American Vinegar Works Chardonnay Vinegar
Vinegar doesn’t get enough credit as a pantry ingredient, and I need to write a proper piece about it soon. Here’s what matters – small-batch vinegars taste completely different from the mass-produced garbage most people buy. There are plenty of solid producers but I’ve been reaching for American Vinegar Works a lot lately. The chardonnay vinegar especially.
It’s a light vinegar that works great on roasted vegetables, in soups, or in salad dressings. I’ve been making this killer vinaigrette with a tablespoon of Greek yogurt, a teaspoon of mayo, some salt, a few tablespoons of olive oil, and about a tablespoon of the vinegar. You can tweak the salt, oil, and vinegar amounts to dial in whatever taste and texture you’re after. The result is this really acidic dressing that cuts through rich stuff like sausages or braised meats.
I had it recently with spicy Italian pork sausage, marinated cannellini beans, and some greens from the farmer’s market.
Our Place Wonder Oven
I just got this air fryer and mini-oven thing from Our Place and it’s completely changed how I cook. Sure, it’s nice that it functions as an air fryer, oven, broiler, and toaster in one unit. But the real benefit is how fast it preheats compared to my regular oven.
That’s been incredibly convenient and has saved me a ton of time, which matters since I live alone and usually cook small portions. I almost never turn on my actual oven anymore – I do everything in this thing now, from roasting potatoes to reverse-searing steaks.
Sourdough Cookies
I found these sourdough chocolate chip cookies recently and they’re ridiculous. Really clean ingredients and they taste incredible. I went through two bags almost immediately. I’ll be ordering more pretty soon.
Burlap & Barrel Crushed Red Peppers
Crushed red peppers are an Italian-American staple but most of them are so flat and flavorless they’re basically pointless. Then Burlap & Barrel put out their crushed red pepper blend with Razza. It’s well-balanced, works on everything, and it’s become my default pepper blend for Italian cooking. It’s especially good in Pasta all’Amatriciana.
Kitchen Garden Farm Sriracha
I’m into hot sauce but the market frustrates me. Most small producers these days are all about novelty ingredients and weird flavor combinations. That can be fun but what I actually want is a classic all-purpose hot sauce made with really clean, high-quality ingredients.
This sriracha from Kitchen Garden Farm does that – they’re not trying to reinvent anything, just making a really solid sriracha with simple organic ingredients and fermentation.
Six Seasons of Pasta
One of my favorite cookbooks ever is Six Seasons by Joshua McFadden. It’s the cookbook I’ve recommended and given as a gift more than any other, and I’ve learned a massive amount from it. I think it’s one of the great modern cookbooks.
McFadden just put out his new book – Six Seasons of Pasta – and I picked up a copy. I haven’t had time to read it or cook from it yet, but I’m confident there’s a lot of good stuff in there. Looking forward to digging in.
