First Taste: Momofuku Milk Bar

On the way home from a doctor's appointment yesterday, DMR and I made a pit stop at Momofuku Milk Bar bakery. As this was a spontaneous visit, I wasn't prepared and immediately felt overwhelmed by all the choices. Did I want a slice or two of cake or pie? Wasn't there some sort of kimchi pork brioche I had read about? Could I leave without trying the soft serve?

In the end, I opted for three of the cookies: banana, compost and cornflakes-marshmallow-chocolate chip. The woman behind the counter also gave me a generous sampling of the cereal milk soft serve (take note, Chikalicious Puddin'), sating both my curiosity and craving.

My first tiny spoonful of the soft serve confused me, mainly because to me, cereal milk = Apple Jacks. I don't eat cereal regularly, mainly because milk upsets my gentle tummy. But my favorite cereal growing up was Apple Jacks and the little red flecked pinkish peach Os would create the most delicious flavored milk. So I guess I was expecting that and couldn't put my finger on the type of cereal the flavor of the soft serve was based on. With each additional spoonful though, I found myself liking the taste more and more. Wait, Alpha-Bits! Was it Alpha-Bits? There might have been a hint of oatiness to it.

At home, DMR and I shared this cornflakes-marshmallow-chocolate chip cookie.


According to Dan, it transformed me into a 5 year old. I won't dispute that. The cookie tasted like a rice krispies treat, only in cookie form, and better. It was crisp but also chewy, my favorite texture for cookies. All of the star ingredients mingled perfectly, not one overwhelming the others. I was reminded of cookies from a company coincidentally called David's Cookies that I loved growing up. They had stands at the mall and slice and bake logs available in the refrigerator section back in the 80s. Their cookies were perfect to me, crisp, chewy, chock full of chocolate chunks. Then the recipe changed and the brand vanished. Google tells me they still exist, but their logo and packaging looks suspiciously like Mrs. Fields'. Not the same.

Later in the evening, I polished off the banana cookie, also delicious and with that same chewy crispiness. We'll dig into the compost tonight. Hope it held up ok overnight!

Super Bowl XLIII

Super Bowl XLIII feast at Erik, Rebecca and Sean's. Per custom, regional foods from the teams' cities are represented. Primanti Bros. style sandwiches were made to order by Chef Mooney.

Pittsburgh should be in the Super Bowl every year! DMR and I shared a pastrami and provolone, with the usual fixins: fries, cole slaw, lettuce and tomato. Yummmmmm.

Teriyaki wings by Jen and my pigs in the blanket to the right. Neither have anything to do with Pittsburgh or Arizona, but who doesn't like to eat them? I made a batch with cheddar, but most of the cheddar oozed out during the cooking. That did make for some tasty crispy bits to snack on during the baking.

Representing Arizona was Erza's Barry Goldwater's chili from and "mediocre" Mexican that Erik cooked up. Middle of the road is put in quotes because I think that's how it was originally described, but I thought Erik's tacos were tasty!

First Taste: The Farm on Adderley

With Double Trouble on the way in just a few more weeks, this will be probably wind up being one of our last meals out for a very long time. Now that we have a car, we've been trying to visit some of the places we haven't made it out to yet before. When DMR suggested driving to dinner the other week, The Farm on Adderley in Ditmas Park was a natural choice. This post will be brief, because I can't recall anything these days and I can't be bothered to take notes either. But I can say the space was lovely and cozy, but not in a cutesy way, the food was super tasty and the service very good.

We shared the buffalo mozzarella salad to start. For my main, I opted for the braised lamb orecchiette, with butternut squash and baby spinach and DMR ordered the Farm Burger with cheddar. My dish was delicious! It had lots of flavor and different textures. The braised lamb was juicy and kept the pasta from getting too dry. Butter and parmesan finished the dish to give it another dimension of richness.


DMR didn't love his burger, though I can't remember why. I thought it was pretty delicious and wound up eating a third of it. Don't worry, I gave him many forkfuls of my pasta. The fries were definitely the star of the plate though, hand cut and expertly crisped.


Though we could have easily gotten by with one dessert, we wound up ordering two: the apple crisp and a banana chocolate upside down cake. The apple crisp was the winner and it was also a huge portion. The banana cake was kind of a mess. It sat in a pool of way too much sauce and was too sweet. I could barely taste banana as chocolate and caramel overwhelmed the dish, which isn't a bad thing necessarily but I was expecting more of a balance.