Recipes for when it's ~*dysphoria day*~
Cute little food projects to distract me from the burning desire to re-landscape my yard.
Hello, chefs.
My whole life, I thought it was totally normal that, for at least one or two days every month, everything about my life totally grossed me out and I wanted to (and sometimes did) burn it all down and rebuild.
Before you get into “lol yeah Faith welcome to womanhood,” this is different than the one or two days a month when too many shoes on the shoe mat, for example, sends me into a blind rage. We all get that, right?
This is a little different. Even when I was a kid, I’d randomly get hit with this clear and persistent sense that I absolutely needed to rearrange my room right this instant, or that I had to dig up a section of the front yard to plant an enchanted garden or else I’d literally cease to exist. I’d be minding my own business, being a (mostly) normal kid, and then BAM: I was begging to go to boarding school in Spain.
One result of this monthly spiral is that I have an expansive graveyard of half-assed hobbies. Vegetable gardening, playing guitar (and piano, and saxophone), knitting (if we were friends from 2010-2014, I’m sorry about the ugly snood I made you), scrapbooking, Holga photography, cake decorating…you name it, and there’s probably been at least one day throughout my life that I thought it was incumbent upon me to become an expert in it.
So, yeah. If you’ve ever looked at online evidence of my ever-changing life (renovations! chickens! this newsletter!) and wondered why I can’t just chill tf out, I blame this day.
I recently learned that this random dissatisfaction (that’s the gentle term) with life is called dysphoria, which I don’t recommend Googling because before you know it you’ll be diagnosing yourself with all kinds of things that probably should be left to the professionals. But I think we probably all get it in varying degrees, right?
When I lived alone, I could just ride the wave each month with no consequences. Rip out my tile backsplash? Sure, who cares. But with a partner who, understandably, doesn’t want to live in fear of me “just moving a little wall” while he runs out to check the mail, I have to keep this thing in check.
So, I’ve been proactively giving myself cute little projects to make my life feel a little shiny and new (without, you know, actually making a completely new one). One of those projects: making a rich girl spread for dinner.
I’ve decided that going to Whole Foods on a Friday night to cobble together a dinner that makes me feel like a British heiress on a yacht is my new hobby—and listen, even if you’re reading this and thinking, “this lady is nuts, I don’t relate at all,” please do yourself a favor and try it. No crowds, full shelves, and really, really good deals.
Let’s get to it.
-Faith
Parmesan cabbage wedges
This is a method I learned from Melissa Clark, the queen of a briny, crunchy dish.
Preheat oven to 425.
Slice your cabbage head into wedges and place them on a baking sheet. Drizzle with oil and flip so the oily side is on the bottom.
Make a garlic paste: Crush a few heads of garlic (or use minced!), dice up as many anchovies as you like, and grate some parm (or use the shaker kind, I don’t judge), and mix it all with a good sprinkle of salt and pepper. Add a drizzle of olive oil until you have a paste.
Rub your paste all up in your cabbage wedges: really try to get it in between the leaves if you can. Drizzle the tops with a bit more olive oil, and sprinkle with more parm.
Bake for 30 minutes or until crispy.
I like to top with some lemon zest and fresh herbs before serving to brighten it up a little bit, if you have some on hand!
Steamed mussels
There are one million ways to make steamed mussels. The recipe is: a bit of flavored broth at a simmer + nice and clean mussels + cover and wait until the mussels open, usually 5-10 minutes. The best part: a huge bag of them is like $11.
#1 mussel rule: serve with either crispy fries or a loaf of crusty bread. I like to toast the bread slices in some warm butter on the stove and then sprinkle with salt because why not.
I made Sam Sifton’s version last night, which goes like this:
Chop up a bit of chorizo (the kind you’d put on a charcuterie board) and cook in a large pot in some oil until fat renders. Add some garlic and tomatoes, let soften. Add white wine until you have as much broth as you want, at least enough to cover an inch of the bottom. Bring to a simmer.
Add your mussels, cover and steam til they open. Sprinkle with parsley.
You can really do anything you want for step 1: butter and shallots + broth, garlic and mustard + beer, the world is really your…mussel.
Not a recipe, but…
Some other things to entertain for your Rich Girl Spread:
Whole Foods sells oysters 12 for $12 on Fridays. Get you a dozen, a jar of mignonette, and a potato to make fries. Please Prime some shucking gloves first.
Get a jar of $11 caviar. Why not?
Hit that olive bar like it’s going out of business.
Finally: make yourself a martini. My favorite is a dirty gin ‘tini with garlic olives and an anchovy because idk, what else are you supposed to do with the rest of the anchovies that don’t make it into your cabbage?