so beyond blessed to have the most excellent weather for the party. The previous weekend rained the entire time. This weekend though, mostly sunny and highs in the 70s. All the desserts not only went according to plan, but were somehow all excellent in their own right. My 3 personal favorites were the pavlova, the s’mores bars, and the chantilly cake, which I provide the recipes for below. The idea to fill a pavlova with coconut rice pudding and topped with just-in-season mangoes was a stroke of genius. I am already craving the next time I make this dessert. And the s’mores bars were the exact kind of cookie-like treat I want to eat in the summertime: childish, soft with marshmallow, and crumbling into a mess.

It was such a perfect evening; I didn’t want it to end. But when it did, I spent nearly 45 minutes filling up every pitcher in my apartment with water and inundating all the crumbs, globs of frosting, and squished berries off of my new dining table and patio.

To a new outdoor beginning,

Ryan

recipes

[Note: Only paid subscribers will have access to all 3 recipes below. Printable PDFs are also now available thanks to a subscriber’s recommendation!]

mango coconut rice pudding pavlova

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Strawberries are my first little sign of summer. When the overwhelming wave of never-ending green produce at the market finally peters and the pints of insanely overpriced strawberries appear, I know summer has arrived. No, but seriously, who is paying $15!!!! (or $15.60 if you pay with credit card…, which the surcharge is absurd too btw) for a pint of strawberries. That’s like $2.50 PER strawberry.

And here’s the thing — I don’t even like strawberries that much. The whole berry category of fruit is, get ready, not my jam. My very controversial top 5 fruits are:

1. Apples

2. Peaches / Nectarines

3. Plums

4. Cherries

5. Kumquats

Call me a stone fruit guy, what can I say. I actually don’t think a berry even cracks my top 10:

6. Mango

7. Watermelon

8. Figs

9. Concord Grapes

10. Sumo Citrus

Now I feel like you know too much about me. This is the most vulnerable I’ve ever felt writing a Substack; I take my fruit very seriously.

Regardless, a strawberry feast felt not only opportune, but necessary. After all, give the people what they want. And the people love strawberries. Strawberries are the first fruit I’ve done for my produce series since Sumo Citrus back in February. But where Sumo Citrus are flexible, tart, and trendy, strawberries almost feel passé and overdone. My friend Jane suggested I make strawberry shortcakes and a balsamic, strawberry, goat cheese salad. Mmm mmm. Like, sure, sounds delish. But not very inventive. Honestly, the biggest issue with strawberries was figuring out how to cut their sweetness. If I used too many of them, I think the food would become too…retro. I had to really scratch my head to come up with…

the menu

• grilled steak lettuce wraps with strawberry ssam sauce

• burst cherry tomato rigatoni with burrata and basil oil

• red fruit salad with corn nut crunch

• strawberry shortcake ice cream bombe (still in development)

I bought my 20 pounds of strawberries and got to cooking. (No, I didn’t buy a single pint of $15.60 strawberries from the farmers’ market.)

You’re all familiar with the red fruit salad at this point. But since I was serving it for dinner, I decided to garnish it with a crunchy topping made of chopped almonds, pistachios, and lots of corn nuts. For whatever reason, strawberry and toasted corn go very well together. And the topping brought a lovely savory element to a fruit salad.

Steak wraps (ssam) are one of my summer go-tos. Ssam is the Korean word for “wrap” and refers to any preparation where you serve something wrapped in lettuce leaves (with a dizzying number of other fillings, rices, pickles, whatever you’d like). I’ve done ssam with rib-eyes, strip steaks, pork shoulder, etc. But I have a fondness for rib-eyes. They are just tender enough where they are manageable to eat, yet still have a bite and chew that’s really satisfying in a lettuce wrap. I had the idea to cook down strawberries without any sugar until they become super jammy, and then incorporate this compote into a ssam sauce. It works surprisingly well because traditional ssamjang (wrap sauce) can be a little sodium-heavy. But by including a base of not-sweet strawberry compote, you’re taming all the salt in the gochujang and miso paste.

The strawberry shortcake ice cream bombe was a cross between a baked Alaska and the classic Good Humor strawberry shortcake ice cream bar (meringue swapped for crushed oreos + dehydrated strawberries). I think if I were to do this again, instead of making a strawberry compote core, I would just do a strawberry ice cream core and create a pound cake base so the whole bombe has more stability when you slice it. I’ll publish this later once I develop the recipe further <3

Finally, the burst cherry tomato rigatoni. This recipe is inspired by an old Bon Appetit recipe by the way of a mainstay D.C. restaurant called Rose’s Luxury, which I had eaten at twice a decade ago at this point. For whatever reason, this restaurant had developed a tomato-strawberry pasta sauce. I had made the recipe and found it … bad. It was way too weighted toward the strawberries. I was pretty confident that by reducing the ratio of strawberries to cherry tomatoes to 1:3 (instead of more than 1:2 in the original recipe), you would almost mask the strawberry sweetness and just sort of round out the sauce, similar to how you would add a teaspoon or two of sugar to marinara. It did in fact work. And almost didn’t even taste like strawberries, which was my goal LOL. Think of it as a more nuanced, less acidic burst cherry tomato sauce. The addition of burrata and basil oil make it celebratory and super summery. It also just so happens to be the colors of a strawberry…or an Italian flag.

Cooking this meal for 8 people was actually very doable, since all 3 recipes were easy to prep in advance. We ate on the rooftop for the first time this season because I demanded it (even though it was a tepid 60F out). One of my friends asked me for one of my winter jackets… and then I knew it was time to move inside for dessert.

Ryan

recipes

[note: paid subscribers will have access to all 3 recipes below. Per the request of a subscriber, I’ve started including printable PDF documents of all the recipes for easier reading and usage.]

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I get asked a lot on social media over DM if I cook private events or birthday parties or anniversaries or what have you. Honestly, I don’t typically. I would absolutely love to say yes to every inquiry. But if I did, I don’t even think I could last a month without burning out. The juice typically doesn’t feel worth the squeeze since it is so much work — rewarding, without a doubt, but undeniably exhausting, especially solo.

But this past month, one of my longtime fans asked if I would cook her birthday brunch for 15 of her friends in Westchester. Her daughter Emma and I met years ago in college, and Emma actually became a fashion influencer (her substack: ), so our paths have been slightly interwoven ever since. Emma’s mom has been following my account for 6 years, right when I first created my Instagram during the pandemic, when I was still a junior in college. The opportunity to cook a beautiful brunch and showcase all that I’ve learned and honed and developed over those 6 years felt like too full circle of a moment to pass up. I said absolutely yes and got started crafting…

the menu

• mini acai bowls with homemade granola

• everything bagel smoked salmon quiches

• red fruit salad

• blanched green pea salad with tarragon vinaigrette

• whipped ricotta toasts with asparagus pesto

• slow-roasted salmon filets with brown butter and lemon

• dubai chocolate shortbread bars

• raspberry chocolate birthday cake

The nice thing about this menu is that almost all of it could be prepared ahead of time. A double-edged sword because it meant that my prep for this meal was quite … laborious. But I’m always up for a challenge, especially one that will stress my abilities and see what I’m really made of. I bought a large Hulken bag, ordered some catering parfait cups for the acai bowls, some menu tags, and got to cooking.

My menu throughline was basically: “What would my mom want to eat for her ideal brunch menu?” Keep the food light but exciting, fresh and addictive, slightly sweet and of course celebratory. Since this is a true private cheffing gig, all of the dishes are tried and true, cooked many many times before. The quiches were a feature of my “pie picnic” apartment cafe last fall. Whenever my piecrust turns out exceptionally well, as it did for this brunch, it really makes my heart sing, possibly more than any other single cooking feat. The salmon is a mainstay and based on Alison Roman’s famous recipe.

The highlights, for me at least, were the salads. Both served cold (especially nice on a weirdly hot spring day that reached 92F). The red fruit salad I dressed in what I can only describe as a nectar, basically just citrus juice, honey, sea salt, and vanilla. It makes fruit really POP! and ZING! I love that the whole bowl was resplendently red. The blanched green salad brought even more vibrant color to the buffet. It’s slightly annoying to make given you have to blanch each vegetable to its respective exact doneness. But I always find it a labor worth taking.

The main prep day was a series of cooking, filming, cleaning, cooking, filming, cleaning, cooking, filming, cleaning, cooking, filming, cleaning. So by the time I finished up the day it was already 8pm. I then fully embodied my mother and started cleaning every square inch of my apartment, until it looked just as clean as when I had started. I headed out for a birthday party on the Lower East Side and returned to my place at 11:30pm. Then woke up at 5:15am, went for a dawn-lit walk, showered, packed everything up, and was out of my place by 8am.

Because I prepped so much, I had plenty of time at the client’s house to unpack, talk to the family, get a tour of their home, and spend time with them. It made the day much lovelier on my part and theirs. For actual cooking, all I had to do was roast the salmon. And then the rest was plating and presenting. It all went off without a hitch THANKFULLY.

It was a special Sunday birthday morning, and I would happily do it again and again.

Ryan

recipes

deep dish pie crust

makes 1 deep dish crust (easily doubles)

ingredients

• 10 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into cubes, chilled (142g)

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (202g)

• 2 tbsp granulated sugar (25g)

• 3/4 tsp kosher salt

instructions

1. Get your work area ready because it’s better to work quickly. You’ll need: a fork, a bench scraper (or a knife), a tablespoon, and one large piece of plastic wrap laid out next to your work station.

2. In a large bowl, mix the flour, sugar, and salt. Then add in the butter. Toss to coat in flour. Then using your finger tips, smash and press the butter into the flour until all the pieces are broken up and no larger than a hazelnut.

3. Measure out 5 tablespoons of ice water (make sure there’s no actual ice going into the dough), and drizzle over the dough tablespoon by tablespoon, stirring with the fork constantly to distribute.

4. Press some of the dough together with your hands. If it clumps together, it’s hydrated. If it easily crumbles apart, add water teaspoon by teaspoon until it can hold somewhat together. Dump dough onto your counter and press into a flat-ish square shape.

5. Divide dough into 4 pieces using your bench scraper (or knife). Stack quadrants up onto each other and then press the dough down until flat. Pat back into a flat square and repeat one more time. If you’ve made biscuits before, think of it like that same process.

6. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and flatten a bit so it’s about 3/4” thick. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour before using. Dough can stay in the fridge for up to 3 days or frozen for a couple months.

Deep Dish Pie Crust Printable Pdf

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everything bagel quiche with smoked salmon

serves 8 to 10

ingredients

for the quiche:

• 3 tbsp everything bagel seasoning

• 5 large eggs

• 2 cups heavy cream (480g)

• 1/2 cup buttermilk (110g)

• Kosher salt and black pepper

• 1/4 cup chopped chives

for the assembly:

• 8 oz. cream cheese (226g)

• 2 tbsp heavy cream (30g)

• 1/4 cup chopped chives or scallions

• 8 oz. smoked salmon

• thinly sliced red onion, dill fronds, capers, etc.

instructions

1. For the quiche: Preheat oven to 400F. Roll out your pie dough on a well-floured counter until it measures about 14” in diameter. About halfway through rolling out, start scattering over the everything bagel seasoning, allowing your rolling pin to press the seeds into the dough and incorporate. Once rolled out, brush off any excess flour on top. Transfer to a 9” deep dish pie plate. Press the crust in. Trim the border so there’s only about a 1/2” overhang. Tuck the excess under itself and then crimp. Freeze for 10 minutes to firm up. Then dock with a fork, line with parchment paper, and fill with pie weights (liked dried beans or rice).

2. Bake the crust until the crimps start turning golden, 25 to 30 minutes. Lift out the pie weights. Reduce oven temperature to 350F and continue to bake the pie until deeply golden, another 10 to 20 minutes. Remove the pie from the oven and reduce oven temperature to 325F.

3. Whisk the cream, buttermilk, eggs, 3/4 tsp kosher salt, plenty of black pepper, and chives together in a bowl. Then pour into the pie crust. Continue to bake until the custard is puffed and golden along the edges but still wobbles a bit in the center, 50 to 60 minutes. Let cool to room temperature and then refrigerate for up to 2 days ahead of time.

4. For the assembly: In a food processor, process the cream cheese, heavy cream, and chives. Smear the cream cheese delicately on top of the custard using a small spatula. (Note: the scallion cream cheese as a component is optional, but I like it a lot). Then blanket with the smoked salmon. Garnish with red onion, dill, capers, and a drizzle of olive oil.

Everything Bagel Quiche With Smoked Salmon

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red fruit salad with lemon-honey-vanilla dressing

serves 4 to 6 (easily scales)

ingredients

• 2.5 - 3 lbs. assorted red fruit (sliced strawberries, halved cherries, sliced red kiwi, cubed watermelon, raspberries), chilled

• 1/2 cup lemon and/or lime juice

• 1/4 cup honey

• 1 tsp freshly chopped thyme

• 1 tsp vanilla extract

• A couple pinches of sea salt

instructions

1. Add fruit to a large bowl.

2. Mix the remaining ingredients together in a medium bowl. This dressing can last stored in the fridge for up to a week. Dress the fruit to taste and toss to combine. The fruit is best served within an hour as the dressing will cause the fruit to become pretty juicy.

Red Fruit Salad Printable Pdf

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chilled green veg salad with tarragon vinaigrette

serves 4 (easily scales)

ingredients

• Kosher salt

• 16 oz green beans, trimmed

• 8 oz snap peas

• 10 oz fresh English peas

• 3 tbsp tarragon leaves

• 1 tbsp Dijon mustard

• 3 tbsp lemon juice

• 1 tsp honey

• 1/3 cup olive oil

• Freshly ground black pepper

instructions

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Season very well with kosher salt. Fill a large bowl with ice water and set next to the pot.

2. Drop in the green beans and give a stir. Cook the green beans until they turn bright green and are just tender when you sample one (do not overcook), 2 to 3.5 minutes (start sampling at the 2-minute mark). Immediately use a slotted spoon and transfer to the ice water. Once the beans are cooled, transfer to a salad spinner. Spin out all excess water and transfer to a large kitchen towel.

3. Repeat this process with the snap peas, only boiling them for 45 seconds. And then the English peas, only boiling them for 30 seconds (it’s easiest to blanch the peas inside of a collander or sieve, which you can lift right out once the peas are tender).

4. Cut the green beans and snap peas into smaller pieces of your liking. Transfer all the vegetables to a big bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and stick in the fridge. The vegetables can be made up to 2 days in advance.

5. In a tall container, add the tarragon, mustard, lemon juice, honey, a couple pinches of kosher salt, and lots of pepper. Blend with an immersion blender to combine. Then add the olive oil and blend to emulsify. Taste for seasoning.

6. Dress the vegetables to taste, tossing well, and serve.

Chilled Green Veg Salad With Tarragon Vinaigrette

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There’s no other vegetable quite like asparagus. I’m not sure why, but more than any other vegetable, asparagus has a unique way of planting itself in my memory. I can envision the exact moments in my life when this stalk has influenced my culinary journey.

The essentially overcooked, roasted asparagus spears my grandparents would serve us at their spring dinners. 3 asparagus a person, no more (but less was actually encouraged if you were so inclined). The butter knives slipping against the asparagus fibers as they tear and shred on my grandma’s beautiful china.

A planter pot of asparagus brought tableside to my mom at my dad’s 55th birthday dinner in Paris. The stalk meticulously cut in front of us with shears, then placed onto her plate with silver tongs, joining a bed of butter-basted morels.

The asparagus risotto I ordered as a primi in Venice, my chair abreast the swirling currents of the canal. The eager waiter showering the dish with Parmesan, then using a large spoon to serve each person at the table. The best risotto I’ve ever had.

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Sophomore year of college on an immersion trip abroad, my Holocaust professor ordering white asparagus with hollandaise for her entree during one of our group dinners in Berlin. My first time ever seeing someone appreciate the delicacy and splendor of thick, robust asparagus in the middle of spring as a main.

For the fourth installment of my produce series (reminder we’ve done sumo citrus, onion, and garlic), I had plenty of memories and stories to incorporate into my meal. And I decided to lean a bit heavier into camp than usual. I also took it upon myself to source a dizzying number and varieties of asparagus (4) from a breadth of vendors (3) to determine if a. farmers’ market asparagus is worth the splurge b. purple asparagus is worth the splurge c. bougie Eataly asparagus is worth the splurge. The answers:

a. no

b. no

c. no

I will say, the only difference in asparagus that matters is its thickness. Splurging on thick asparagus is worth it, especially in dishes where you want its texture highlighted.

The catalyst for the whole menu was actually the recollection of that asparagus my mom ordered in Paris years ago. How the restaurant brought out her appetizer in a literal terracotta pot. I wanted to do that. I actually bought my own terracotta pot (for whatever reason) in Maryland and brought it all the way on the Amtrak to my apartment. I was glued to this concept. Instead of a savory course though, I knew I would put a twist on the age-tested dessert cup. Instead of gummy worms, asparagus spears (for decor). Instead of plastic disposable solo cups, plastic wrap-lined terracotta pot. Instead of Jell-O pudding, irresistible chocolate mousse served with balsamic stewed cherries, olive oil, and flaky salt.

The other campy component to the meal: a puff pastry asparagus tart in the shape of a fish. I saw someone else make a fish-shaped radish tart on Instagram and was hooked. Blanched asparagus, it turns out, make for a great gill-emulating pattern. The base of the tart is a perfectly textured goat cheese and roast garlic spread that somehow tastes exactly like Boursin cheese. In fact, when I developed the recipe, I thought I did recreate Boursin cheese somehow. The garnishes complete this dish and are absolutely necessary to season the asparagus. Olive oil, aged balsamic, lemon juice, and some anchovies if you wish. This was my favorite dish of the whole night, surprisingly.

Then a blanched asparagus dish with hazelnut pesto and burrata, and a wonderful springy risotto topped with seared, butter-basted sea scallops. If it’s possible to come even half as close as to that risotto I had in Venice a few summers ago, I’m going to try. Sadly, I don’t have a table overlooking a Venetian canal at my disposal, but I do have a stove.

When I served all these dishes to my friends in the same night, they were actually shocked at how asparagus can be present in all the dishes (well, besides the adult dirt cup) and yet taste so differently. Varying levels of freshness, acidity, and richness. If you do make all these dishes in the same meal, you can trust it’ll be a night worth remembering.

For more asparagus-filled nights,

Ryan

recipes

[note: paid subscribers will have access to all 4 recipes below. Per the request of a subscriber, I’ve started including printable PDF documents of all the recipes for easier reading and usage.]

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I’m realizing with these Martha menus that there’s basically only one way to succeed: cast every ounce of fear and doubt in your body aside, in fact, toss them down your garbage shoot, strap on an apron, and become Martha. There’s no other path to success.

At every juncture upon cooking the menu, ask yourself: “What would Martha do?” Would she fret that your eggplant is sticking to the pan? No. Would she become befuddled upon determining the precisely correct time to fry the six branzino? No. Would she neglect to construct a modern work of art out of terribly out-of-ripeness fruit procured from Trader Joe’s? No.

Once you get in that mindset, then you have a shot. But courage and dauntlessness only take you so far. You need an immense amount of skill and knowledge to pull off something like “A Chinese Banquet for Ten to Twelve”. Not just because the recipes are hard, in fact they are pretty “easy”, but because you have to recognize when to pivot. The art of Entertaining is how to treat it loosely. Not by the book, but by your own style. With ease, precision, and mastery, cook a feast to your own tastes and constraints.

The menu:

day 1

ginger-miso chicken stock (for the watercress soup and meatballs)

pineapple pink peppercorn macarons

hot and sour cabbage pickle

scallion pancakes

Chinese pearl balls

fruit platter

day 2

strange flavor fish

strange flavor eggplant

rice

lion’s head meatballs

watercress soup

assortment of teas

gold coins

Upon reading the menu and recipes, I recognized almost all would have to be adapted in some way. Besides the pearl balls, fruit platter, and lions’ heads meatballs, I changed the recipes to either a) make them feasible b) make them modern c) or recognize some flaw in the recipe that I was confident would lead to my failure.

The strange-flavor eggplant, for example, Martha suggests you roast the vegetables, then scoop out the flesh, which you toss into a sauce. Reminds me of baba ganoush. That did not sit right with me. Instead, I realized I would have to cube and salt the eggplant (Japanese, not globe), before tossing in cornstarch and stir-frying. The whole fried fish, instead of searing, I shallow-fried. Instead of porgy (unable to source), branzino. I scrapped the sauce that calls for 1 cup of water (…). And so on and so on.

As I stated in the first part to this newsletter, this is supposed to be a kitchen party. Where my guests eat the food I serve them fresh out of the kitchen. I do actually think this menu would work excellently in that format, if you have a sufficiently commodious kitchen. It would actually be pretty legit and fun to warm up the soups, then serve. Plate out the pickles, then serve. Stir-fry the few dishes that require it, then serve. But the level of talent and excellence required to pull that off is really high, and it’s nearly impossible to transpose that way of cooking onto social media. Even with my buffet-style, tackling this menu and ensuring everything is hot and beautiful is really hard.

So how did it go? I fear I aced it. SORRY. I know I made myself sound like I possibly failed in some capacity, but I really did not. I have to give myself credit for the capital “B” Banquet I made. With Easter, I’ll admit it, my pierogis were a solid C+, and the ham I sourced was salty (but maybe they all are?). My madeleines were slightly over-baked, and perhaps my babka had too much flour.

This Chinese Banquet though, I ate. Somehow all the food was perfectly seasoned and perfectly cooked. The only fault was the crappy Trader Joe’s fruit (their pineapple and melons are atrocious at the moment).

What were my favorite dishes?

1. The branzino (recipe below). I don’t want to admit this because it’ll make me sound like a fraud, but I’ve never cooked whole fish before. Even typing that is making me cringe. My mom never let me in our home kitchen. Upon moving to New York, cooking whole fish seemed too daunting. But simply dredging the brazino in flour, then shallow-frying it for just 3-4 minutes a side, and bathing it in a salty-savory sauce was divine. It didn’t even really smell. Would make again in a heartbeat.

2. The pineapple pink peppercorn macarons. These were so gourmet tasting, I surprised myself. Everyone was raving about them, asking me how many calories they were a pop so they could gorge upon more. Many of my friends said this was their favorite dish, which I pointed out the irony of this being the one dish I completely subbed out of Martha’s menu.

And if you’re wondering the least favorite dish, I would have to say mine was the cabbage pickle. My running theory is that this is actually some sort of stir-fried kimchi that Martha invented, which many of my Chinese friends also corroborated. Imagine kimchi without any of the sourness or fermentation. The most unexpectedly enjoyable dish were the stir-fried gold coin eggs: essentially hard boiled eggs that you slice, dust in cornstarch, stir-fry, and then toss in a chili-soy sauce. I added some scallion segments for color and swapped in a healthy amount of gochugaru.

And how much did I spend on the meal?

• Food: $282

  • Branzino alone were ~$110 ($20/pound)

• Equipment: $26 (bamboo steamer basket)

• Total: $308

I had 11 people over, so $28 a person. Could be worse. I did have so much food and could’ve easily served another 3-4 people. I had 3 (out of 6) leftover branzino. And I never even served the watercress soup, oops. Unlike the sorrel soup of Easter that I also didn’t serve, though, I never even bothered making this watercress soup. The lions’ heads meatballs were already in a broth, and the thought of trying to serve two separate brothy liquids in my vestibule-kitchen was bringing on too much anxiety.

I’m thoroughly enjoying this series as I hope you are. Please let me know if you have any other things you’d like me to touch upon in these newsletters, and also vote on what the next Martha & Me menu should be <3

Ryan

recipes + schedule

the game plan

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Coming off of Easter Buffet for Fourteen to Twenty, you might be wondering, how did I meet Martha Stewart so quickly? Am I an industry plant? Did I somehow orchestrate this whole ordeal with the full knowledge that I would be so iconic Martha couldn’t refuse to invite me to meet her?

Unfortunately, the answer is just weirdly good timing. As someone who is extremely type A, I had sent out my Easter invites to my 18 or so friends 3 weeks in advance. Just a couple days after my invites went out, I got an email in my inbox that read: “We’d love to invite you to join THE Martha Stewart for A Morning Made Delicious in New York City”…

My first thought: “Well that’s odd”. My second thought: “I’ve got to knock the Easter lunch so far out of the park because the pressure is ON”.

Upon arriving at the fortuitously timed event, just a few days after I had posted my quickly gone-viral Easter buffet videos, I got to meet Martha. Everyone on her team already knew who I was, including Martha. Our conversation:

Martha: “Did you see that I reposted your video?”
Me: “Yes, I did. Thank you for that.”
Martha: “Did you gain a lot of followers?”
Me: “Yes, a few thousand actually.”
Martha: chuckling “Let’s take a photo.”
we take our photo
Me: “So I actually tried going to the original Polish butcher you had recommended in your cookbook. But I saw it closed in a New York Times article years ago.”
Martha: “Oh, yes, Kurowycky’s. We would always get our family’s Easter ham from there. Their kielbasa was the best. Where do you live?”
Me: “In the East Village actually.”
Martha: “Oh, that’s great. And what do you do?”
Me: gesturing to the wider room, trying to capture the essence of what exactly this PR event was, “Well, this” (maybe I should’ve been a bit more clear). “And, I actually had a question for you, what menu should I attempt next from Entertaining [Martha’s first cookbook, where I got the Easter menu]?”
Martha: “Oh! Well the Russian one is quite fun.”
Me: “Oh, that’s quite a bit daunting…”
Martha exits stage right, chuckling in amusement

You’re welcome for the reenactment.

If you couldn’t infer by the title of this Substack, I did not heed Martha’s recommendation to do the “Russian Feast for Twenty-Four”. A lot of the Entertaining menus are somewhat feasible; that one, however, would send me into several bouts of psychosis, probably between me having to reconstruct a cabbage out of its leaves, bake a thirty-pound halibut en croute, and encase several more bottles of vodka in ice. If I had a second oven, it could become more plausible (read: one day).

I’m actually getting a bit ahead of myself. Why, how did I decide to attempt another Entertaining menu at all? After doing the Easter menu, I actually quite enjoyed the absurdity of cooking food from the early 80s. Where else can you eat sorrel soup, scalloped potatoes, and kielbasa in downtown New York? I like the challenge of testing older cookbook recipes against the tides of time. Also, you all were huge fans. I got so many replies from my followers saying that they attempted several of these same Easter recipes, just many decades prior. It felt like I was carrying a torch somehow. And if Martha is a fan, I’ve got to keep her entertained somehow.

And truthfully, I love cooking from cookbooks. Before I became popular on social media, I taught myself how to cook and bake mostly from cookbooks. I liked browsing through them and flagging recipes with post-its for future nights. I don’t get to cook from cookbooks as much anymore. So this seemed like the appropriate outlet.

Not to completely ignore Martha’s Russian direction, I decided to take on a different one of the international menus: “A Chinese Banquet for Ten to Twelve”. This menu, unlike Easter, resides in the “Kitchen Party” chapter. What is a kitchen party exactly? I’m not entirely sure to be honest. I believe it’s a dinner that involves a bit more flair and show from the chef-host than a typical dinner. I’m supposed to invite my guests into the kitchen and have them behold my skill and prowess, cooking food a la minute and served within the confines of the kitchen. Unlike a sit-down dinner party or a buffet, kitchen parties are supposed to be relaxed (LOL, see the menu). And I quote:

When guests arrive, serve drinks. When most of them have gathered, complete and serve the hors d’oeuvres. Then, after a course of soup and scallion bread, heat the lions’ heads and serve them, laying the rice and pickled dishes on the table, too. When everyone has sampled these, cook the other two dishes [fry the whole fish and stir-fry the eggplant…]. There will be no awkward waits, for there is plenty of food on the table and there is entertainment in the spectacle at the stove.

- Martha Stewart, Entertaining, 1982

So here’s the thing…my kitchen is only big enough for like 3 people, not “Ten to Twelve”. As much as I’d love to cook the Chinese Banquet in stages, passing around different dishes to my crowd of hungry guests, as I stir-fry or steam these fourteen recipes essentially to order, I’m not going to do that. Buffet it is.

The menu:

day 1

ginger-miso chicken stock (for the watercress soup and meatballs)

pineapple pink peppercorn macarons

hot and sour cabbage pickle

scallion pancakes

Chinese pearl balls

fruit platter

day 2

strange flavor fish

strange flavor eggplant

rice

lion’s head meatballs

watercress soup

assortment of teas

gold coins

You might be thinking, “Geez, that’s a lot of food. Is it possible it’s even more food than Easter?” YES! It is actually more food than the Easter. This dinner is supposed to be for fewer people and yet actually has more recipes. Isn’t that swell?

For day 1 (my prep day, essentially), I made one major substitution in the recipes. Martha provides a recipe for traditional Chinese almond cookies. But, I’ve always found them a bit bland for my dessert tastes. I thought substituting macarons, which are an almond cookie of a sort, would be a much more exciting dessert bite. To play into the menu, I opted for pink peppercorn pineapple compote and not-too-sweet pink peppercorn buttercream fillings. These were incredible. Eating them, I honestly thought I could open up a macaron shop and easily sell out every day.

I also used my own recipe for scallion pancakes, as Martha’s recipe is actually for “Scallion Bread” (seemingly a much, much thicker form that me and my many Chinese friends had never witnessed before). Classic scallion pancakes seemed like a safer bet.

And Martha doesn’t give a recipe for the chicken stock (used in two other dishes) but says you should use a “high-quality” one. So, this is my go-to chicken stock recipe, fortified with plenty of ginger and miso paste to give it a resounding warm and aromatic taste that I could drink the entire pot’s worth. I couldn’t wait to use it to make the watercress soup and the lion’s head meatballs.

Similar to Easter, none of the Chinese Banquet recipes were that complicated. Just the quantity of recipes is a bit overwhelming. But by splitting the work up over 2 days, it didn’t feel so bad. I was still feeling nervous about day 2 and how I was supposed to fry 6 fishes as I completed the rest of the buffet. But that’s a problem for a different day.

Ryan

recipes + schedule

the game plan

Martha Stewart Chinese Banquet Game Plan

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ginger miso chicken stock

makes 2 quarts (feel free to double)

ingredients

• 5 lb. whole chicken, organs discarded

• 1 yellow onion, skin left on, split in half

• 1 carrot, cut into chunks

• 3 celery stalks, cut into chunks

• 1 head of garlic, split in half crosswise

• 1 large piece of ginger, split in half lengthwise

• 3 tbsp red or white miso

• ~12 black peppercorns

• Any parsley, cilantro, or scallions lying around your fridge

instructions

1. In a large Dutch oven or pot, add all the ingredients. Add enough water to submerge the chicken and all the vegetables.

2. Turn the heat to medium-high. As the pot comes to a simmer, use a spoon and start to skim the scum that floats to the top. Once the water is at a simmer, lower the heat to maintain the faintest of simmers and continue skimming (after the first 30 minutes or so all the scum should be dealt with). Continue simmering for 2 to 3 hours to extract all the flavor from the chicken.

3. Strain the liquid through a fine-mesh sieve. Transfer to 2 quart containers. Stock will last in the fridge for 5 days or in the freezer for many, many months.

   

   Ginger Miso Chicken Stock

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pineapple pink peppercorn macarons

makes ~36 large macarons

ingredients (I’m only giving metric measurements because macarons are too fussy to use volume measurements)

for the shells:

• 320g almond flour

• 320g powdered sugar

• Yellow food dye

• 125g + 135g egg whites, divided

• 350g granulated sugar

• Pinch of kosher salt

for the pineapple compote:

• 1 pineapple, skinned, cored, and cut into small cubes

• 1/4 cup granulated sugar (50g)

• 1/2 tsp kosher salt

• 1 sheet silver gelatin, soaked in ice water (or 1/2 tsp powdered gelatin sprinkled over 2 tsp water)

• 1/2 tsp freshly ground pink peppercorn

for the pink peppercorn buttercream and assembly:

• 4 sticks unsalted butter (452g), at room temperature

• 2 cups powdered sugar (226g)

• Pinch of kosher salt

• 1 tsp freshly ground pink peppercorn

• 2 tsp rice wine vinegar

• 2 dozen almonds, for garnish

instructions

1. For the shells: Preheat oven to 350F with a rack in the center position. Bring 2” of water to a simmer in a medium saucepan.

2. In a large bowl, sift in the almond flour and powdered sugar. Whisk to combine. Add several drops of yellow gel food dye and 125g egg whites. Use a spatula to completely combine everything to form a pretty dense almond mixture. Set aside.

3. In the bowl of a stand mixer add the 135g egg whites, granulated sugar, and kosher salt. Set over the simmering water and whisk constantly until the sugar dissolves and the mixture feels hot when you rub it between your fingers, 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer to your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Increase speed to high and whisk until medium peaks form, about 5 minutes.

4. Use a spatula and fold the meringue into the dense almond mixture in 3 additions. Continue folding until the batter loosens slightly. Stop folding once you can lift the spatula out of the batter and trace a few figure 8s without the batter stream breaking.

5. Fit a large piping bag with a 1/2” round tip. Transfer some batter to the piping bag. Get out 3 half-sheet trays. Flip them over so the rim is down. Line the top (which is actually the base of the tray) with either a Silpat or parchment paper (if using parchment, you’ll have to adhere it flat to the tray with some of the batter).

6. Holding the bag perfectly upright, pipe even macaron mounds in 4 even rows of about 6 macarons in each row. Pipe the macarons to about 1.5” circles, and they will slowly spread to around 2” circles. Continue filling your piping bag and filling all 3 trays with circles. It’s ok if they are slightly different sizes; that’s part of the homemade charm. Slam each tray down a couple times to burst the air bubbles. Then let hang out for about 30 minutes to dry the shells slightly.

7. Bake a tray one at a time for 11 to 12 minutes, until the macarons have risen and feel firm to the touch, but haven’t picked up any color. Let cool on the trays. The shells, stored covered at room temperature, can be made up to 1-2 days in advance.

8. For the pineapple compote: Add the pineapple, sugar, salt, and 1/4 cup water to a medium saucepan. Increase heat to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until the pineapple is tender and turning translucent, 10 to 15 minutes. Squeeze the water from the gelatin and add the gelatin and pink peppercorn to the compote. Stir to combine. Use an immersion blender to carefully puree down the pineapple compote until no large pieces remain (some smaller ones are fine). Transfer to a bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate to chill completely. This can be made up to 3 days in advance.

9. For the buttercream and assembly: Using an electric hand mixer, beat the butter in a large bowl until creamy. Slowly beat in the powdered sugar. Then add the salt, vinegar, and pink peppercorn and beat in. Taste to see if you’d like more sugar. But I don’t think it needs that much. Transfer to a piping bag fitted with a 1/4” round tip.

10. Organize all your macaron shells into pairs of equal sizes. Flip the uglier one in each half over to expose its flat side. Pipe a ring of the buttercream into an even circle around the circumference. Then dollop about 2 tsp of the pineapple compote into the center. Repeat for all pairs. Sandwich them together. Then pipe a small dot of buttercream on top and press an almond into the center.

11. Now this is the annoying part. Transfer all macarons to a baking sheet or platter, cover with plastic wrap, and let sit out for 1 day at room temperature. This will soften the macarons, especially if you overbaked them slightly. Then enjoy. Macarons can also be frozen for up to 2 months. Let thaw in the fridge overnight before serving.

Pineapple Pink Peppercorn Macarons

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For the third installment of my produce dinner series, I decided it would only be fair to give garlic a chance to shine on its own after its cousin onion got all the spotlight a few weeks ago.

On the topic of garlic, randomly, I started watching the first movie in the Twilight series on Sunday. And let me say: it’s really bad. I could only get through 30 minutes before I turned it off, preferring just a black T.V. screen to whatever that movie was. I didn’t even get far enough into the movie to see if they even had a garlic discussion (given it’s about vampires fyi), so if they do talk about garlic lmk!

Garlic, like onion, unlike sumo citrus, is very cheap. Trader Joe’s sells a garlic head for 49 cents a pop. So the idea of buying $100 worth of garlic (200 heads) was even too crazy for me. I landed on the amount of 50 heads ($25) as I was cramming garlic heads into a single disposable produce bag with a certain degree of determination. 50 heads seemed like the max capacity of this poor bag, fated to be stretched to its physical limits. And I was too lazy to get a second bag.

Now, I don’t really know why I bought whole heads instead of pre-peeled cloves (besides that they look prettier for that one photo at the top of the newsletter) because it took me over an hour to peel through just half the heads. The other half are still sitting in the same bowl as some sort of organic art installation on my cocktail bar. By the time I had gotten through half the heads, I felt like a) I understood the art of meditation and b) I didn’t understand why I just bought pre-peeled garlic at the store.

The menu:

garlic confit

whipped ricotta toasts with garlic confit

kale salad with garlic oil dressing and garlic chips

classic lasagna with roast garlic béchamel

“garlic head” mini raspberry pavlovas

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Now you might be wondering why I was peeling so many garlic to begin with, which has a simple answer. Garlic confit. Such a basic, power-house recipe that instantly elevates any recipe it touches. You just take garlic + olive oil and slowly roast the cloves until they are golden and tender. I’m thinking of garlic confit aglio e olio, garlic confit fried eggs, garlic confit salad dressing, and on and on. Today I knew I would make garlic confit whipped ricotta toasts, which I love on their own without any adornment, but when you smear the toasts with several garlic confited cloves, it feels very elevated and wine bar-y.

I had many pounds of frozen pasta sitting in my freezer (long story) and knew the entree had to be lasagna. Roasting garlic heads in the oven to incorporate into the lasagna’s béchamel seemed appropriate and sort of revolutionary. I’ve never been a fan of lasagna made with a ricotta mixture, by the way. It feels like a cheap step that actually really reduces the quality of the lasagna. Ricotta always turns gritty and grainy to me when baked. So why ruin my hard work making a lasagna just to ruin it with ricotta? And béchamel isn’t even that hard to make. You’re adding maybe like 5 minutes by opting for béchamel over ricotta; thus, ricotta’s ROI is non-existent. Sorry.

Ricotta spiel over. This lasagna is very much a classic beef ragu just with the addition of roast garlic in the béchamel. I also adorned mine with ramp leaves, but that’s completely optional and also not needed at all tbh. Looks nice though.

The kale salad is one that I had tested many months ago but never published for whatever reason. The genius is that you make many many garlic chips, then take that oil to make the salad dressing. By streaming the garlic-infused oil into an egg yolk based dressed with lots of cheese and champagne vinegar, the garlic becomes a strong undertone that doesn’t overpower the dish IMO. Just make sure to shower the kale in more cheese before serving.

And the garlic dessert, garlic-shaped pavlova. There’s not really a recipe for these. Just make mini pavlova and make them look like garlic heads. ‘Tis all.

You might be wondering if the meal was overwhelmingly garlicky. Not at all actually. Garlic confit, roast garlic, and fried garlic are all very excellent ways to mellow out garlic flavor. I didn’t use any raw garlic in the entire meal; even just one clove of raw grated garlic would’ve been more pungent than this whole meal in its entirety. Honestly. Blindfold someone, cook them this meal, and have them try to guess the superstar ingredient. Unless they’re a vampire, I think it could be a good challenge.

Asparagus is next.

I’m not a vampire,

Ryan

recipes

[note: paid subscribers will have access to all 4 recipes below. Per the request of a subscriber, I’ve started including printable PDF documents of all the recipes for easier reading and usage.]

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I used to have a job. Like a corporate job. I technically still have a job but it’s more a home (or even just kitchen) job situation now.

And at this corporate job I made a very close friend whose name is Zoe. And during the four years I worked with Zoe, I learned she loves two foods more than any else:

• pork, of any sort

• chocolate, of any sort

So I took it upon myself this year for Zoe’s birthday to make her these two food items as her birthday present. She herself requested the chocolate cake; I tacked on the pork for good measure.

2 years ago I made Zoe a chocolate raspberry birthday cake. I felt it was appropriate to revisit that construction and give it some new life. I knew I wanted to embody the chocolate Matilda cake: plush Devil’s food cake layers and plenty of chocolate ganache. Instead of store-bought raspberry jam for the filling, I prefer to make a compote set with a little gelatin. Sure, it’s annoying. But the flavor is much fresher and there’s less sugar this way. It makes the cake taste much more gourmet, but you can always use jam if you want to cut back on the work. I also infuse my chocolate ganache with some espresso powder, which adds nice bitterness.

To tackle the pork, I had the idea of making Korean-flavored pulled pork sandwiches. Like kbbq, but not really. A whole bone-in pork shoulder that feeds a whole party of people literally only costs $20 at Wegmans fyi ($2/pound). And pork shoulders are the ultimate hands-off recipe. The only hard part is shredding all the meat and stopping yourself from snacking on too much of it. You drown the pork in all of the roasting pan juices, bbq sauce, gochujang, and a little MSG if you’re fun. It’s addicting and so satisfying. With the homemade potato buns, it’s completely special. I would personally add some cabbage slaw or sliced pickles, but Zoe doesn’t like pickles *eye roll* so these are unadorned.

The cake was a hit at the party. But since we went to Shake Shack for her birthday dinner, all 4 quarts of pulled pork and 2 dozen potato rolls went exclusively to Zoe and her roommate. Which she has been eating every day since.

[the below 3 recipes are only available to paid subscribers]

the recipes

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So to let you all in on a little secret, this is the last apartment cafe… for now. A hiatus if you will. I know that’s probably shocking news given how insane and iconic of a spectacle it has become. I haven’t grown bored or tired of the apartment cafe at all. In fact, I still have about a dozen other themes and concepts that I want to do eventually. Jello cafe. Donut cafe. One day when I write a cookbook, Ryan’s Cookbook Cafe (I’ll think of a better name for that one in the meantime).

But naturally our lives get busy and we have to make some adjustments. My co-host Christine is moving back home temporarily for the summer, and it doesn’t feel right to do the cafes without her. Also I want to use the extra time to think of new series, film different kinds of videos, and showcase food still in unique ways. Like the Martha Stewart Easter. Like the produce dinners. Like…whatever else is to come.

If you’re dessert-obsessed, don’t fret. There will be plenty of that. You’ll just have to wait until the temperature rises and then falls again to see apartment cafe back in action in this exact form. It’s entirely possible I bring the apartment cafe back as a pop-up or an in-person event before the fall, too.

Given it was about to be our last cafe for a while, we knew the theme had to be spectacular. And it just so happened that several factors were lining up for a baking total solar lunar eclipse. My friends Lucie and Elisa both reached out to me to help promote their respective cookbooks publishing this spring.

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Lucie, one of my biggest baking inspirations, owns a whimsical bakery called “from Lucie” in my neighborhood and is publishing her debut cookbook called Cake From Lucie, out April 14th. (NEXT TUESDAY!). You can preorder her cookbook here. You can find the “Champagne Buttercream” recipe from her cookbook provided as promo from Lucie herself below, which I might honestly use as my new go-to buttercream recipe tbh.

My other friend Elisa founded the internet famous Cake Picnic event series and is publishing her debut Cake Picnic cookbook out May 19th. You can preorder her cookbook here. You can find her “Chamomile Honey Cake” courtesy of Elisa below (which is the yellow cake with the tulip petals in all the photos), and is absolutely delicious.

So we thought to do a HUGE cake picnic apartment cafe. I teamed up with Lucie to make our 3-tier collab wedding cake from her book with pistachio cake layers, the aforementioned champagne buttercream, and cherry compote. Elisa decided to make her Chamomile Honey Cake and invited a few of her New York-based cake friends.

We decided to give everyone the parameter that the cakes should be floral-themed. That way the cakes could all have some cohesion of some sort. So this is what everyone brought:

• Ryan & Lucie: 3-tier pistachio wedding cake with champagne buttercream (recipe below)

• : Sourdough focaccia bagel cake with salmon caviar

• : Chamomile honey cake (recipe below)

• : Rhubarb carrot cake

• + her boyfriend: Mango coconut cake with rice paper flowers

• : Raspberry black sesame dome cake

• @dreamyfigs: Banana chocolate chip cake

• @redcurrantbakery: April birthday cake

• @arlyn.osborne: Ube coconut cake

Of course, I made everyone cut their cake one-by-one to reveal all the cross-sections. No pressure at all. We assembled all the perfect slices on a half-sheet tray (we called it a trough) and quickly ran out of room. Once we got the photos, we all dug into the cakes, hacking them apart with absurdly large kitchen cleavers.

I gave a little speech to the 14 people who had gathered in my apartment living room that Easter Sunday. I was starting to get emotional that this little chapter was ending. That a group of bakers and friends came together for 1 1 and a half years to produce such a momentous internet sensation, inspiring hundreds if not thousands of other other at-home bakers to do the same in their kitchens. Let’s see what’s next.

Forever apartment café,

Ryan

[the below 2 recipes are only available to paid subscribers]

the recipes

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The task at hand: cook a 10-recipe Martha Stewart Easter lunch menu from her first 1982 cookbook Entertaining in my one bedroom apartment for 14 to 20 friends. And plate, film, and take photos of everything in the most aesthetic way possible. And entertain everyone at the same time.

Seems doable.

For reminders:

The menu (it’s crazy, I know):

day 1

marbleized hard-boiled eggs

sorrel soup

garlic scalloped potatoes

babka

chocolate-glazed easter madeleines

day 2

cabbage pierogi with brown butter and sage

brandied peaches

roasted kielbasa

baked easter ham

brown butter fresh peas

Martha Stewart Easter Game Plan

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At the start of Day 2, I had already cooked more than half the menu, but I saved the trickiest dishes for the day of. (Read bout about Day 1 here). And by trickiest dishes, I really just mean the pierogies. These were HELL. I’ve made a lot of dumplings, but who knew pierogies were so hard to make??? The dough was sticky and finicky. The filling, unwieldy. The crimping, impossible. Somehow I cranked out 60+ pierogies (recipe was supposed to yield 96) in about 2 hours time. I yeeted those things into my fridge as soon as they were done so I could tend to the rest of the meal.

Now onto the ham — so there was a wee error in the recipe. The recipe called for a “12-pound bone-in uncooked, smoked ham.” Now as a cook, I was confused as to how a ham could be at once uncooked and yet smoked. As a Jew, maybe I was underestimating the complexities and nuances of how a ham could be procured. So I started calling all the Polish butchers in New York if they had uncooked ham. I did in fact go to one butcher in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, for the man behind the counter to show me what the raw ham looked like: it was a giant slab of raw pork on a sheet pan. And at that point I made the judgement call that the recipe should really say a “12-pound bone-in fully cooked, smoked, unglazed ham.” Which made my life a lot easier since re-warming a ham and glazing it with a brandy-apricot glaze is a lot easier and more delicious than dealing with 15 lbs. of raw pork meat.

With the ham in the oven, I quickly made my brown butter peas (swapped out for Martha’s pea puree) and got the kielbasa cooking. Then it was onto plating all the dishes and reheating what needed to be reheated. With my time schedule all typed out to the minute, I actually nailed the timing of every dish somehow. One recipe at a time, I plated all the dishes and added their garnishes.

If you notice in my photos, I actually closed down my sink for this meal. I needed a bigger buffet somehow. I placed my very large wood cutting board over top it and closed up the dish-washing shop. Who needs a sink anyway? I also brought out my step stool which I started using as a stand for which I could place the ham at the moments it required glazing.

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Somehow I did it. At 5pm on the dot (I actually served this as a dinner, not a lunch), friends started rolling in. They were extremely confused by the whole experience. They didn’t understand the context that it was a literal Martha Stewart menu, so they thought it was just weird, retro food for the most part.

recipe rankings

After taking a day to reflect, these are my thoughts on all the recipes:

• would make again: ham, kielbasa, madeleines

• would not make again: babka, sorrel soup, pierogies

• my adapted recipes that I would of course make again: the beet-deviled eggs, scalloped potatoes, peaches with fresh raspberry sauce, brown butter peas

Overall, pretty successful and delicious! The ham ended up being so easy and completely satisfying. The kielbasa from the Ukrainian butcher in my neighborhood were unreal, and I served those with whole grain mustard. My adapted scalloped potato recipe were far and away the favorite out of everything though.

The babka were very dry. I sort of had that hunch even though I’m pretty sure I underbaked them, which is why I added an icing. (They did in fact become a far superior babka bread pudding the next day.) And the pierogies were a little intense because it was a lot of cabbage. I think if I were ever to do them again, I would opt for a potato filling. The sorrel soup I didn’t even end up serving (oops) because I hated the color and didn’t want people spilling soup all over my living room carpet and couch.

cost breakdown

And here’s the final cost breakdown:

• food: $325

• flowers: $54

• photographer / videographer assistant: $150

• decor + platters: fortunately gifted from Pottery Barn

• grand total: $529

Honestly, not atrocious for a meal for 20 people. A lot of the food was actually quite cheap / peasant-y. Some of the big ticket items were the fresh sorrel that I had to procure from the farmers’ market ($23), the ham ($80), and the kielbasa ($57). All the remaining ingredients only totaling $165 is actually sort of astounding. And yes, most of you don’t need a photography assistant, but let’s just say you used that amount of money to buy decorations, then you could probably expect to spend around $500 on your own Martha Stewart “Easter Lunch for 14-20”, too.

Is this the beginning of a Julie & Julia experience? Martha & Me? Time will tell. Let’s see if the videos go viral / what comes out of this first episode. I do think if I were to continue doing these menus from 1982, I’ll have to update them and modernize them somewhat, like I did here. Recipes don’t stand the test of time, unlike Martha herself.

Happy Easter,

Ryan

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recipes

beet-dyed deviled eggs

brown butter peas

peaches with fresh raspberry sauce and greek yogurt

vodka/martini encased in ice

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A few weeks ago I bought Martha Stewart’s first cookbook Entertaining. Because it was published in 1982, I really had no idea what this book was about when I purchased it since it predates my birth by about a decade and a half. When I got into bed that night with Martha (in book form), I started flipping through the pages and my mouth dropped open. Agape. I was in utter shock, disbelief, and mesmerization. I didn’t really know what to expect, but I certainly did not expect the book to include menus such as:

• Russian Buffet for Twenty-four…

• Midnight Omelette Supper for Thirty…

• A Country Pie Party for Fifty…

• Sit-Down At-Home Wedding For One Hundred Seventy Five…

I actually started laughing out loud. This book is NUTS. Actually, Martha Stewart is nuts. The photos of her barbaqueing multiple pigs simulatenously for a Hawaiian luau. The concept of her catering her sister’s and her brother’s respective weddings. The idea of cooking omelettes for 30 people at 11pm accompanied by “rock, classical guitar, or flute concertos”. The photos and menus seem like they’ve been pulled out of a dream world, and yet Martha did them all. Probably many times over at that.

I read the whole book cover to cover. I finally got a sense of Martha’s origin story. See, I had already consumed every YouTube video I could find of Martha Stewart, re-runs of her many TV series and what have you. But nothing ever about her start, her beginnings in food, how she became a boss. Her waxings on cooking at home for others. Her crudite philosophy. Her catering strategies and style. With every page and menu I read, I became increasingly inspired. I went to sleep that night with my mind buzzing.

Naturally, I thought to myself: “I could do this”. I called my friend Christine the next day and she said: “We could do this.” I mean, some of the menus at least. Maybe the ones with fewer than 24 guests, to start.

The Easter lunch was calling my name (or more accurately “Easter Lunch for 14 to 20"). For one, I’ve never experienced an Easter before. I’ve never had a ham before. And I don’t think many of my friends have either. A new experience to be had! Secondly, the menu was doable (-ISH, see below for the menu) and personal. The whole menu is inspired by Martha’s own classic childhood Polish Easters with her family. Much of the menu is actually comprised of her mother’s and grandmother’s recipes. Thirdly, the time was right, with Easter just a few weeks away. I sent out an event invite to 20 of my friends and told them just come hungry.

But actually, most crucially, the spark that convinced me I had to do this menu: the easter ham recipe came with a footnote. That Martha sources her ham from a Polish butcher, which just happens to be a 5-minute walk from my apartment. That was crazy to read. Turns out the butcher closed many years ago, replaced by an organic health foods store that sells Erewhon copycat smoothies, among many other delicacies. I still ended up sourcing the Kielbasa from a different Ukrainian butcher in the vicinity.

The menu (it’s crazy, I know):

day 1

marbelized hard-boiled eggs

sorrel soup

garlic scalloped potatoes

babka

chocolate-glazed easter madeleines

day 2

cabbage pierogi with brown butter and sage

brandied peaches

roasted kielbasa

baked easter ham

brown butter fresh peas

I realized I needed to make a game plan to execute this meal. This would take 3 days to source, prep, film, and cook it all solo.

The funny thing about Entertaining is that it actually doesn’t give you a method for executing any of the menus. Martha just expects you to figure it out somehow, as one does when catering an at-home wedding for 150 people. So this is the game plan (to the minute) I used, spread out over 3 days:

Martha Stewart Easter Game Plan

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Part of the reason I wanted to attempt one of these menus was to see if the recipes would stand the test of time. But I knew going in I would have to ~heavily~ adapt a few of the recipes. The “puree of fresh peas” for example, I completely axed. I am not pureeing anything. I made a version of brown butter peas with lemon and mint instead. For the scalloped potatoes, I had to tweak the method and reinforced the heavy cream with garlic and scallions for a springier feel. For the madeleines, I decided to enrobe in white chocolate and dried flower petals, the babka in rose-orange blossom icing. A lot of these edits were for visual appeal to be honest.

If Day 1 was “prep day”, then there was also a “prep prep Day 0”, and a “source all the ingredients Day -1”. But for true Day 1 at least, I decided I would bake the two desserts, cook the soup to serve cold the next day, make the various eggs, and cook the potatoes since they would be easy enough to reheat. This day was actually very easy. The recipes were simple, required little prep, and didn’t have many ingredients. I was feeling really good leading into Day 2. Everything somehow went according to plan, and I even finished early, giving me plenty of time to clean up and set up the apartment.

You’ll have to check back for part two for my review of all the recipes. Was it worth it? Did it go off the rails? To be determined ….

For Martha,

Ryan

recipes

spring scalloped potatoes (adapted)

serves 6 - 8

ingredients

• 2 1/4 cup heavy cream

• 4 scallions, roughly chopped

• 2 garlic cloves

• Kosher salt and pepper

• 4.5 lbs. Yukon potatoes, washed and thinly sliced

• 6 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature (or scallion butter compound)

instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350F.

2. Add cream, scallions, garlic, 1 tsp kosher salt, and lots of pepper to a small saucepan. Heat over medium-low until simmering.

3. Meanwhile, take 2 tbsp of the butter and grease a large casserole dish. Shingle your potatoes in the dish, seasoning each layer with salt and pepper. The bottom layers don’t matter aesthetically, but make sure your top layer looks pretty.

4. Pour the cream evenly over top. Dot the remaining butter on top of the potatoes. Cover with foil.

5. Bake for 30 minutes. Then uncover and increase oven temp to 400F. Continue to bake until the potatoes are deeply golden, tender, and the cream has reduced and is burbling, another 30 to 40 minutes.

Spring Scalloped Potatoes (adapted)

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babka (linked)

• I used 2 9-inch Bundt pans, not 3 8-inch Bundt pans.

• Increased sugar to 1 1/3 cup, needed 9 cups all-purpose flour to compensate.

• Proofed dough in the fridge overnight. Next day, the dough needed 2 1/2 hours to proof in the cake pans since the dough was cold

• Once cakes were done and cooled. I make a thick powdered sugar glaze for garnish.

chocolate covered madeleines (linked)

• When Madelines are done baking and cooled, add some dried flower petals and finely crushed freeze-dried raspberries to the Madeleine trays. Add about 1 tbsp melted white chocolate to each shell (you’ll need about 16 oz total). Place a Madeleine into the shell and press firmly. Freeze for 10 minutes, then remove. Work in batches if necessary.