strong feelings about squash hands
or what i've been referring to as a "topical allergy"
I get a lot of seemingly topical allergic reactions without known cause (i.e. I wake up with a rash a lot and am the itchiest person you know) but I am not per say allergic to many things. One thing I have found I am concretely allergic to: peeling butternut squash. My hands get a super itchy film that lasts overnight, so I’ve taken to buying precut squash for soup and roasting. Turns out I’m not alone! This phenomenon, referred to by Bon Appetit as Squash Hands or more scientifically as a form of contact dermatitis, is awful, and I hate it. I thought this was just a me problem because anyone I ever described it to was confused by it, but I am thrilled to have an actually normal problem for once.
Some exciting NYC restaurants I’ve tried since we last spoke: As You Are at the new Ace Hotel in Brooklyn, Sami & Susu right next to my gym on the Lower East Side (they have chicken broth on the coffee menu! I love it!), lunch mini omakase for $30 at Sushi by M on 2nd Avenue and 5th Street and Prince Tea House, which is on my block (10th Street) and I had yet to try but loved.
National Sandwich Day happened, and for some reason Jet-Puffed marshmallows and Italian sandwich shop Alidoro created something they called a S’moagie. This makes total sense. I did not get to try the graham cracker–infused hoagie roll stuffed with toasted marshmallows, dark-chocolate sea-salt spread and crispy prosciutto topped with a brown-sugar glaze, but it will haunt me forever. In a good way, like I very much wanted to eat it but did not want to go to Rockefeller Center or Bryant Park that particular day.
In other food news, a hospital in Alaska is using indigenous foods to help heal patients, and it sounds like it might be the best hospital food in the country. Big game meat is illegal to sell in Alaska and seal meat and some fish are only legally allowed to be harvested by Alaskan Native people, so much of the hospital’s supply of Indigenous ingredients is donated by hunters or tourists who don’t want to take their meat home.
Major pivot: except for the time I flirted with eating exclusively sesame chicken Lean Cuisine (with all the peppers picked out by hand, duh), I didn’t eat a lot of frozen meals growing up. Exception: Stouffer’s macaroni and cheese. But now I can make what the New York Times is calling the “platonic ideal” of the dish. I will report back my findings if I can work up the nerve to buy Velveeta.
Also from the Times, this crazy scroll along story about how sushi spread in America and how it was related to a sort of cult like religion. I did not understand the whole thing (if you can explain to me what the Unification Church actually believed in I’ll take you for sushi), but I’m a sucker for a great illustration.
Other things I felt strongly about this week:
This quote from Sydney Segal in her Survivor exit interview to TVLine:
I said during my pre-game interviews, in order to win Survivor, you can’t be the best at anything. So looking back, I was f–ked from the beginning because I’m the best at everything.
Avril’s new song. Do you think the lyric “hey you, forever and ever you're gonna wish I was your wifey” is about Sum 41’s Deryck Whibley or Nickleback’s Chad Kroeger?
The soundtrack from “SIX” the musical. Highly recommend getting tickets.
Jackson McHenry writing the phrase “bouillabaisse of dramatic vignettes” in his article about needle drops on The Morning Show. If any of my Yale friends are friends with him, please introduce us, I think we would get along.
My unintentionally Chanukah colored manicure
That’s all for today! If you have any Thanksgiving cooking questions or Black Friday wants and needs send them my way and I’ll do my best to help you out ✌🏻