Hi everyone, me again.
Thousands of miles from my hometown, Los Angeles, I recently made a friend who grew up a few miles from me and shares big feelings for many of the same restaurants back home. The list of dishes that reminded us of being little runts in a big city got so long, we threw a dinner party to recreate some of them.
We started with bacon-wrapped dates filled with Parmesan, as Suzanne Goin does at her restaurant A.O.C. There were thin slices of the Godmother sandwich, an Italian hero from Bay Cities that isn’t an either-or but a more-is-more situation. Salami, mortadella, capocollo, ham and prosciutto. Dill pickles and giardiniera. Lettuce, tomato and onion.
But the real heroes of the meal were Mexican hot dogs (above): bacon-wrapped and decked with charred peppers and onions and zigzags of ketchup, mustard and mayonnaise. (It was a double bacon-wrapped night, chased with martinis made like the ones at Musso & Frank Grill: stirred, absent vermouth and cold.)
Featured Recipe
Mexican Hot Dogs
On the sidewalk outside many games, shows and late-night spots in Los Angeles, you can hear hot dogs sizzling on portable griddles. The smell of sweet onions and smoky bacon sidetracks your footsteps. You don’t need a griddle to make them at home, though; in the oven, the bacon neatly renders and curls around the hot dogs while jalapeños char alongside — it’s a sheet-pan meal!
This dinner-ode to two people’s particular Los Angeles was jolly because the dishes didn’t make much sense together outside our own memories — and most of it was finger food.
When we lose the cutlery, “we feel everything,” as Ligaya Mishan wrote in T magazine in February. “The nerve endings in our fingers are triggered; our senses expand. We taste more.”
So tonight, feel your food. The flakes of chapati outside a rolex. The airy squish of pull-apart milk bread rolls. The bounce beneath rigid shells of peel-and-eat shrimp. The warmth of a chocolate doughnut muffin.
And because I’m always thinking about how to reduce ingredients, minutes and dishes in recipes for you over at New York Times Cooking, I can’t help but also point out: Eating with your hands also means fewer things to wash.
P.S. There are many more finger foods and minimal cleanup recipes over at NYT Cooking. And this month, Cooking subscribers can share as many recipes as they want with friends and family. Happy 10th anniversary to NYT Cooking! Just tap the “Give” icon on any recipe to create a paywall-free link.
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