~~~~for more irregularly scheduled cooking lessons in your inbox, why not subscribe?~~~~
Hello!
I’ve been away in the land of self doubt, in the valley of a lack of ideas, in the shadow of guilt over the inadequacy of not having ideas. My mind was so busy ruminating over being a fraud with nothing to write about that it didn’t notice that my hands were getting busy: my hands were deftly preparing an open-face tuna toast, the process streamlined through muscle memory because I’d made the same thing three times this week.
I don’t wanna admit it took days before I realised I had a recipe to tell you about, but it did. That’s what self doubt does: it distracts you from your innate need to create, blinds you from the things you do so excellently. This recipe had materialised right beneath my hands, had come together because of circumstance: I didn’t get groceries and then I found four cans of tuna purchased last year during the apocalypse. Upon seeing the tinned fish, I knew exactly what recipe I wanted to emulate: Allium Market’s Spanish tuna toast, which I can’t seem to find on their online menu right now.
If you’ve had a conversation about sandwiches with me at any point in the last year, you KNOW how in love I’ve been with Allium Market, the growing cafe/specialty grocer/cheese monger in Coolidge Corner. I want to tell you they have a fantastic sandwich menu, I do, but I don’t actually know that they do—what I do know is their open face tuna toast is one of the best meals in town.
I ordered this toast around three times last year when things were slowly opening back up, in need of a meal to help pass the time sitting solo and reading Oscar Wilde in the Hall’s Pond Sanctuary secret garden (iykyk) in Brookline. The tuna toast was so good it kind of changed my life back then. Eating it felt like a revival, a reminder that food can taste this good and therefore life will get better. And life did get better. I seem to get my affirmations from tuna toast, where do you get yours?
While I don’t have anything against mayonnaise, I do have a certain soft spot for “salads” (tuna, potato, egg) sans mayo but loaded up with olive oil and lemon juice instead. Mayo-less salads seem to be a recurring theme for me, starting with the very first issue of this newsletter! Without further ado, allow me to serenade you with this outstandingly simple, cheap, filling pantry meal … all without mayo to do the heavy lifting.
tuna toast
makes 1 serving
ingredients:
massive slice of crusty artisan bread
5oz can of tuna, drained
8-minute boiled egg
1/2 shallot, thinly sliced
small tomato, thinly sliced and lightly salted (it makes it taste more tomato-y)
half a lemon, juiced
2 large caper berries, sliced, or sub a tablespoon regular capers
olive oil
dash of paprika
salt and pepper to taste
Optional:
Maldon salt
leftover herbs (dill, parsley, or basil), leaves and tender stems only, torn to smaller pieces
method:
Toast a large slice of crusty bread (see A Note on Bread below)
In a small bowl, dump out the canned drained tuna and use your hand to crumble it to teeny bits
Add half the lemon juice, all the sliced red onion, and caper berries or regular capers. Salt, pepper, and paprika to taste. Add a tablespoon of olive oil, two if you know what’s good for you. Thoroughly mix the tuna salad, taste for seasoning, and add more lemon juice, pepper, or salt as needed.
On a plate, place your toasty piece of bread in the center. Layer your sliced tomato on top of the bread. Scoop the tuna salad onto the tomato slices. Your tuna toast will look loftier than you anticipated. Slice your 8-minute egg vertically (so that almost every slice gets a little yolk in the middle) and layer the slices atop the tuna salad. Add a few sprigs of dill, parsley, or basil. Dress the finished toast one last time with a small pour of olive oil and a few grains of Maldon sea salt, black pepper, and another dash of paprika. Serve immediately.
a note on bread:
If you’re in the market for a boule of bread, Hi Rise Bakery, Clear Flour Bakery, and Nashoba Brook Bakery are all exceptional. Slice the bread with a sharp, serrated bread knife the same day you buy it, seal the slices in a large ziplock, and freeze your bread.
When you’re ready to eat the bread, pop a slice into the toaster or better yet, on a small sheet pan under your oven’s broiler. It takes some practice, but the broiler is so much more multi-faceted than a toaster. You can decide to eat your bread at any one of the stages listed below:
Thaw: On the “low” setting with your bread on a rack in the middle of the oven, your bread will thaw without toasting
At this stage, it tastes perfectly fresh, exactly as it did on the day you bought it. Here, I love to smear it with cultured butter and apricot jam, and a sprinkle of Maldon sea salt for good measure
Dry/crisp: If you keep it there long enough, it’ll dry out to the point that it won’t easily become soggy from the toppings you add
Golden: Once crispy, move the sheet pan to the top rack and set the broiler on “high.” The bread will toast to a perfect golden colour, so long as you don’t forget about it for long enough to char
This crispy, toasty bread is perfect for the tuna toast recipe, or any use that involves a wet (sorry lol) topping. This way, your crispy bread will outlast getting soggy for the 15 minutes it takes to eat your meal
Your bread charred? No worries! Wait till it’s cool enough to handle, hold the slice over the sink, and use a butter knife to quickly scrape off the charred bits
foodie fuckups
I finished reading Liz Gilbert’s book about living a creative life, Big Magic recently, where she aptly states that “It’s a simple and generous rule of life that whatever you practice, you will improve at.”
Well.
I moved into a new apartment in Cambridge in the time it took me between writing this issue and the last. On my very first night cooking at my new place, I chose to make chicken piccata with pasta, the first recipe I learned to make when I came to the US 7 years ago. Back then, I was cooking in the dorms with a single fork, an 8-inch pan and an 8-inch pot, both of which are still with me.
On this night in 2021 in my new adult home, I didn’t have any chicken broth, forgot to sautée the garlic so it just poached in hot water next to the chicken, even my pasta stuck together (do the Italians know about this? Is anybody working on this??). This was my first time cooking in a month, and it really goes to show that without practice, our skills dull so quickly.
lunchtime reads
Everyone is Beautiful and No One Is Horny, RS Benedict, BloodKnife, a chronicle of the simultaneous hyper-sexualization and de-sensualization of bodies in Hollywood media
On a similar vein, read about Kumail Nanjiani’s Feelings, E Alex Jung, Vulture, a profile of an actor we all love confronting the obsessions that can arise from healthy eating, dieting, working out, and getting buff
I know I tend to swear up and down that I hate podcasts, but just real quick, listen to It’s Been a Minute with Sam Sanders’ episode, “‘LuLaRich’ reveals how MLMs mirror the American economy.” In it, a charismatic host interviews an excitable woman passionately talking about how the devaluation of women’s housework has opened a chasm for these predatory companies to take advantage of stay-at-home moms??? the drama!!
cooking
Chrissy Tiegan’s pork-stuffed cucumber soup from her cookbook Cravings. This Harvest Salad, combining best-of-fall produce. Avocado toast with spicy Fresno peppers and bacon for breakfast.
consuming
Hasan Minhaj’s new comedy show, The King’s Jester, now touring. If you think the promotional photo is too damn sexy, you may be too faint of heart to hear him dish about his hot, monogamous private life.
Bhaskar Sunkara’s The Socialist Manifesto, and enough Jacobin to be too angry to keep working.
Montero, a sweet letter of love and healing to Lil Nas X’s younger self.
doing
I went to Armenia again in September/October. I interacted with a lot of art and artists, from a man who lived in his own gallery-artist collective to another who opened the only artist-level photography film processing studio in Yerevan. I also purchased my first ever rug :) we’re going to build a life together
a sneak peek into season 2 of i was cooking
In my inattentiveness this summer, I missed my own newsletter’s anniversary on September 25th! Woops. During this 1st year, I published 5 editions. For the coming year, I’m setting my sights high and aiming for 12 to come out around the middle of each month.
This year, I’ll be experimenting with ingredients and tools highlights of essential things to keep handy in your kitchen, exploring Armenian grocery stores and the best things you can buy there, helping you workshop a recipe you tried that didn’t work out, and taking suggestions! What would you like to see?
If you liked these issues, I encourage you to invite a friend and follow along. It still really does mean the world to me that you’re here reading <3