Sorry I Haven't Been Snacking and Destroying, I've Been Very Busy Breathing and Surviving
Life's Weird, But I'm Back! So Let's Talk About Some of the Best Snacks I Had in 2022.
Where the hell have I been? Fair question!
It has been a minute. More than a minute. Months, actually. And for that, I’m sorry. There were supposed to be words. So many words! And there were supposed to be snacks. SO MANY SNACKS!
So what happened? Well, what didn’t happen?
While I definitely don’t want to complain or, worse, sound like I’m spewing a list of excuses, the past six months have been far from accommodating when it comes to spare time and brain space. My father-in-law, Bob Macdonell, aka the goofiest, best pediatric nephrologist the world will ever know, passed away in May. As I tried to pull myself out of my grief cave, I got my first (and so far only, knock on wood) bout of COVID in July. Despite being double-boosted, it hit me hard. I lost my sense of smell and taste for almost two weeks.
NO SNACKS FOR TWO WEEKS! It was awful.
There was good stuff, too. Robby and I went to Mexico City in August. (More on that soon.) I started a new full-time job as arts editor at The Stranger in Seattle in September, and then, after a drive to Miami in October to bury Bob’s ashes (and eat a lot of Key lime pie, because that’s what he would’ve wanted), Robby and I packed up the car and the dog and drove across the country to move back to Seattle in November.
Phew.
Through it all, snacks, maybe for the first time in my life, fell by the wayside. Oh, I ate them! Of course I ate them. But every time I sat down to write a new installment of Snack and Destroy, my brain seized up. My fingers froze. The neurons in my head went haywire and I became useless for hours, sometimes days. (Sometimes I wonder if my skull Jell-O is still a little fried, tbh.)
But I am still here. And snacks are still out there! And now that my brain and life are finally able to calm down a little bit, I am excited to get back into fun, delicious things. If you’re still here, THANK YOU. Sincerely. If you’re new, WELCOME! I promise this newsletter is not actually an abyss where hopes and dreams and Corn Nuts go to die.
Before we return to our regularly scheduled programming—and now that I’ve purged my guilt for abandoning Snack and Destroy for as long as I have—here are a few of the more interesting things I ate in the last half of 2022.
Kasama Chocolate’s Salted Egg Yolk
Kasama Chocolate is a chocolate company based in Vancouver, B.C. I spotted their Salted Egg Yolk white chocolate bar at Hood Famous in Seattle and I can’t remember the last time I bought a chocolate bar so quickly after first seeing it. It was $17 for about two ounces, but couldn’t resist. Three of my favorite food things—salt, chocolate, and egg yolk—right there in the same candy bar!? I had to have it.
I was so excited about the chocolate I didn’t bother reading the label before tearing into it, so I fully expected a sweet custardy eggy flavor—maybe something like a salted Portuguese egg tart type situation—fully unaware of the fact that the bar also contains Thai chilis, curry leaves, garlic, and shallots.
Oh boy, it was weird. Each bite was a ~journey~. It was creamy at first, but as soon as the chocolate started to melt—which happened quickly, as white chocolate has a low melting point—all the spices and herbs started to come through. It was savory! Savory white chocolate! I’ve never had anything like it. That said, I’m not sure I’d ever buy it again, but it still deserves to be acknowledged.
Crunchy Cream at Fuji Bakery
The Crunchy Cream is the best cream-filled brioche donut you’ve ever had—a filling that is thick and custardy without being gluey—made extra special by a quick roll in candied cornflakes and sugar. This thing, this miracle, has like, three different kinds of crunch to it. The crisp of the sugar, the crunch of the cornflakes, the delicate crust of the fried dough.
And they don’t skimp on the filling, either. It begins to pour out with each bite. It makes a mess—the sugar, the cream, the cornflakes will get all over you and, no matter how hard you try to wash them away, will stick around for the rest of the day—but I love it so much I don’t even care.
The Golden Hour Cookie from HiFi Cookies
Speaking of candied cornflakes (insert Tori Amos song here), caramelized cereal is also in my favorite cookie of the year, the Golden Hour from Nashville’s HiFi Cookies.
The recipe is included in the Nashville Scene’s latest cookbook Baked, which is full of amazing, suitable-for-at-home-baking recipes from some of the best chefs in Nashville. I helped edit the book, which also required rounding up a panel of pals to test all the recipes. You know what’s fun? Recipe testing! Especially recipe testing a shit ton of delicious desserts!
It’s impossible to pick a favorite from the book (please also make Kat Bland’s Hazelnut Caramel Mousse Cake ASAP), but these cookies are in my top 5. They’re phenomenal! They’re time-consuming—you have to make candied cornflakes and caramelize white chocolate chunks—but the cookies come together really easily once all that is done. You don’t even have to have room-temperature butter! You mix it when it’s still cold! It’s brilliant!
You have to buy the book to get the recipe, or you can order the cookies for nationwide shipping from HiFi when they have them available on their rotating menu. However you get them, I pinky promise it’s worth the money and/or effort.
I mean, look at those pockets of caramelization…
Anyway. That’s some food I had. Sorry life got weird. I hope you’ll forgive me. Stick around and I’ll make it up to you with a 2023 filled with more snacks and songs than you could ever want. (Wait, that sounds like a threat. I don’t mean it as a threat. We’re friends! I would never hurt you.)