Round Up

Simplicity in Cooking, New Cookware, Tallow Chips, and More

Hey, everyone!

It’s been several months since I last published this newsletter. I think that’s the longest I’ve gone without publishing since I first started writing it! I’ve been busy lately— I moved to NYC, started a new job, and have had a lot less free time than I did previously. I missed writing here, and now that I’m out of the transitional moving phase, I’m excited to get back into it.

I’ve lived in a lot of different places throughout my adult life, and it’s always interesting to observe how each new place changes how and what I cook. Some places offer local access to really special ingredients— seafood in Coastal Mexico, meat in Central Texas, and dairy in Upstate NY, for example. Every place has its own seasonality, and it’s always fun to shop at local farmers markets, see what each new place has to offer, and to see how that changes throughout the year. One of the hardest parts about leaving Southern California was giving up the year-round access to world-class produce— those are still my favorite farmers markets in the world.

Each new places comes with a change of ingredients and availability, as well as a new home, a new kitchen setup, and a new schedule. In NYC I have the smallest kitchen that I’ve had in years, and a busy work schedule means I have more constraints around time than I’ve ever had before. I’m embracing this. I firmly believe that constraint breeds creativity— when you work within the confines of certain limitations, you end up producing new ideas that never would have materialized given infinite optionality.

For me lately, this has meant a real focus on simplicity in my cooking. When I had a lot more time and space, I’d often cook more elaborate, technical dishes, even if it were just for myself on a weeknight. Over the last couple of months, I’ve taken the opposite approach. I’ve focused on buying the highest-quality ingredients I can get at local farmers markets, and preparing them really simply.

I like to say that great cooking happens at the intersection of fresh produce and a well-stocked pantry. If you’ve got your bases covered with some great oils, spices, vinegars, sauces, and condiments, then it becomes really easy to make delicious meals out of the basic meats, vegetables, cheeses, and other produce you pick up on a regular basis. That’s exactly how I’m cooking these days. I’m also taking advantage of the abundance of bakeries, cheese shops, butchers, speciality grocers, and other local shops here in the city. If you’ve got any to recommend— please send them over!

Myles

Our Place Titanium Pan

This is my favorite new piece of cookware I’ve picked up in the last year or so. I really don’t like most non-stick pans— the chemically coated ones are terrible for your health, and the ceramic ones generally don’t last very long and don’t stand up well to heat. I cooked with titanium pans for the first time a few years ago and really loved them, so I was excited to see this from Our Place.

The interior is entirely titanium— meaning there’s no chemical non-stick coating— but it’s designed with small grooves that help to give it some really nice non-stick properties. The best part is that it has an incredibly high heat tolerance, so you don’t have to baby it like you do with ceramic. This has become my go-to pan for things like stir-fries, scrambled eggs, sausages, sauces, steaming, and a bunch more. I use it pretty much daily at this point.

NYC Restaurant Recommendations

Since moving to NYC, I’ve added a few new favorite spots to my list. If you live here or visit, these are all worth checking out.

• Eyval - A Persian restaurant in Bushwick where I had the best meal I’ve eaten since moving to NYC.

• The Snail - I’ve been here a bunch of times, and it’s consistently amazing. They serve a 10/10 burger, but everything else is great, too.

• Esse Taco - A new-ish taqueria from Enrique Olvera in Williamsburg. Currently my favorite taco spot in the city.

• Jonny’s Pizza - An unassuming but really great slice shop near me. It doesn’t have nearly as much hype as some of the other well-known spots, but I think it’s up there with the best of them.

Cacio e Pepe Scrambled Eggs

This is an example of one of those really simple dishes I’ve been making recently. It’s not at all complicated, but with really high-quality ingredients it shines.

This has been my go-to way of making eggs these days— soft-scramble a few eggs in butter, then top with a big shaving of Pecorino cheese and some fresh-cracked black pepper. Make sure you get the good peppercorns— these ones from Burlap & Barrel are my favorite.

Vandy Chips

These are my current snack obsession. They’re made by the same company that makes Masa Chips (by far the best tortilla chip on the market), and both are fried exclusively in beef tallow. If you want to avoid seed oils, there are a ton of options in the market today for chips fried in avocado oil. But given the concerns around rancid or fraudulent avocado oil, I think that tallow is a safer (and more delicious) bet.

Try these with homemade French onion dip or steak tartare.

The Best Chef’s Knife

I recently subscribed to Sean Brock’s newsletter, and I saw that he recommends the same chef’s knife I’ve been recommending for years— the Misono UX10.

I’ve had quite a few friends purchase it recently, and I still think it’s the best all-around chef’s knife for the money. Now I can say that one of the most respected chefs in the country agrees with me. It’s the most-used knife in my kitchen. I personally prefer the Santoku, but both are great.

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Thanks for reading. If you liked this newsletter, check out 80/20 Cooking, a minimalist guide to the fundamentals of cooking that I put together.