Happy FriYAY y’all,
I’m coming at you after a long week, with a great weekend in sight, headlined by a party bus. I missed writing this last week, but life caught up to me after another trip into the office (fourth one all year!) and having little time to spare for putting pen to paper before hopping in a car to head to Dewey Beach, even though I planned about half of last week’s blog in my notes app. I’ll spare you from a notes app apology, but sometimes that’s life.
My title this week, “Consistency,” is my personal reminder that consistency is key, and even though I was pressed for time last Thursday, I could have been proactive and written parts ahead of time. However, in all honesty, some weeks, this blog has felt more like a chore than anything, struggling to find a last-minute topic to write about, rant about, or relate to, or struggling to find the motivation to even click the “New Post” button at the top of my Substack dashboard. Last week, to be frank, as annoyed as I was that I wasn’t going to write this, I felt some sense of relief.
The first signs of fall are rapidly approaching, marked by chilly nights, shorter days, and the flock of birds seemingly doing laps over by the Navy Yard U-Haul building. I’m also beyond excited to say that I signed my lease to move in — from writing this — exactly a month. Am I ready? Not at all. Excited is definitely the right emotion before the anxiety and stress of moving kick in. But now is not the time to think about it, now is the time to get hyped for an actual bedroom instead of this cube that my building calls a studio apartment.
As I mentioned earlier, I was in Dewey Beach, DE last weekend with Lindsay and a bunch of her friends, and with the YouTube TV in the Vrbo, you can bet your (redacted) that we quad-boxed. While hitting the over on our “Orange Crushes drank” bet at Starboard, I watched the Eags fall to Michigan State in double-OT, which is already up there in my personal game of the year conversations, maybe just a hair behind Bills-Ravens (get outta here, Bears-Vikings, I’m a JJ McCarthy hater). Otherwise, it was fun to drink beer out of my Mamma Mia! cup, relax (and play Survivor) on the beach, and have a grill-out to cap it off.
But, now that it’s Thursday night, I’m eagerly awaiting a Mackenzie Gore start for the Nats to help push me to the next round of the fantasy baseball playoffs, as well as the best game of the week (aside from the Super Bowl rematch) that is Commanders at Packers. So, because I’d like to make my lamb meatballs and fried okra sooner than later, please enjoy this photo of the gorgeous sunset outside of Costco last Thursday.
What’s Cookin’: Cast Iron Press
I don’t often find myself writing about a kitchen utensil, but this one simply feels right.
When I’m feeling up to the task of toasting bread, as I don’t have a toaster, I need to add butter or oil to my cast-iron skillet to get it right. If I’m not feeling up to the task, I turn on the broiler and let it sit in the oven for a few minutes. But now, pan-toasting has the edge.
In searching for a circular press, I had smashburgers in mind — I’m sick of wrapping parchment paper around my hibachi spatula to do it. I’ve burnt my fingers a couple times that way. So when I found a combo of one rectangular press and one circular, I figured, why not both?
I naturally have yet to make smashburgers, because I love getting kitchen utensils that I think I’ll use, but when I toasted sourdough in my pan last week for a quick sandwich, I thought to try out the rectangular one. And it was perfect. The edge-to-edge golden brown far exceeded my expectations and immediately made it worthwhile.
Song of the Week: “Something Wrong” by DJ Snake and Don Toliver
A hot-off-the-press drop from two Fridays ago, it’s another episode of two of my favorite artists collaborating, and this time, it’s my favorite DJ with one of my favorite rappers out. That’s really all I got — just a fantastic song. Have you ever gone to a concert, then heard new releases years later, and it brings you back to that concert? That’s how I feel here — I wish I could teleport back to the Beach Club in Montreal the summer after my high school graduation to hear this, and more importantly, how DJ Snake could remix this into his set. He’s on another planet with the hits he’s created, and I think he has done it again.