I feel like I have stumbled into a perpetual reenactment of the marshmallow test. I shuffle through moments of reckless instant gratification, pious self-control, and meticulous scrutiny about how my approach to small choices reflects on my life prospects.
My search for a balance between restraint and indulgence always feels the most frantic in these last days of winter when the sun shines a bit brighter but I can't feel its warmth on my skin. How must I contort myself to discard the leaden dullness of another winter that seems like it will never end? How do I preen and practice to bloom as vividly as the flowers?
I'm moving slowly, shaking out the dust and cobwebs, trying my hardest not to go on autopilot and emerge in spring like this:
This weekend, I lost an hour of sleep to the time change and even more time to a facile attempt to tackle the accumulated chaos of my freezer. My freezer is still a mess, but I pulled out some Wegman's pizza dough, spicy pesto made from wilting spinach on a week I didn't feel like pasta, frozen artichoke hearts, and a straggler container of sausage alongside to make this beautiful pizza.
There is still so much more to organize and unearth (both in my freezer and myself) but at least I'll have enough ice to make a drink worth sipping on a 60-degree day with a 7 PM sunset and a little bit more serotonin to fuel my quest to bring you more unsnackables.
the unsnackables
sweet
I turn to baking when I need praise but cooking for others feels like microdosing ego death, especially for someone I love. The Indonesian coconut milk and rice flour porridge dessert that inspired this ice cream sounds delicious but is prepared using a method similar to one of my mom's favorite breakfast foods (that I will cook for only her, despite disliking it myself and finding the process finicky). Both Ogi and Bubur Sumsum are grain porridge dishes often made with love and if there's a chance this ice cream can channel a tiny bit of that feeling, it is worth trying.
savory
The world of salads sparkles anew when you acknowledge that anything crunchy and flavorful can be a crouton, so the inverse must be true about croutons themselves as crunchy, versatile carriers of flavor. These crouton chips (technically a part of the rusk family) carry the richness of lamb paired with a preserved Georgian pepper condiment.
thirsty
I've been obsessed with Nudake, the pastry/cafe concept from Gentle Monster, since it launched. As they've expanded, I've enjoyed watching their approach to maintaining quality while innovating in the dual stunt pastry economies of social media and South Korea's rigorous cafe culture. I've seen commercial bakeries and home bakers around the world reverse engineering their menu out of pure curiosity (a feeling I understand deeply) and browsed dozens of reviews that say the gimmicks are buttressed by technique. This fluffy latte is topped with a yolk-presenting mango jelly and housed in a cup filled with a thin, tempered shell of white chocolate that shatters and reveals the color of the drink with a gentle squeeze.
boozy
I think I would be warier of a banana beer if I hadn't seen the incidental juice created by freezing and defrosting bananas that have ripened until the skin turns pitch black in this recipe transformed with the deep magic of food science. Bananas have so much starch and so much natural sweetness, they are just a fruit molecularly primed to ferment into a good time.
I’m still figuring this out, but hopefully, you enjoyed v.67 of unsnackable.
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