Best Weekend Eatings

I heard tell of a friend's coworker bent on celebrating the 4th of July by eating 10 Hotdogs and Hamburgers over the weekend (I don't know if that meant ten of each or ten total, but there was a goal and there was a larger than usual number, that's what's important).

I didn't have quite such grand notions for my Independence Day weekend, BUT I had heard that the Shake Shack would be serving corndogs all weekend in honor of the holiday, so I resolved to myself to eat one every day--let me tell you right now that didn't happen, but I had more corndogs than usual.

Friday night had my first corndog (not all this food was mine) along with the Shake Shack's holiday-themed "My Concrete 'Tis of Thee" featuring vanilla frozen custard, caramel, and giant pieces of fancy dark chocolate from Brooklyn.


The corn dog, it was phenomenal. The corn batter had jalepeño in it and the whole thing smelled of a state fair (in the good way!). Bravo, bravo.


For lunch Saturday I worked on a sandwich, a pork chop and fried egg and ginger scallion and homemade pickle and kewpie mayo mixed with rooster sauce sandwich. Pretty good.

And Saturday evening I went to work with my first effort out of the Frankies cookbook, a nice pot of lentil soup. The most ambitious thing to cook? Not really, but I do love lentil soup and I resolved to cook it just like the recipe said . . . so that meant soaking my lentils for 8 hours, a step I usually skip. The recipe called for a single strip of bacon which seemed like a typo to me, so I emailed Pete about this, he responded "More bacon is better." So I gave it half a slab.

Behold, my ingredients (no, no, no dish soap. Don't be silly.)! Should I have bought a higher quality bacon? Probably definitely. Sorry soup, I dishonored you a little there.


And Saturday night, around 10, decided I better work on my corndog resolution and dashed over to the 'Shack. I ordered my corndog and a purple cow and my cashier said "Wow, that's a spectacular order. I think that's what I'd have right now." It's nice to be right about something. This little second dinner was excellent, but afterwords I said to myself "You know, two corn dogs in two days is good enough. Let's not spoil a sacred thing."


Sunday! The Fourth! Participated in a grand feast at Lars' house, did not interrupt the occasion with any photo taking. But I ate like a king. I mean, I ate like a president. This is America!

Monday, made another porkchop sandwich, this time I scrambled the egg with the pork. I think this is a better way to do it, I don't need yolk all over my hands (not all the time, that is). Also, I have learned something about food photography from this picture: Sandwiches look better closed, this is just to confusing a spread. Sorry to have put you through this trial.

And Monday night? A trip to RUB for my absolute favorite burger in the city right now. Seriously, you just don't know.

Here's the second most amazing thing (next to the burger is what I mean, of course) from that meal: 3 brand new fives given as change, three close siblings these bills. Check the numbering: 44788001 through 003. It's hard to break up the litter, but that's what they were made for.

And that's what I ate! Sometimes I like to show you what I ate and this was one of those times.