Hello and good evening! This video post is going out to everyone tonight, free subscribers and paid. Think of it as an early holiday gift from me to you, you’re welcome! But it’s really because I feel a little bit guilty about how far apart my posts have been the last few weeks post-traveling.
Hope everyone in the Northern Hemisphere is enjoying temporarily living in the depths of outer space, where the sun only shines for a few brief hours a day and it’s cold and dark the remaining twenty-two. That’s kind of what it feels like this month, as we creep slowly up to that most wonderful, holiest day, no not Christmas, but December the twenty- first, aka The Day it All Turns Around! The shortest day of the year, even though I swear it was just June twenty-first and I was saying the same thing, but in reverse and sad.
But I’m not here tonight to complain about the cold or dark, I’ve lived in New York for fifty-seven years, I knew what I was getting into when I chose to be born here. I have friends in cities much further north who are probably rolling their chilled eyes at me, if their tear ducts haven’t frozen shut yet. (I’m looking at you, Minneapolis) I was up in the Mid-Hudson Valley this weekend and while the temps never got out of the 30’s, we did manage to take a beautiful, sunny, snow-dusted hike which gave me a much-needed boost of light and fresh air. Here is a rare glimpse of my life-partner, non-legal spouse, significant other, buzzgack (a word he made up years ago for what we are to each other), Adam. He’s cute, right? I think so.
I highly recommend winter hiking, you just have to figure out the clothing combinations, and bring hiking poles because it’s icy and we are not young anymore. Also watch out for bloody spots on the ground. We saw a bloody splatter on the trail and I don’t even want to think about what it was… shudder.
Before we dive in this week, discussing this hilariously chaotic pesto messto video that seems to sum up the world, my apartment (more on that) and everything else right now, metaphorically, let me just make a few PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS.
The first is, in case you haven’t noticed, is that it’s the freaking holidays again. AGAIN. And that means the never-ending gifting season has begun. For you. Not for me, I opted out of that circle of hell years ago with my nearest and dearest, despite certain siblings who still insist on buying stuff for me despite my loud protestations. Although, she did get me a great sweater shaver for my birthday a few weeks ago, after I made her and my niece laugh about how I spent many an evening in the most exciting city in the world, on my couch, shaving the pills off my cashmere and fine woolens whilst watching “Somebody Somewhere” on HBO Max. Have you watched it? Maybe one of the best, most poignant, and beautiful shows about love, friendship and acceptance ever. And, it stars my old pal Bridget Everett. We worked together at a hotel in Maine thirty years (holy shit) ago and she very graciously appeared as my first guest in my old webseries, “Funny People Making Food” right before she blew up and became a huge star. Good timing! Go watch it. Get a friend’s MAX sign-in or get the free seven-day trial, watch it all, then cancel. That’s a good gift to you, for free!
Anyway, gift-giving. If you are flailing around, and starting to panic about what to get for your nearest and dearest, may I make a few suggestions? Yes? Ok then. Here is my Official The Chefsmartypants Academy 2024 Gifting Roundup. Don’t worry, it’s short. Like me.
#1. Give your besties and beloved a gift subscription to The Chefsmartypants Academy! Now that’s a gift they’ll appreciate the whole year long! And right now, gift subscriptions, new subscriptions and upgrades to paid are ON SALE! Yes that’s right, on SALE! Save 20% on one year of food fun and good learnin’.
#2. Give a gift that gives back. I’ve partnered with Cooks Who Feed on a custom apron and a collection of tote bags with my wittiness on them. They’re all made by hand by marginalized women in India, providing them with employment, income and pride, and the proceeds go to fighting hunger here in the US with groups like No Kid Hungry. Use my code SMARTYPANTS 5 to save $5 on any apron or tote this month. Each apron sold provides 150 meals and each tote provides 25 meals, so it’s definitely a gift that gives back to the most vulnerable among us.
#3. Give yourself a gift! Travel with me in 2025! We’re going on Food Adventure Trips to Korea and/or Japan (you can join for both or either) in May, and Ireland at the end of June. And stay tuned for dates to Puglia and Southern Italy in September 2025 and Burgundy and Bordeaux (that’s France) in October!! All the info, itineraries, pricing, etc. are on my Travel With Me page!
#4. Treat yourself or someone else to some Chefsmartypants Academy Merch! Shop here for t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, stickers, hats… So fun.
Ok, that’s enough of that. Did you watch the arugula messto video? It was delish, just a little tricky to process at first, and then I added a little bit too much water, but in the end, it was fab. Sometimes when Netanya and I are shooting a long day of content, we get a little slap-happy by the end, and I think that’s what happened here. But in the end, as long as something tastes great, who cares what a mess you made, making it, right? No one has to know. That’s why people didn’t have open-plan kitchens for the first thousand years of house-building. Who needs to see everything that goes on in your kitchen? Do your stove and your couch really need to be acquainted? I once lived in a tiny studio apartment in Manhattan and I lay in bed one night thinking, a bed should never be within arms reach of the fridge. It’s just wrong. I had a few friends over that night (the video-making night, not the bed-fridge proximity pondering night) and I stirred some of that pesto into some thick yogurt and added a drop of lemon and made a delightful dip for a lovely crudité which no one ate, because no one ever eats the crudité. When I worked in catering years ago, we’d spend days prepping vegetables for giant crudité baskets that nobody ate, and then I’d bag it all up and take it home at the end of the night. I didn’t pay for a baby carrot or bell pepper for years.
Why the chaotic air during production time last week?
There was a leak in the apartment above mine back in September, and it made my bathroom ceiling soggy, and start to bulge, and caused mold to grow in the walls. After many frantic attempts to get my super to even come upstairs to see it, and then have him tell me it wasn’t his problem (he is so not getting tipped this year), the co-op board and building management finally just said “call your insurance company”. So I did. I’ve been paying thousands in co-op insurance these last 30 years and never made a claim on anything. It actually never occurred to me to even call them. Such a dope. But I did, and they sent a mold inspector, a contactor, another mold inspector, and now a reconstruction contractor to put my ceiling back up. So the last few weeks since returning from Italy have been kind of chaotic around here. I have those plastic sheets taped over the bathroom and bedroom and hall doors, with zippers for entering, no ceiling in the bathroom and a big hole in the bedroom wall. That was all coming to a crescendo the day we shot the pesto video, which is why I was kind of frazzled and farmisht. (that’s your Yiddish word of the week, you’re welcome!)
But! Turns out…there was also mold under a few square feet of the circa 1979 wooden parquet floor tiles, which are original to the apartment, and turns out, those can’t be replaced! Oh well! Guess who’s getting new hardwood floors installed this winter? Me! This guy! Who’s paid so, so, so much on co-op insurance over the years and can finally get something back! A happy holiday season, indeed! I felt a little guilty at first, until I did the math of how much I’ve paid over the years, and then I did a little gleeful jig, as one will do upon learning this news.
Of course, it does mean I have to move everything out, while they remove the antique floor, scrape the forty-four year old (probably toxic) glue and install the new floor, but maybe I can time it so it all happens while we’re on our next trip, which is our Food And Wine adventure in February to Argentina, Chile and Uruguay, where it’ll be summer, and which is most definitely sold out, but if you have FOMO, you can still come to Korea and Japan or Ireland. Or Italy or France…It’s never too early to plan, and don’t you deserve to take a fun food and wine-filled adventure? Of course you do. Tell your nearest and dearest that it’s all about YOU this year, and I’ll see you at the welcome dinner! Now, I have some pilly sweaters that need seeing to, and the “Somebody, Somewhere” show finale tonight.
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