It's been too long
I am sorry, I have been writing and writing and writing and by the end of the day my fingers mostly feel like dropping off.
And I don’t have a big long post today, but there are two things I want to say.
Thing the First
I have, for years, been searching for some kind of program or app that would let me organize recipes, grocery lists, meal plans, and so on, in a way that was easy and intuitive for me. For a while I clipped recipes and sent them to Evernote, which at least was searchable, but not really designed for what I needed it for. And I’d have to spend hours reformatting recipes and stripping out ads and photos and miles of extra text that made their way into the file when I grabbed it from a blog or an article.
About a month ago, I downloaded Paprika, on a whim. And it’s perfect:
You can drop a link to a recipe on, say, the NYT Cooking page, or someone’s blog, and it will grab only the recipe, format it perfectly, add a photo, and add it to your library.
Then you can arrange those recipes into folders and categories.
You can then put those recipes onto a calendar (which you can look at weekly or monthly) so you have a plan for what you’re going to cook this week. (I find this extremely helpful during CSA seasons, since I’m always plotting how to use up the vegetables before they wither.)
You can create inventory lists of what you have in your pantry/fridge (especially helpful given we’re eating down pandemic rations) in a very intuitive way; type “4 28 oz cans of chopped tomatoes” and it knows that you have four cans, they’re 28 oz apiece, they’re chopped tomatoes, and they should be filed away under produce. Then you can easily subtract one when you use it or delete the item when it’s gone.
You can make shopping lists.
And there are apps for your computer (PC or Mac) and your mobile device (iOS or Android), and they sync with each other.
In short, it is my favorite app in a long time, because it just works, and I love it. They did not pay me to say this. I just wanted you to know.
Thing the Second
I posted something on Instagram recently about how I make grilled cheese with mayonnaise now and it’s the best thing I’ve ever eaten, and people seemed shocked.
So here is what you do.
Do everything the same as you would normally for grilled cheese, except instead of putting butter in the pan, just heat up the pan on the stove.
Meanwhile, put mayonnaise on one side of two slices of bread. (Tom used chipotle mayonnaise recently, which was terrific.) When the pan is hot, put one slice mayo side down, then put the cheese on top of it, then the other slice mayo side up.
Let it cook for a few minutes (like, four?), peeking at the bottom slice every so often. When it’s the level of brown that you like, carefully flip the whole sandwich, then press down a little to help the cheese melt correctly into both slices of bread. Let the other side cook (it’s always faster than the first side).
And voila, the best grilled cheese you’ve ever had. It makes sense. Mayonnaise is just fat (oil) and eggs, emulsified. Think about French toast, which operates on a similar principle: butter and eggs (and milk) that fries in a pan. It just gives an extra richness and better texture to the grilled cheese.
I don’t have a picture because I always eat it too fast. But you can serve it with tomato soup, or (like me) gazpacho, or nothing at all, because it’s just that good.