Notes on Now

Mostly treats

I’m dropping into your inbox to share a few notes from the last month or so. Though I’m no longer (for now, at least) doing these monthly for paid subscribers, I was feeling the pull to share a few notes for you, and also to document them for my own memory! On our anniversary on May 5th (5 years!!), Clover and I were trying to remember what we’d done together in the last year and I consulted my Notes posts, bringing up a bunch of special memories (and some lols about various delusional bar plans we were all in on at various points during the year). I’ve never been a regular journaler, but these posts are a nice way to remember what I’ve been up to. So this is what I’ve been up to! (Spoiler, it’s mostly running a bar.)

-Okay, first and foremost, I have some notes on treats that have been pulling their weight. It’s sadly already been discontinuted, but I really fucked with the Dunkin’ Donuts banana syrup that they had as a seasonal spring flavor. Does it taste like a Laffy Taffy? Yes. If they bring it back next year, please note that it is strong and you probably only want one pump in your drink. My go-to that I guzzled on many a drive to Produce Junction or Restaurant Depot was a medium iced coffee with milk, one pump of banana, and one pump of brown sugar. Hope they bring her back.

Another banana treat: this banana chocolate chip coffee cake from Smitten Kitchen, which I’ve made twice in the last few months. It’s related to but distinct from a banana bread both in taste and texture, with a crispy cinnamon-sugar layer that coats the top. Highly, highly recommend this one. Please note that the cake it produces is enormous, so it’s a good one to share with friends.

I haven’t cooked at home very much in the last two months since the bar opened, for obvious reasons. In my previous normal life, I typically cooked fairly involved, vegetable-heavy meals four to five nights a week, so this is a big change for me and not an easy one. I miss it!! Right now I’m lucky if I cook a nice meal for me and Clover once a week. There’s absolutely no way that it makes sense for me to get a CSA share this year (I’ll never be able to keep up with the volume of produce at this cooking cadence), which bums me out. My goal is that by next spring, I will be in a place where a CSA is justifiable. Lately it’s been a lot of smoothies, scrambled eggs, pizza bagels, takeout sushi, and grilled cheese sandwiches at the bar. It’s not my optimal diet, but it’s working right now in terms of keeping me alive and relatively well fueled. The occasions when I’ve gotten to cook something more real or where a friend has made me a meal are extra sweet because of it.

On the flip side, I am enjoying running our bar kitchen! I put out our first seasonal sandwich, the Meanie! I think we will probably keep it on the menu through June. Here she is:

If you’re in Philly, you should come eat it at Val’s! But if you’re not, here’s how you can approximate it at home.

The Meanie

Components:

Ciabatta roll (or gluten free bread, if it’s for me!)

Two thick slices fresh mozzarella

Two slices provolone

Large smear mixed-herb pesto

Approx. quarter cup of garlicky broccoli rabe (or more, go crazy)

4 slices hot pickled cherry peppers

To make mixed-herb pesto:

Combine a half-bunch each of parsley, cilantro, dill, and basil in a food processor with two to four cloves of garlic and a big pinch of salt. Pulse till all herbs are finely chopped, then drizzle in 2 tbsp (ish) of olive oil and 2 tsp (ish) of lemon juice (I’m making these numbers up, follow your heart). Blend until mostly smooth. Taste and add more salt and/or lemon juice till it tastes delicious.

To make garlicky broccoli rabe:

Chop one bunch of broccoli rabe into large pieces (like two inches long). Bring a pot of salted water to a boil, and blanch broccoli rabe for about 2 mins - it should be bright green and still have some tooth. Put it in an ice bath or just run it under cold water to stop it from cooking further. Chop 2-4 cloves of garlic. Heat about 3 tbsp of olive oil in a small saucepan over medium-low heat and add garlic and red chili flakes to your desired spice level. Let it sizzle for a couple minutes until the garlic looks lightly toasted but not burned. Toss broccoli rabe with the spicy garlicky oil, plus salt to taste and a big squeeze of lemon juice.

To assemble sandwich:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Smear pesto on both sides of ciabatta and place it on an oven-safe dish like a cast iron. Top one side with provolone and the other with broccoli rabe and mozzarella. Put it in the oven for about 5 minutes, until both cheeses are melty and the provolone is browned around the edges. Top one side with cherry peppers and smoosh the two sides together. We serve it with house-made dill pickles and potato chips.

Note: You could also make this as a pressed sandwich cooked on the stove.

I also am trying to get in the swing of cooking a dedicated staff meal more often so that our crew (including me) can be well nourished. So far, this has mostly included occasional salads and grocery store rotisserie chicken (vegetarianism has gone down the tubes during this season of life, sadly), but I’m trying to set up a better system so that both I and our cooks on staff can be set up well to cook for the team. But I’ve been feeling uninspired in terms of what to actually cook! If you have staff meal ideas/inspo, please, drop them in the comments below. Bonus points for allergy friendly ideas (we have dairy free and gluten free people on staff) and if leftovers keep well.

A pop-up barbershop on the patio at the bar <3

-As I mentioned, Clover and I celebrated our five year anniversary! What a half-decade it’s been. We took the day off from work (mostly) and went to Jenkins Arboretum outside Philly, which is a very azalea-focused garden. The azaleas were all in bloom and it was really stunning! We wandered the trails and had a picnic lunch on a kind of steep hill where we kept knocking over our seltzer and little jar of gherkins. Then Clover did a little shopping in the plant nursery. It was really lovely, and this place is also free, so I definitely recommend it if you’re in Philly and can make it while the azaleas are still blooming!

Then we watched an episode of Top Chef on the couch (an extremely luxurious and high-value activity these days) and stopped by our bar to check in and disburse payroll checks. There was, as it turned out, a very chaotic Cinco de Mayo event happening in the neighborhood that was creating some spillover at our bar, so we spent some time checking in with our staff and debriefing/gossiping/gabbing. Then we went to Side Eye, a newish bistro a few blocks from Val’s. As it happens, my old coworker from my barista days who also works in the neighborhood is friends with the owner and was at the bar, and so he introduced us to the owner and we got hooked up with some very fun VIP treatment and had an amazing meal. The food and cocktails we had were delicious across the board - if you go, I especially recommend the chicken liver mousse, the brown butter leeks, the fries, the Southern Cross cocktail to drink, and the custard with olive oil and cocoa nibs for dessert.

good times at the bar - Lola sipping the Cunt, Bea and Kelly doing a post-shift photoshoot

-The first month of running the bar was about frantically attempting to stay on top of things enough for us to be able to simply open the doors every day and physically stay alive.

The second month of running the bar, which is drawing to an end next week, has been about dropping a lot of money on several major issues with our building (specifically plumbing and HVAC systems) in order to reach a baseline level of functionality, dialing in our long-term schemes and dreams, and starting to invest in our ability to not always be at the bar. While I don’t see us achieving anything resembling true work-life balance in the first year of this thing, I have realized that we will not survive with our sanity intact to get to that point if we don’t each have at least some amount of quality time alone, as a couple, and with friends outside of the bar each week (and the same for our manager, Kelly). We’ve started to split out manager responsibility for our slower days so that one of us or Kelly is at the bar and the others can be free, and Clover and I have tried to clear most other responsibilities off of Mondays so that we can have a legitimate day off together. It’s been my mission for us to do an outdoor activity every week on Monday. So far, we’ve gone to John Heinz, Jenkins Arboretum, and Bartram’s Garden. If we don’t make a point of doing this, we will never see flowers or trees!! Once summer hits, my goal is to go swimming every week on Monday.

As previously mentioned, Clover and I have also been embracing our newfound down time (lol) to watch Top Chef: Chicago (season 4), which people on the internet near-unanimously recommended as the best season of the show. DAMN they were not lying!! I have watched many of the more recent seasons of Top Chef but had not watched any of the early ones. Season 4 is way more dramatic than the newer seasons, with a lot more explosive outbursts. There are two separate guys who both look like Temu Jason Mraz, one more melted than the other. There are THREE lesbian, and two of them are a couple and the other one has an anger issue. Compared to later seasons, there’s more focus on interpersonal drama and less focus on the actual food/the food is less interesting. The show demonstrates shockingly little awareness of non-European cuisines, and the contestants have a tendency to refer to cooking any dish involving mirin or ginger as “going Asian.” At one point, Anthony Bourdain appears as a voice of reason and chastises a team of chefs for making their restaurant wars restaurant simply “Asian” themed (he points out that Asia is in fact quite large and diverse). In another episode, they make boxed lunches for Chicago cops, and one guy gets reamed for making gross-looking raw sushi made with ground turnips instead of rice. It’s a real time capsule, but the casting is impeccable. We haven’t quite finished yet, but I’d say this is probably tied for me with Top Chef: Portland, my other favorite season, which is the polar opposite: gorgeous, interesting food made by chefs who have deep knowledge of multiple different global cuisines, and gentle feel-good chemistry.

We got a tree planted outside our house by a dads-and-daughters team organized by the Philadelphia Horticultural Society! It’s a serviceberry :’)

Okay, that’s it for today. I hope you’re enjoying the spring! Come to Val’s!

xo,

Julia