The best way to get to know a city is through its food, and I’ve over-eaten my way through a number of them. I’ve lived in New York for a little over five years, and while I know I’m lucky to live in a place with some of the best restaurants in the world and almost unparalleled access to global ingredients, it’s easy to forget that this city is anywhere special when you’re stuck in the ultimate rut.
Big news here. On Friday I resigned from my job, where I’ve been for five years, and am moving out of finance (mostly) and into communications (mostly). Part of me has been dreaming of this for a long time, but the other half of me is completely devastated to say goodbye to the team I’ve worked with so closely for the past five years. So while I expected to spend this weekend walking on air, in reality I spent a lot of it welling up while I went about my days (in Pilates, walking down the street, etc.). The great thing about cake, though, is it works for both of those occasions.
For someone who has spent the past five years doing the same job, the kind where you have “vacation days” but when you take them you’re consumed with guilt about how many of them you are stringing together and people raise their eyebrows when you say you’ll be gone for 10 days, I have an incredible amount of wanderlust. It’s exhausting to be in the same place for so long. So when real adventure isn’t an option, I can take a trip to Goa for an hour on a Tuesday after work.
I have an uncontrollable sweet tooth. It’s gotten to a humiliating point where, on my way home from work, no matter what time it is, I will often stop at the grocery store and buy one 3.5 oz. mini container of Haagen Dazs. Just one. I can’t buy a pint or, God help me, a half gallon, because there is literally nothing that will stop me from eating the entire thing in one sitting. So I continue to embarrass myself nightly, always hoping that the checkout person doesn’t recognize me and my weird and wasteful shopping habits. Not only is my craving for sugar uncontrollable (it is genetic, people!) but it also operates with remarkable specificity. Which is to say, eating a bowl of strawberries is not going to cut it. It needs ice cream, it needs cookies, it needs cake. That’s where this brilliant banana cake comes in.
This past weekend I co-hosted my very first dinner party. A real, actual dinner party that involved cooking for many, many hours (let’s be honest, many days) and seven old friends sitting around and dining on around a table that had never actually been dined upon. Unfortunately, the terrifyingly strong margaritas I was drinking impaired my judgment just enough so that no photos of the event, the food or the people were taken. So instead of sharing with you some of my favorite Mexican recipes (there’s always next time), this post will be about atoning for a massive alcohol-induced headache. And I’m pretty sure if you look up tequila in the thesaurus, it will tell you the antonym is kale.
The Kitchen Chronicles 