Tour de Wings: Albany’s Westside
Let’s get this out of the way. Albany isn’t just a city, it’s also a county. But for better or worse, Albany also serves as a shorthand for the greater Capital Region.
There have been a long long list of tours organized by the Fussy Little Blog over the years. The tours started with apple cider donuts, and slowly progressed through other regional specialties.
Wings took a little while to get started because there were just so many darned places to get them. Long ago, it was decided that since buffalo style wings were so omnipresent, the only way for a tour to make sense is if we looked at micro-regions within the area.
Relatively arbitrary political boundaries matter not to this process.
What matters is finding five excellent, long standing places, that people go to for wings, so a thoughtful group of eaters can evaluate all of them on the same day. The purpose of this is largely for fun. But wings are also terrible for human consumption. So if you are going to indulge, it makes sense to get the best ones you can. Hopefully, the results of the tour can help locals find wings worth eating.
That said, the next tour is ready to roll, and we would love you to join us. Here are the deets.
Inviting Disappointment
Who wants to be disappointed? I mean, it’s a big world. Surely there are some people who thrive on being let down. But most of us would prefer to have our expectations met, if not exceeded.
Yet far too often, we doom ourselves to unsatisfactory outcomes with an overly optimistic sense of the world around us.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m neither preaching an ideology of pessimism, nor am I suggesting one lower the bar of criticism. But yesterday’s guest post from Emily L had a line in it that really struck a chord. She wrote, “If I had gone with my gut instinct with the eggs benedict, I would have been disappointed. The bread was soggy and the hollandaise was too lemony.”
Emily loves eggs benedict. She originally set off on a quest in the Capital Region to find the best one. And for the most part, her search revealed one failure after the next. All of which felt very familiar for some reason.
Soup Strolling
Without a doubt we are in the midst of soup weather.
I’ve been making batches of chicken stock, which I am simmering down into a concentrated gel and freezing for later. Unfortunately, we still aren’t eating meat at home, but that will end on February 1. Then the floodgates of stock shall open.
Until then, I’ve made an Italian vegetable and bean soup, modified from a recipe by Lidia Bastianich. Almost every day for the past week I’ve enjoyed one of my favorite soups, lentil and brown rice. And if you call those Cuban black beans a soup, well, that’s been on the menu too.
The good news is that we’re staying warm. The better news is that my diet and weight loss goals are going swimmingly well. Beans are calorically dense, so I’ve been careful about my portion sizes. But I’ll have some more thoughts on competing diets down the road.
Now, it’s time to celebrate, and what better way than on Saturday in Schenectady with twenty-seven different soups! Who is going to win the coveted Golden Tureen? Well, there are a few soups on the menu that have piqued my interest. So let’s talk soup!
Jarhead
What do you when it’s freezing cold, the snow is coming down, and you’re stuck at home?
Around here, it would seem people make french toast, get wasted, and poop. It’s the only way to make sense of those last minute snow emergency purchases of bread, milk, eggs, beer, and toilet paper.
As for me, I was able to make it out for a last minute shop before the snow began to fall. But on my list were some of the staples like Trader Joe’s frozen raspberries, some snack foods for the kids, and a bag of organic pears. But the most important thing I needed were tabs of dishwasher detergent. Because my plans were for doing a lot cooking, and the near-constant running of the dishwasher was the only way I was going to make it through my list.
Well, the dishwasher and the stash of empty kimchi jars I’ve got scattered around the kitchen.
The Blueprint
What’s the best way to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday?
As a food blogger, I’ve struggled with this over the years. In the early days, we stuck to food content, and business as usual. But in recent years, we’ve turned a corner. Because MLK has his own day. Some people have the day off from work.
Why?
So we can do a little more shopping?
So we can catch up on a little sleep?
So we can go about the business of life?
No. No. No.
Doctor King was murdered to silence his voice, to prevent the spread of the messages he preached. So I think one of the best things we can do today is to amplify those messages of love, peace, and justice. If you’ve got the whole day off thanks to the good doctor, the least you can spare is twenty minutes to hear a speech on the elements required to build a better life.
Thanks to the magic of the internet, here’s a speech from October 26, 1967 in Philadelphia, delivered to junior high school students. It’s fantastic, and continues to be relevant today.
The Birthday Party To Come
Parties are part of what I do.
Every month, as part of the Yelp gig, I organize an Official Yelp Event. And I guess those are like parties of sorts. There is typically food and drink. They are two hours. And I hear from Yelpers who make the guest list that these events are fun.
Still, in my heart of hearts, I don’t quite feel like a party person. Fortunately, I have very little to do with the party being held at Casa del Fussy tonight. It’s a sleepover, and Little Miss Fussy is having five other kids over.
She has planned out the whole thing. I get to fill the role of hunter-gatherer and procure the food. Fortunately, I know a thing or two about pizza, and I have some good friends who pointed me in the direction of the cake I forgot I wanted.
The One Thing Everybody Wants
It’s become a trope around food circles within the Capital Region.
Someone will ask, “What’s the one thing that’s missing from the local culinary landscape?” And the chorus will respond, “Ethiopian food.”
There are a few other common answers like, “A dim sum restaurant with cart service.” And invariably there are the negative answers along the lines of, “The last thing we need is yet another Italian restaurant.” There are also a small handful who continue to long for a place to get banh mi, made on a proper roll that shatters when you bite into it. Although those voices seem to be fading a bit. Sometimes, there is a lone voice calling for an upscale German spot.
Those are all fine and good, but personally I have a longing for simple, casual, rustic food from Spain and France. A legit tapas bar, with bocadillos, and without the aspirations of being a full restaurant, would be right up my alley. Small plates. Spanish wines. Think Lucas Confectionery, but with more of a focus on food than wine. Ooh. Actually, I should pitch that to Heather and Vic.
Then there is the dream for a casual French bistro. Imagine the warm comfortable feeling you get when walking into one of our classic taverns. Well, take that, reduce the menu to a few simple classic dishes, like braised chicken, grilled sausage with lentils, mussels in wine, a ham and cheese sandwich, and a small steak with fries. Maybe through in a ratatouille or something for vegetarians. Serve good cheap wine. Supply great crusty bread with cultured butter. And I’m a happy man.
But I’m the outlier. The good news is that for those who have been waiting for Ethiopian food in the Capital Region, your wait is over.
Drinking Yogurt
What do you know about the human biome?
Personally, I know next to nothing, just the little pieces of information I’ve picked up along the way. But it’s an interesting idea that each of us is made up of more things that aren’t human, than our own human being parts. We are each an entire universe of microorganisms.
Where it starts to get weird is that these microorganisms can have an impact on behavior. It sounds like make believe, but it’s science. Have you read the thing about mice and the toxoplasma parasite?
That made the news a few years ago, and I’m not quite sure how far this line of scientific inquiry has come since then. Perhaps, just perhaps, my current love and interest in fermented foods is driven by the bacteria I’ve already consumed trying to increase their numbers. It may be the only thing that helps explain the following interest in drinking yogurt.
Fussy Frozen Green Beans
Last week’s post about frozen broccoli was a surprise hit, and elsewhere on social media a reader asked about the other frozen vegetables I lean on during the winter months. So today, I thought I would share another staple of the vegetable side dish repertoire.
But first, I should note, that winter is still a great time to shop the local farmers markets. I was just at the Schenectady Greenmarket on Sunday and picked up a butternut squash, some beets, a cabbage, and a bag of dried beans. The winter storage crops that grow in and around the Capital Region are some of the tastiest vegetables we produce.
I also happened to find some local braising greens. Unfortunately, I was a bit distracted and forgot to ask how they were grown given that we’re currently in the heart of winter, so that will be a topic for another day.
Today, I have to start by saying, not all frozen green beans are created equal.
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