Hi Lovelies!

Hitting Pan has always been about finishing something up and declaring my delight in how it impacted my life, whether it was a T-shirt, a moisturizer, or the cutest shape of pasta in existence.

I lost my dad on April 27th. Along with the stunning range of emotions that has followed, I’ve taken special note of the bright(er) spots in my daily life, and am actively clocking how these little things balance the rougher stuff.

These silver linings include, in no particular order:

cake;

my bedroom upgrade;

the tastiest takeout in Fort Greene, Brooklyn (where I live);

the only tequila sour recipe you need;

and the shows distracting me on demand.

I’m also including a really, really annoying book that I will harp about to whoever will listen, because complaining is cathartic, too.

I’m self-employed, and the overwhelming majority of my income comes from paid subscriptions to this newsletter. Finding time and space to write and develop recipes hasn’t been easy for me the past couple of weeks. If you have been here a while and thought about signing up, this would be an amazing time to support me.

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Spring Sprang Sprung

During Margie’s twice-a-day neighborhood walks, I have decided that grieving in the spring seems way better than being sad in the winter. We live two blocks from Fort Greene Park, where there’s a particular thin grass that comes up in the spring that Marge loves to snack on. While I wait for her to finish her salad course, I get to gander on trees heavy with greenery and blooms, along with plenty of flower sightings—tulips, lilacs, rhododendron, magnolia, cherry blossoms1.

In fact, I’m an early spring adopter: Way back in March, I welcomed the season with a Tea + Reading Party, where I got to meet 50 of you. For the party, Lauren Schofield took two of my recipes and several pounds of Plugrà butter and transformed one toasted sesame cake and one dark cocoa-banana into literal works of art.

Some people lose their appetite after something like this. Turns out I’m the kind of person who just remembered she has several pieces of those cakes in the freezer. Maybe I can’t bring my dad back, but I can eat cake! (Like I said, it’s the little things.)

To honor the power of cake, here is the recipe for my Toasted Sesame Cake, now with no paywall. (You can get the Banana Bread with Dark Cocoa and Peanuts here.) It’s got the spirit of an olive oil cake and is fragrant with vanilla, lemon, and sesame. I think the texture is even better the day after baking, and yes: it freezes really well.

Here’s the pdf and plain text.

Toasted Sesame Cake

259KB ∙ PDF file

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Toasted Sesame Cake

Advance recipe drop from Food is a Feeling (Sept. 2026)

Makes one 9-inch cake

¾ cup (6 ounces) chilled unsalted butter

Vegetable oil, for cake pan

2 tablespoons (30 g) tahini

2 tablespoons toasted sesame oil (26g)

1 tablespoon (18g) white or yellow miso

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

3/4 cup (144g) sugar, plus 2 tablespoons (24g) for topping the cake

2 lemons

1 cup (120g) all-purpose flour

⅓ cup (42 grams) fine almond flour

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1 ½ teaspoons (7g) baking powder

½ teaspoon (2g) baking soda

3 large eggs

4 tablespoons (60ml) toasted sesame seeds, divided

Preheat oven to 375°F. Cut the butter into tablespoon-sized pieces and let them temper while you measure your ingredients and toast the sesame seeds. You want the butter to be pliable and cool when it’s time to mix the batter. If you cannot bend the butter without it breaking, it is still too cold. Lightly grease a 9-inch cake pan and line the bottom with a round of parchment paper.

In a small bowl, mix together the tahini, sesame oil, miso, vanilla, and ¼ cup warm water until no lumps of miso remain. Set aside.

Put 3/4 cup sugar in the bowl of a standing mixer (or large bowl, if using beaters) and grate the zest of both lemons over (about 1 tablespoon). Use your fingers to thoroughly work the zest into the sugar. Add the all-purpose flour, almond flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda, and comb through with your hands to combine and break up any lumps.

Reclining in My Bed Chamber

Months ago—when it was still winter—I started redecorating my bedroom, inspired singularly by the orange-patterned fabric in the rendering, above. I don’t know where I found it, but it was I-can’t-live-without-this at first sight. Fixated, I hatched a plan to hang it on the wall behind my headboard, and Jessy Smith at Minimizing NYC created a rendering to help me plot and plan it out.

I intended to hang the fabric like a curtain, floor to ceiling, wall to wall … which was a beautiful vision, untilI found out how much that would cost (anyone else have an incredible talent for picking out the most expensive option before seeing a single price tag???). I was okay with a less voluminous effect, so I cut the quantity in half and it still makes a statement.

My architect friends Michael and Jaclyn at Varlands (the firm that designed my kitchen!) kindly placed the wholesale order for me. During the months of waiting that ensued, I repainted, changed all my art around, and accepted the fact that I didn’t have funds left over for a new rug.2

Finally, at the end of December, the fabric arrived, and I immediately handed it off to curtain expert, Kelley Peters-Patel at Picnic House Drapers. January and February slogged along, and in March, Kelley came back to install the curtain.

I’m not an interiors person—that was firmly the domain of my ex—and it hasn’t been easy for me to trust my instincts about making design-y changes since becoming single. Until the fabric went up, 15% of me was sure I’d made a huge mistake and would deeply regret this folly and the misuse of funds. But the 85% (and input from actual experts) prevailed: I am obsessed with my bedroom. I love the way my bedside lamps reflect an orange glow off the fabric onto the pages of my books; I love how cozy and muffled it feels in there; and I love lying on my bed with the fabric behind me while I stare at the opposite side of the room (I’ve been lying in bed quite a bit lately).

If spring is about reaping what you sow, this bedroom project is the bulbs I planted in the dead of winter. (In reality, I forgot to plant tulips, which have otherwise bloomed in my backyard for the past 10 years, lol.)

Takeout and TV

Aside from the recipes I’ve got in the works for Food Processing, I haven’t been doing much cooking. I have, instead, been ordering in or taking out (see above re: my resilient appetite).

These business keep me full (and are all cute/fun enough to visit in person, too):

Zhong Zhong. I always get the chilil wontons and the Szechuan braised beef noodle soup. 10/10.

Sukh Thai. Working through a fixation with the Kea Mao (with squid) and the Kana Moo Grob—somehow the crispy skin on the pork belly stays that way, even during delivery wait times.

Burritos Juarez. I live close enough to this viral spot to jump in during off times—the lines for the handmade flour tortillas get insane. I always get the frijoles con queso burrito; Cosmo loves the pork colorado. Their breakfast burritos also slap.

TV is a wonderful, powerful, benevolent distraction. When a show is on, I’m good. When the show stops … I need to put on a new show.

I’m watching The Comeback (started with season one!), The Pitt, DTF St. Louis, Euphoria (new season is insanely good, I think!), Survivor 50, RHOBH, Summer House (used to love Wes, now convinced he is a full-on demon), Beef (season one is better, but I’ll finish the new one), Rupaul’s Drag Race (season 18 is excellent), Culinary Cup (enjoying way more than I expected; Padma forever), Love on the Spectrum (newest season, I’ve watched all the others), and a lot of Hasan Piker’s streams on YouTube. Thinking about rewatching Villanelle.

I’m Centering Tequila

I know better than to drink a lot right now, but if I’m having one cocktail (and I am), it’s a tequila sour. My friend Ross’s ratio is magic, and I’m sharing his recipe below. I like Espolòn or Arette tequila for this; it’s also great with mezcal, or you can go 50/50 for a lightly smoky vibe. It is terrific with lime juice, and equally delicious with lemon; I’ve used some and some, and that’s also been fab. He would like you to shake it with an egg white, which is how you make a proper, frothy, velvety sour, but I’m just not equipped to deal with that right now.

Ross’s Tequila Sour

Makes 1 cocktail

1 egg white (optional)

2 1/4 ounces tequila blanco

1 ounce fresh lime juice

1 ounce simple syrup

3 dashes orange bitters

Ice

If using egg white: Put the egg white into a cocktail shaker, cover, and shake vigorously until the egg white is foamy and opaque, about 15 seconds. (If not using egg white, skip that step.) Pour in the tequila, lime juice, simple syrup, and shake in the bitters.

Fill the shaker with ice, then cover and shake enthusiastically and noisily until the hand touching the cocktail shaker seems like it is going to freeze and fall off. Do not stop until the risk of physical injury seems real. Shaking ensures the drink is aerated, properly diluted, and exquisitely cold.

Strain the tequila sour into a coupe glass or a rocks glass filled with ice.

Books I Liked and One I Realllllly Didn’t

Empire of AI by Karen Hao (audiobook): brilliant, life changing. I feel so much smarter now.

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro: dreamy and the right amount of weird.

Big Swiss by Jen Beagin: laugh-out-loud funny, tortured love story.

Famesick, by Lena Dunham. I put it down at the end and realized I felt the same as when I finished A Little Life. Body horror, pain porn. Anyone else??

***Finally, the divorce memoir that everyone is loving and I was very excited about and then absolutely, completely, totally couldn’t stand.

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Hello to All of My Bon Bons!

One thing about me is I love a little treat. I wouldn’t say I’m a full-on dessert person, and often pass on the fourth course when eating out.

But, ever since purchasing a replica of my childhood cookie jar from a seller on eBay, I’ve kept it stocked. (By comparison, the cookie jar that sat on the kitchen counter when I was growing up was almost always empty, with only the faintest whiff of long-gone cookies detectable.)

Do you enjoy a little treat with your evening TV? Same! Here’s what I’ve happily stocked, consumed, and replenished.

B is for Binch

The cookie aisle at HMart is a wonderland. That’s where I first came across Binch cookies (a mashup of “biscuit ‘n’ chocolate”), now a household name. Inside each individual cookie pouch, you’ll find a toasty, crisp biscuit on the bottom and a layer of snappy dark chocolate on top. The biscuit layer reminds me of the flavor of Feuilletine, a pastry ingredient that was used in a chocolate-hazelnut dessert when I worked at Union Pacific approximately 900 years ago. Imagine a waffle cone that is allowed to get extra-browned and is then broken into shards—that’s feuilletine. The proportions of a Binch are slim, elegant, restrained. That’s why I take three of them with me to the TV room. If you like a Petit Ecolier, you’ll fall for Binch. If you don’t know what a Petit Ecolier is, you’ll be obsessed with Binch.

My “Tru” Love

Sugar Monster Ross Twanmoh turned me onto Trü Frü, ironically when we were in Texas for his weightlifting meet in August. I don’t normally go for chocolate and fruit combos, and I really don’t love the texture of frozen berries. Furthermore, I object to the brand’s wanton use of umlauts, and question how these can be labeled “nature’s raspberries,” but I’ll try anything twice. Easy convert. Working from the center out, there’s a single frozen raspberry, which is encased in layer of white chocolate, then that whole thing is enrobed in dark chocolate. My advice to you, which was Ross’s advice to me: let these temper at room temperature for 5 minutes; taking the chill off accentuates the flavor of the dark chocolate and means the raspberry will be less icy. I take these down in two bites, Cosmo houses them in one. I am now purchasing these frozen confections two packs at a time.

Think You Know Oreo??

These chocolate-on-chocolate Oreos are another HMart find. After months of rigorous data collection at home, I’m convinced that the Korean-made and imported chocolate “creme” Oreo tastes different (better) than the homegrown ones that you can find on the Oreo site. I’m not a food scientist! But it’s what I believe. Do you need me to do a proper blind taste test? In the pursuit of truth, I will!

Iced Mocha Season is Over. Now What?

You know it’s summer when the craving for an iced coffee hits. In the past couple of years, my hot-weather bean water became an iced mocha, light chocolate. Bittersweet, complex, special, fantastic. You’d think that transitioning to a hot mocha would be simple, but it just wasn’t clocking for me. Instead, I’ve taken the mocha concept to a cafe au lait place, which admittedly requires some amount of consumer-to-barista translation depending on which coffee shop I find myself in. Usually I open with “can I get a cafe au lait done as a mocha, but light on the chocolate?” If you’re in the 11205, they use real chocolate at Bittersweet, chocolate ganache at Choice, and Monin pumps at Peck’s and Peckish.

The Greatest Chocolate Chunk Cookie in the World

If all this choco-talk has ignited a craving, I’d like to remind you that I reported the recipe for Radio Bakery’s outrageous and perfect chocolate chunk cookie, and it is still the standard setter. Best part: you can find it right here.

xoxCarla

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In this missive:

Granola for slackers

A pickle you must have on hand at all times

The best little fishes for puttanesca

My adventures with chemical exfoliants

An olive oil I don’t think you should buy

xox

Carla

I went through a lot of anchovies in the service of the recent Working Girl Dinner, aka spaghetti puttanesca, and the good news is: they were all good. Still: I chose a winner.

Let’s start high with my most beloved choice. The Codesa brand are a lil pricey for a teensy fish, but the fillets are a beautiful ruby brown, silky, gorgeously intact, and large. The oil they’re packed in is also delicious, and you can use some of it along with the extra-virgin olive oil I call for in the recipe. These are good enough to put on a salted cracker for a snack, or skewer them with a piparra pepper and green olive to make the famous Gilda tapa.

I’m also very fond of the Fishwife anchovies, which are similarly rotund, but not quite as large as the Condesa ones. The oil is also very tasty, and in a dish like puttanesca, where the anchovies are doing a lot of work, I think it’s worth choosing a special ‘chovy. (If you’ve got it, use it!)

My everyday working anchovy is the Agostino Recca brand. They’re consistent, affordable, widely available in supermarkets, and very good. I need to Goo-Gone this jar asap. (They’re also packaged in a smaller size.)

I don’t love the Cento brand—the fillets break easily and the sizing isn’t consistent. They don’t have the silky texture of the anchovies mentioned above, and if you had a choice between that brand and a few dashes of fish sauce, I’d go with fish sauce in a heartbeat.

Do you hold a different anchovy near and dear? Shout out that brand!

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Randomly deciding to make granola in the middle of the day is one of my tried-and-true procrastination techniques. I still consider my No-Stir Maple Granola recipe from WCB the GOAT—you don’t have to mess with it during cooking, saving your oven floor and floor-floor from becoming littered with chopped nuts and sticky oats. The basic formula in that recipe is 3 cups oats, 2 cups nuts and/or seeds, and 1 cup flaked coconut. The last batch I made had sour cherries, and I threw in some cacao nibs in place of some of the seeds. Happy to post the full recipe here if y’all want it!

We want it!

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For a minute I was trying to love fall, but then I heard a story on the radio about how the leaves in the northeast are going straight from green to brown because we didn’t get enough rainfall. That made me irate again.

I’m trying though! I roasted a nice acorn squash in my toaster oven and made a lime pickle-yogurt sauce to go with it. If you’ve never had lime pickle, it’s very sour, very tangy, very salty, a little bitter, and you should always have a jar of it in your fridge. Just thinking about it makes me salivate. It’s a great foil for sweet-leaning or caramelized foods (which is why it was an obvious pairing for the squash).

To make the sauce, start with plain yogurt and stir in enough lime pickle to suit your taste. Thin with a little water if needed, and add a splash of distilled white vinegar or lemon juice to brighten it up. Probably won’t need salt, but add if it’s lacking. Fantastic dip. Cheered me up for a minute.

These are the three brands I like the most:

• Kalustyan’s house brand

• Ahmed Lime Pickle in Oil

• Patak’s Lime Relish

If you want to FAFO with lime pickle, there’s another famous application of itin this video, for a recipe with sweet potatoes and kale.

Switching gears from my gullet to my face, I’ve been learning more about chemical exfoliants, aka skincare ingredients that reportedly buff away dead skin, reduce dark spots, and generally help clear your skin. One of the least-drying ones is mandelic acid, the active ingredient in Sophie Pavitt’s serum. I just finished up my first bottle and experienced zero irritation. I’m not one to say my skin is glowing, but a couple other people said that to me. Fun fact: Pavitt’s branding was designed by Zan Goodman, the same (incredible) designer who did That Sounds So Good and designed Book Three. We love!

All this talk of anchovy oil got me thinking about olive oil, which came up in this video I posted about Lies Recipe Developers Tell You.

Seeing more extra virgin olive oils popping up in plastic bottles has convinced me to talk about an olive oil that A LOT of people use, but I’ve never really liked.

Can I be mean for a second?

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Hello cuties! Welcome to another installment of Hitting Pan, the column in which I wax poetic over products that had me hooked from beginning to end, and make me want to begin again. In this missive, we’ve got mouth-tingling snacks, delectable coffee beans, rare vinegars, a different kind of spritz, and one thing I can definitely live without.

Celery, Squared

Chris Crawford makes fabulously-unique, notoriously limited-edition vinegars in the Brooklyn Navy Yard under her Tart Vinegar label. I was lucky enough to snag a bottle of the celery flavor in a gift box mailer for Hailee Catalano’s excellent cookbook, and have been judiciously dashing it in salads of all sorts ever since. Celery vinegar on a celery salad that also had Mama Teav’s and a little soy sauce in it? Ten out of ten would make again. If you find in stock anywhere, buy it. In the meantime, get on the email list for alerts when new flavors drop!

Who Knew This Pasta Shape Existed???

My mom, Carole Lalli, continues to inspire me in the kitchen. Leave it to her to saunter into her pantry while I was making pesto at my parent’s house, and return with a pasta shape that no one has ever seen before in their life. These are “Capello dello Chef,” aka chef’s hat: they’re ruffly, tubular, rolled at one end where they scoop up sauce, and completely adorable. Even better, they held their shape when cooked and had a fantastic al dente chew. Huge fan.

New Brew Crew

I have complicated feelings about Instagram these days (all social media, tbh), and it is also true that I’ve met some awesome people in my DMs. One of those gems is Bailey Arnold, who dipped in to give me some pointers on my steamed milk, then hosted me for a latte art training session! (I know, my life is ridiculous and I live in a bubble.)

My latte art is not good, but the Variety Coffee that Bailey turned me on to was stellar. I love it when the description on the box absolutely matches the way a thing tastes in real life. Blew through this box; buying more. (This exact bean isn’t available at the moment, but Bailey said to try this one instead.)

Lemon Pits

I don’t have a signature scent, but my armpits always smell like Weleda Citrus.

Active Snacking

Do you like it when you’re eating something spicy and you can’t stop even though the heat is creeping, and you eat more, and then feel your face inferno-ing and your eyebrows start to smolder and you get a little scared about what might happen next if the spice keeps multiplying, but you go for it anyway (what could happen, really???), and ride the top loops of the chile rollercoaster, which leads droplets of under-eye sweat that you’re too afraid to wipe away because what if there’s chile on your fingers and you get it in your eye? Yes? Then you’ll like these (I’m a double heat girlie, but the regular-strength is a great place to start.)

Fine in a Not-That-Bad Way, But I Wouldn’t Say it’s Good

Take this with a grain of (popcorn) salt from someone who regularly sneaks her homemade recipe into the movie theater, but in the world of packaged popcorn, Skinnypop is a distant third for me. It trails behind Bjornqorn (the GOAT of packaged p-corn), and Smartfood White Cheddar (which gives me a stomachache if I eat too much, and I always eat too much). That said, it’s a sad day if I board a plane without popcorn in my carry-on, and I will always choose Skinnypop over Popcorn Indiana when making my in-airport purchases (it’s too sweet!).

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That said, when shopping hungry at Wegman’s, things happen, including this bag of Sea Salt & Pepper Skinnypop being consumed by the fistful in the car during my seven-minute drive home. Later, I described it semi-lovingly to a friend as having “enough pepper to distract from the dry styrofoam texture, which is cool.”

Finally, a product that generated an absolute torrent of cautionary DMs about wire-bristled grill brushes, but underperformed at a level that astonished me.

I don’t do this often, but I believe that I’m doing a service by calliing out something that just doesn’t work. Popping this behind the paywall because I don’t want to put the brand on blast, but also feel like y’all might like to know.

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Hello Comrades!

Are you wondering what a T-shirt has to do with food? I figured. It might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think about my recipe or cookbook process, and this is not and will never be a fashion blog. But: Book Three (still don’t have a title lol) is going to include lots of photos of me getting into it in the kitchen, going shopping, walking Margie, picnicking at the beach, and lying around my house with various plates of food perched on my chest. As soon as I started discussing props with my sister, Nina Lalli (she’s a ceramicist, but prop styled both of my books!), we realized that I needed to think about my clothes as an extension of the props.

Well, I don’t want to think about what I wear. I want to wear a uniform. I have always wanted to wear a uniform, and when I was a line cook, wearing a uniform was one of the highlights. Shoot days are hectic! Fun, but hectic. We are shooting at my house. The call time will be early. I like to have a nice little breakfast set up for the crew when they get there. All of this is a challenge, because I am a night owl and an all-time champion snoozer. I’d rather spend whatever time I have putting on a little makeup, which leaves zero time for getting dressed and guarantees a clothing freakout.

Nina said, What are you comfortable in? I tugged on what I had on and replied,

This, the Cropped Ojai T from Jungmaven, my most beloved T-shirt of all time. I have 10 of them (and I am NOT earning affiliate income!). I have some in small, which hit right at the narrowest part of my waist and are good for high-cut pants, and a few in medium, which I can French tuck or wear loose. They are great layered. I wear one pretty much every day. I am wearing one right now (in “washed white). I always wear one when I work out, so if you’ve seen any of my gym selfies, you already know.

The book shoot kicks off at the end of May and goes into early June. Because I have Nine Thousand Other Things to Think About Including Finishing the Writing LOL, I’ve decided that the Ojai T will be half of my outfit on set. Since this is technically a “costume,” I can scoop up whatever colors I don’t already own and write it off as a business expense!

The Ojai is a blend of hemp and cotton and it feels like the softest vintage garment. I am 5’3” and not skinny and the capped sleeve is expertly proportioned; it doesn’t look shrunken, it just looks right. If you’re a taller human height, you might want the un-cropped version. These tees are are cut and sewn in Los Angeles, the size range is XS to 2X, and they’re not inexpensive. (Jungmaven discounts them when you buy packs of three, and there are occasionally site-wide sales.)

As for the bottom half of my body, I will likely grab my current favorite jeans off the floor (see above; I wrote about these in a previous Hitting Pan). When I’m not barefoot, I’ll be in Birks or Danskos. I also bought myself this Beklina lace top in terracotta; I already own it in white. It is critically important that my curls behave, but that is up to the hair goddesses. We pray.

My father, Frank, who overheard me and Nina talking about the wardrobe choices, chimed in even though no one was talking to him: Don’t worry about what you’ve got on. Just get dressed in what you’d normally wear and it will be fine. At the time, this comment was so annoying. Nina and I both clapped back and told him it was insane to tell someone not to worry about what they are going to be photographed in. But in his myopic male way, he was telling me to keep it simple. It pains me to admit he was right.

xoxCLM

You Had Me at Lychee

There’s a three-block stretch on Smith Street in Cobble Hill that makes me feel like New York is a quaint little village. First I go into Paisano’s and get any meats for the week; I like to hit the freezer while I’m there and pick up a mix of bones to make my insanely gelatinous overnight stock. Then I go into Bien Cuit for a pullman loaf, which they do better than anyone else in the city. Considering it’s a Swedish coffee bar, the bagel with lox at Konditori is excellent, and everyone who works the counter is the coolest person I’ve ever seen. Finally, it’s Ten Ichi Mart, where I always find beautiful little baby bok choy and all the flavors of furikake that we like. I usually also restock kimchi, plain dried ramen noodles, the big bags of sushi rice, Cosmo’s favorite sour lemon candies, and a couple house-made onigiri to snack on in the car ride home. I never check out without adding a special little refreshment for moi—the drinks case is just beyond enticing. That’s how I ended up guzzling this Kirin Salted Lychee drink. It’s slightly cloudy, sweet and floral from the lychee, but also tart and bright from grapefruit. The salt was subtle, but present—would be gloriously hydrating over ice on a hot day. If you see it in your local Asian grocery store, pick one up and report back!! (They’re also sold on line, just Google the product name.)

Why Furrow?

Botox. Ran out. Needed more. Love the stuff! I’ve been told that my regular “thinking face” can come across as more of an intense glaring scowl, and I wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea. I get a few pokes on my forehead and between my eyes, and have started getting it in my jaw to treat TMJ. Dr. Dhingra at Spring Street Dermatology smoothes me out without erasing all of my facial expressions. I would like the ability to scowl when appropriate. We’ve done the TMJ injections only twice, but I do think it helps with clenching.

You’re Cel-ing Me!

(see what I did there??)

Dirty secret: I’ve been skipping the Saturday farmer’s market most weekends this winter. I can’t look at topless root vegetables and six-month old apples, I’m sorry, it makes me upset! Can’t claim any causality there, but I have used this time to fall back in love with celery. Deeply, madly, crunchily. This is a pic of a beloved Joshua McFadden recipe from his excellent book, Six Seasons. Essentially you make a lemon vinaigrette with some chile flakes, and then toss in thin slices of celery along with torn dates, toasted nuts, and lots of Parm shavings. It’s one of those “why is this so good???” dishes that overdelivers every time. The other dressing I’ve been using for celery salad is a mixture of black vinegar, a dash of soy, and a spoonful of chili crisp. Could do thin sticks or diagonal slices for that one. Salivating just thinking about it. Also: celery is one of the least expensive vegetables. That said, if you hate celery, Spin It with fennel or endive.

Cock Sauce

You don’t need me to tell you why Sriracha is good. I do want you to know that a) Cosmo put both of these bottles back into the refrigerator as if to taunt me; and b) when I worked at Union Pacific all the line cooks referred to it as “cock sauce” because of the rooster on the label. And because we all loved to curse as much as possible. The more you know.

Justice for Peanuts

Hot take: I’d rather snack on a roasted salted peanut than a roasted salted almond or a tamari almond. True story. Close your eyes and say “cocktail nut.” You see a peanut, right? Peanuts in a glass coke bottle: iconic. Shell-on peanuts at the big game, any game? Classic. When I was working on the recipe for my new banana bread, it seemed so obvious to top it with peanuts—how did walnuts and pecans get the edge there? Peanuts would be a fantastic add to the celery salad with vinegar and chili crisp, above. Just: bring back peanuts.

xoCLM

Hello fellow processors! Welcome back to another installment of Things I Used Up and Look Forward to Purchasing Again. Taken together, this collection is beach, bugs, bread, snacks, and one thing I would NOT purchase again.

FREQUENT PARKER

One of the smartest, grown-up things I’ve done this summer is purchase a parking pass for the entire season out at the Jacob Riis parking lot. There’s a ton of plover-saving happening on the far end of Riis, making it a little more difficult to get to Fort Tilden, which is where I really want to be. After parking at the far end of Riis, I’ve got to walk down the boardwalk, cut through the golf path, cruise through some back road that in the olden days you could sneak into with your car, and then head through the dunes to Fort Tilden. It’s worth it to be on a less crowded beach with cooler people, IMHO. And since a day pass is $20 and the whole season is $100, I am now motivated to beach it as often as possible!! If you’re not in NYC, please take this as a sign to start taking recreating seriously. We have—what—8 weeks of summer left??? LFG!!

MOSQUITO-GATE 🦟

For the first time in a few years, I rented a beach house near Montauk, NY for a couple of weeks this summer (heading there soon and will report back!). Because being covered with itchy welts is not fun or cool, I picked up another one of these rechargeable Thermacell mosquito repellers to bring with me (I have two at home already). Mosquitoes are the worst, but they think I’m the best. This thing is incredible—park it outside and you will be in a whiny buzz-free, bite-free zone for hours. I don’t know what is being emitted from the little refill cartridges and I don’t care. Don’t ruin this for me.

NOT THAT KIND OF SPRITZ

As great as the Thermacell is, you can’t take it on a walk with you. When only a bug spray will do, this is my pick for 2024. And not just for outdoor adventures! I often have to spray my ankles when I’m in the kitchen making dinner. Rude! Sometimes I watch those poor, stupid people on Naked and Afraid get annihilated by mosquitoes and I spray some of this on me just to be safe. This one from Off! doesn’t smell, isn’t greasy, and it works. I am organic-local-everything-always except when it comes to mosquitoes. Then it’s DEET. I know, not good. Then again, I don’t have Dengue fever, so maybe it is good.

DAMAGE DETERRENT

Okay, one more for the outdoors and then I’m moving onto snacks! The only way I will wear SPF every day is if it doesn’t seem like I’m putting on SPF. Despite being a very late-adopting moisturizer person, I’ve now made moisturizer part of my daily routine. That was the gateway habit I needed. This SPF 40 from Supergoop feels like a light moisturizer, doesn’t smell like sunscreen, and absorbs quickly. I keep it right next to the sink, a convenient reminder to slap it on after brushing my teeth and before walking Margie. It’s also a nice layer underneath makeup. I also use Supergoop Glowscreen, which delivers a super subtle shimmer with the same SPF 40 protection, and it’s very pretty as a primer. I even gave a Glowscreen to my mom for Mother’s Day!

HOT SOUR CRUNCHY COLD

Who else is enjoying the mother-daughter pickle-tasting duo? Just me? Not saying it’s all their doing, but I am on a pickle KICK. I love a half sour more than a full sour, but I appreciate a lot of pickled things besides cucumbers (see: kimchi!). That said, I am crushing hard on McClure’s spicy mini pickles. They are so sour, so salty, so crunchy, so spicy! They are unimpeachable. They are flawless. A wee sip of the brine will ready you for the day, I’ll tell you what. Honorable mention for the spicy spears from Grillo’s. Excellent, though a couple notches down on the crunch-factor.

CHEDDAR WEATHER

Picked up this Cabot horseradish cheddar while hungry-shopping recently—something about the horseradish flavor profile got me. Such a good snacking cheese. As soon as I got home I had it on some pretzel thins and since then have shingled it into turkey sandwiches and a quesadilla or two. You know how some people put a mozzarella stick in a Bloody Mary? (They do.) Are you one of them? Stick a cube of this cheddar on a skewer and dunk it in your drink instead!

BELLY UP TO THE (PROTEIN) BAR

Remember in January how I was like: Sleep, Routine, Protein? I had goals then, and I have … the same goals now. I’m trying! I go to sleep at 2 A.M. I wish I could explain. My gym schedule is a garbage heap. And some days I try to eat more protein. I’m not a protein bar aficionado by any means, but the Built Puff bars have a weird enough texture to keep me intrigued. Like a stretchy soft gummy, or a firm Mallomar center. “Squishy” is an accurate descriptor. I keep them in the fridge. They’re a little on the sweet side. I have an ambivalent attitude towards them, and yet—I keep eating them. An odd dynamic, to be sure. It is almost like a restaurant that you feel weird about, but every time you go, you have a perfectly good meal. The people are nice, but if someone said where do you want to go for dinner, it would be the sixth option you’d name. Do you have a favorite protein bar? Let us know in the comments!

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DOG CONTENT AHEAD

Every night after (her) dinner, Marge swishes over to the built-in where I keep her treats and does the most pathetic yet relentless moan-and-groan while shifting her gaze between me and the upper cabinet. The reason she does this is because I keep buying her incredible dog treats. I am a complete whore for boutique dog treats. This brand, Icelandic+, is my/her favorite. We’ve tried the rolls, the crisps, the chews, the bites. They cost one million dollars. If I go broke, it is because of Marge (in general) and this brand (in particular). If anyone has a lead on an endless fish skin supply that I can procure to start dehydrating in my Breville oven, HMU.

And now, for the first time ever, I’m including a product I’ve had for quite a while that I cannot recommend to you. Positive reviews are great, but sometimes I believe that it’s a service to the reader to call out something that frankly doesn’t live up to the hype or just doesn’t perform well. Popping this behind the paywall because I don’t want to put them on blast, but also feel like y’all might like to know.

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From Me Tuna You

Ramon Peńa Bonito del Norte Tuna

I went through many jars of tuna during the development and filming of the upcoming Caramelized Onion and Tuna Pasta (tentatively scheduled for March 6 release). I am now a tuna aficionado, officially.

When I’m buying tuna, I want it packed in oil, and I want it to be sustainable. Lots of brands tick those boxes but the bonito from Ramon Peña has become my number one choice. The tuna is always in big meaty pieces and very delicious, and it’s packed by hand in Spain by a producer with a long track record.

The tuna pasta relies 100% on basic pantry ingredients (onion, capers, egg, pasta, etc.). Splurging on the “fancy” tuna made it feel luxe without blowing the budget.

Get Ready to Bubble

Poppi Root Beer

Sweet showed up to work the other day with a can of Poppi root beer and a bottle of Hal’s Vanilla Crème seltzer. Then that little wizard mixed the two together on ice, and we settled into a magical root-beer-float-ish beverage sensation. If she had her way, Eliza would always be guzzling the Poppi Cola flavor, but I’m a sucker for root beer, and this is the one for me. A couple days later, I picked up a can of each for a taste test with Cosmo, and can confirm they’re both gluggable, no mixer required.

So Nice, I Wrote About It Twice

La Superieur Electrolytes

There are only a few products I buy in multiples: chocolate bars; hot garlic; note pads.

And one more thing: this electrolyte mix. There’s currently an 8-pack in my shopping cart. The ingredients are outrageously minimal and I’ve tried them all, but my favorite flavors are Fresh Citrus and Red Raspberry. When I’m feeling WILD I am known to mix the two 50/50. NB for anyone else who is sensitive to stevia: this is the only product I’ve ever tasted where I can’t detect the stevia flavor/texture at all.

Me? Blushing??? Aw, Shucks.

Rose Inc Cream Blush Refillable Cheek & Lip Color in Foxglove

This is what hitting pan looks like, literally:

If you’re a “puts makeup on with fingers” person and like a product that you can just dab here there and everywhere, I def recommend Rose Inc. I put it on my cheeks, eyelids, lips, bridge of nose. In fact, I wore it yesterday to my nail appointment and Jordan said, “oh you look nice and healthy today! Did you get a great night’s sleep?”

No, I stayed up till 2 A.M. for no reason as usual. But I am wearing blush. This shade is a nice dusty rose situation, but it comes in other hues!

Hard. Working. Hands.

Eucerin Eczema Relief Cream

I don’t want to hear about your dry skin unless you’re putting this on your hands, legs, face, and lips!! In the winter the skin on my hands is so dry it cracks, my face is like steel wool, and my lips resemble a gravel driveway. It’s rough over here. Both of my kids had eczema when they were younger, which is how I got turned onto this product, and now it’s a cold-season staple. I lather it on and let it sink in; it’s rich but dries down to a moisturized but ungreasy feeling, and there’s no scent. I’m linking to the Eucerin site, but you should have no trouble finding it in regular drug stores. I’m completely out and need more!

I BUY THIS CHOCOLATE IN EIGHT-PACKS

It’s been great to watch Tony’s Chocoloney grow from a new, niche brand that was considered “specialty” in 2006 into a chocolate brand that is stocked in NYC bodegas. We are a “little piece nice hunk of chocolate” after dinner family, and running out is dangerous—not even my baking chocolate is safe at night. After sampling many different percentages and flavor profiles, Dark Almond Sea Salt has ascended to the highest bar in our household (as in, bar of chocolate? get it?). This 51% chocolate is appropriately snappy for a darker percentage, but not gritty or brittle; the crunchy almonds are properly salted, with discernible crystals that gradually melt on the tongue; and Tony’s promises exploitation-free sourcing in their supply chain. (There are a lot of labor abuses in the chocolate market, which I wasn’t really aware of until this brand came along.) This bar is a regular addition to my monthly Thrive subscription box, which requires a minimum purchase of eight bars at a time, soooooooo yeah what can I say, they forced my hand!

DINNER IS SPOONED

Before dessert, though, there’s dinner. And as soon as the butt warmers get turned on in the car, my body knows it’s soup season. My son Leo was home from college for Thanksgiving, and post-holiday dinner I offered him the choice of a brothy, gingery turkey soup with noodles, or a spicy turkey pozole.

I know he’s my child because he chose pozole, and I hit the bricks to pick up a bag of dried hominy, aka pozole. Sadly, I struck out at my usual suppliers in Brooklyn, and didn’t have time to get over to Essex Market or Kalustyan’s, so I had to pivot to turkey congee.

That was great, don’t get me wrong, but once the pozole craving has been activated, it must be satisfied. I can’t wait to stock back up and get a tall pot going this weekend.

THE SPACESHIPS ARE COMING

Is there a greater genre than the limited docuseries? Tiger King. Murdaugh Murders. Wild Wild Country. It feels so good to have a show that you can’t get enough of and never want to end. Add Love Has Won to the watchlist. It tells the story of a woman, Amy Carlson, who starts a spiritual group aka cult based around the idea that she is Mother God and her calling is to bring love to planet Earth. Robin Williams and Marilyn Monroe are among Mother God’s spiritual advisers from the galactic realm, and they help her plan the group’s next moves.

In their free time, Mother God’s followers can be found online selling healing candles, colloidal silver, and other tinctures, but only when they aren’t busy tracking spaceships in the cloud formations. Unlike a lot of cult stuff, this isn’t a super dark story, though the show explores the sadness lurking behind Mother God’s cosmic persona. Two great things besides her charisma and kookiness make this show fantastic: lengthy interviews with former members of the cult, who are all captivating and complicated; and an insane amount of video, photographic, and other documented footage (the group was very active online and filmed everything). Wow wow wow my only complaint is that there are only three episodes.

THE NOTEBOOK

Okay fine, technically it’s a note pad. The Rhodia No. 16 is bright orange-yellow, lined, a little smaller than a typical steno pad, contains 80 vellum pages, and is my absolute favorite. I use it for my to-do lists, both professional and personal (tracking Christmas presents and all my content/recipe/writing deadlines currently). I take notes in it when I’m on the phone. It’s where ideas for upcoming panels start taking shape, and it’s where I put any other lightbulb moments, too. I have pages and pages devoted to Cosmo’s high school application process, and I love using the area in the lefthand margin for checking things off. As a procrastinator, I get to cross things out AND check them off when they’re done!

FWIW, I’m a pen and pencil person, too, and currently crushing hard on the Paper Mate InkJoy Gel 0.7. Nothing like a fresh notebook and flowy pen to bring some tactile joy to the everyday carry, right?

LMK if you nibble this chocolate, watch that show, make that soup, or write a new to-do! And if there’s something you used up this month that you think we need to hear about, drop it in the comments!

xoCLM

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RUNAWAY READ

I started and finished The Guest in less than 24 hours and felt like my teenage self, staying up till three in the morning reading a book I couldn’t put down. I was expecting a fun summer read and got an extremely unhinged, anxiety-producing spellbinder, a giant banana split of anxiety. The ending was very controversial—without giving it away, just say yea or nay so we know where we all stand.

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LIKE A ROLLING STONE (FRUIT)

The peaches on the east coast were excellent this year: juicy, creamy, ideal sour/sweet balance. Yellow > white forever and always. I ate most of mine out of hand, dripping all over the place as desired. But one day I got fancy and paired a perfect specimen with spicy capicola, a gorgeous plum, some fresh mozzarella, olive oil, Aleppo pepper, and salt. Extreme delish.

BEYAH HEYAHH

I bought this Flora Fonta beer at Guido’s one thousand percent because of the can design, but was also sold by the word “paloma.” How cute is it!?! I’m getting 1970s tennis energy from those colors. (I’ll buy books, makeup, wine, and chocolate based on the label; the whole “cool beer can” movement is marketing genius.) I’m a grapefruit lover—Fresca! Squirt!—and thought this would taste like a shandy. It did—but was more sophisticated, more sour/tart, more quenching. Guzzled it while grilling, 10/10 would drink again.

ABCDBLT

I had one BLT this summer. ONE. And here she is.

LEO SEASON

My video crew surprised me with a unique and scrumptious “bouncy cheesecake” from Keki to celebrate my birthday on set. How sweet are they!?!! The best. (Cosmo diverted me by asking me to help him with his laundry, and I totally fell for it.) I had never had a Japanese cheesecake like this: it was spongy but firm but also jiggly—truly bouncy. Inside there was a strawberry layer and a plain layer, with fresh strawberries suspended in the middle. Next time you’re in NYC, go check Keki out! Thank you again to Omega, Cybelle, Alivia, Eliza, Meg, and Tim. You all rule.

Refer a friend

On one of the many hot and sticky days in July, my dear friend Emily and I met up specifically to eat mul naengmyun, a cold, brothy, Korean noodle dish. I crave spicy food and very cold food in equal measure during heatwaves, and Emily hit gold when she picked out Rib No. 7 in NYC’s Koreatown for us. This bowl of green tea noodles served in an icy-cold broth with literal ice shavings in it made me forget, at least temporarily, about the sweat that was dripping down my back during the subway ride into the city. Emily got the bibim naengmyun, brothless but equally refreshing. I am looking forward to going back another time for the barbecue being served on either side of us, which looked incredible.

I heard Maggie Smith being interviewed about her new book on NPR, and made a mental note to pick up You Could Make This Place Beautiful. She’s a well-known poet, but I had never heard of her. I read it fast and loved it. As mentioned in previous Hitting Pans after reading Stay True and How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, I’m going through a memoir phase.

Having boys has meant that I’ve never had to worry about my closet being raided, but they do love to run off with my tweezers, and that’s a problem. Rather than buying a new set for them, I re-purchased Anastasia Tweezers for myself, hands-down the best tweezers I’ve ever uses. Sorry to Tweezerman, but it’s true.

Five Shots in the Dark, the third season of the Suspect podcast series, tells the story of Leon Benson, who was sent to prison for murder based almost entirely on eyewitness testimony, and the current-day efforts to get his sentence overturned. There’s a lot of fascinating stuff about how faulty humans are when it comes to what we see (or think we saw) and how we construct memories, but the narrative is carried by intense interviews with Benson (from jail) and many of the players involved in his original conviction.

I have yet to make a single galette, fruit crisp, cobbler, or crumble this year (what actually is wrong with me???), but I’ve made the banana bread from ’s latest book three times already, and my mom made it once. Maybe banana’s ripen quicker when it’s warm out and that helps explain my overabundance of tropical fruit desserts? Anyway, the recipe is my new standard.

Signing off while eating a peach,

xoCarla

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I am a total sucker for coffee-chocolate anything, and that includes Minor Figures oat milk mocha. Mylk. M*lk? Anyway, great brand.

Ugh I love hitting pan. A few months ago, I was decluttering and swatched all my concealers and the RMS one was the closest match to my actual skin tone. Fun exercise! I figured out I’m neutral tone! Back to the product: it’s very dewy and very forgiving, my “putting my makeup on in the rearview mirror” choice.

This jar of honey, from celebrated food photographer Nikole Herriot and her dad, has been in my pantry since before the pandemic. I use it for medicinal purposes only (to make it last longer). Yes, it sucks to wake up in the middle of the night with an annoying cough, but a spoonful of this in a wee-hours kitchen is a treat. It’s so delicious.

I was never an electrolyte person until I had this at a friend’s house. Now? I’m drinking it by the quart container all day long. We call it “hydration station” and when we run out, it’s a problem. I like the citrus and the raspberry flavors; reordered today.

It’s almost the end of June and I’m just now writing about everything that made my life better in May. Summer is like that. Here we go!

Coffee Coffee Buzz Buzz

Is this the best Ben and Jerry’s flavor ever? Actually? Yes. Fight me!

Strawberries

Based on my findings this weekend, strawberries are out. Raspberries are in. I didn’t make a single shortcake.

Kashi GO Crunch

When I was pregnant with Cosmo in the summer of 2009, it was an amazing time for peaches and also for this cereal. I don’t know how much experience you have had with 3rd trimester pregnant people, but please step aside so they can get through.

Every Saturday in peach season, I would purchase at least 7 peaches of varying ripeness from Toigo farms to last me the whole week, and every morning I would dice the most perfect peach and place it on top of a bowl of Kashi. (I’m a yellow peach person, but occasionally a white one would get in there.) Separately, I would chill about a cup of rice milk with several ice cubes until it was truly freezing cold; IT HAD TO BE VERY VERY COLD BECAUSE IT HAD TO BE. I’d pour the rice milk over the cereal and peach and add a sprinkle of flaky salt. After that, Cosmo and I were on our way. The cereal is still in the regular household rotation.

Nécessaire Deodorant

I never wear antiperspirant and almost all fragrances give me a headache and make me upset. The eucalyptus flavor of Necessaire’s deodorant is the exception. It’s got a light, refreshing scent, and a roller ball applicator that I love. You can see that this is an image of a new bottle; I finished mine and re-upped.

My Mom’s Lilacs

Speaking of fragrances: my mom’s lilacs were bodacious this summer. I cut a ton and brought them back to Brooklyn with me in the car; most ethereal and heavenly ride ever! The season is too short; I’m grateful I caught it and stretched it out by one more week.

How to Write an Autobiographical Novel

I am reading a lot of books about writing (ie, craft of), memory, and memoirs. No reason! On the heels of Stay True, which I wrote about last month, I finished Alexander Chee’s bestseller. I didn’t tear through it, exactly, but that’s probably because my laptop hogs so much room in my bed (gotta stop doing that). It’s an excellent book. Essays about the author’s life are interwoven with his thoughts and guidance on writing—his own, his students, and the reader’s. There’s one essay about the lavish rose garden he created in a dilapidated Brooklyn backyard that is sticking with me.

Anything you want me to opine about? Ingredient things, beauty/body products, books, shows, podcasts, etc? LMK in the comments!

Today, a world of self-improvement—from restorative foods, to Vitamin D management, and more.

Passionfruit for the Soul

Thank you to New Zealand

I was in Costa Rica on a family vacation in 2018 the first time I had a fresh passionfruit. I was rendered delirious by the balance of tart, sour, fragrant, sweet, juicy, and crunchy (from the seeds).

Our last trip to Costa Rica was February 2020. Little did we know it would be our last. Ever year since, I’ve treated myself to a case of passionfruit from Baldor Foods. It costs less than a vacation, but it’s also not as good. I stand in front of my kitchen window and consume them, one after another, in the gray and cold winter light. They are edible sunshine.

Carry-on Sunscreen

Who am I to complain, though, because in April we took a very last-minute trip to Vieques, P.R., for spring break. We literally decided to go on a Thursday and were on a plane that Sunday. Instead of buying a bunch of carry-on friendly bottles of SPF, I decanted an existing supply of La Roche-Posay into small containers that I found at Target. These 4-ounce jars are technically too big for carry-on, but we eluded detection by the TSA. I feel very proud about this.

Literally Hit the Pan

Whenever someone says my skin looks really good, the answer is this bronzer. As an impulsive beauty product consumer with a lot of mis-picks under her belt, it is very satisfying to hit pan.

A Really Good Memoir

Stay True by Hua Hsu was all over my feed a few months ago, and I bought it without learning too much about it in advance—like going to a movie without knowing the plot. Fun! I love reading memoirs and this one was so beautifully constructed. It’s about friendship and loss, but also about the craft of writing, memory, storytelling, and how to represent one’s own self. Loved it.

Talk to you soon!

C.

Today: beauty, books, and one from the kitchen caddy.

Bobbi Brown Lip Tint: Bare Blackberry

If it looks like Black Honey, reminds me of Black Honey, or is in any way sharing energy with Black Honey, I’m going to buy it. Considering I have seven thousand tinted lip glosses in this category floating around the various drawers, jacket pockets, bags, car doors, and bedside tables I frequent, it’s truly amazing that this one is (finally) all done. I guess I really liked it. I’d replace it if I didn’t already have … seven thousand other options.

Calabrian Chile Paste

I’m working on a recipe for spicy Calabrian chicken thighs (just shot the video for it last week!), and that helped me move through this (decanted) jar of crushed Calabrian peppers and pop open a new one. Have you ever mixed sriracha into mayo? Do that with this. Then dab it on everything: grilled cheese sandwiches, roasted squash, creamy scrambled eggs, leftover pizza, or cauliflower pasta. Older son says he’d put it on ramen!

Bunny, by Mona Awad

This surreal novel, about a cultish group of female college students who use telepathic powers to make rabbits explode and come back as eligible bachelors, reminded me of Heathers and The Secret History. But with exploding bunnies. I fell more in love with it the deeper into it I got.

Dieux Instant Angel

This is at least the third tube of Dieux’s glorious moisturizer that I’ve squeezed every last squidge out of. I pair it with their serum every night, and my skin is the happiest it has ever been.

Lapvona, by Ottessa Moshfegh

I LOVE THIS AUTHOR and this book was one of the freakiest, funniest, most grotesque, bizarre, and engrossing things I’ve ever read. I f*king loved it. Every second of it. Read it, pass it on, then discuss.

Squirrelly

This entry was contributed by our dog, Sergeant Margaret, aka Marge. Squirrelly was her favorite toy ever. After eviscerating Squirrelly, sucking out its brains, and tearing it limb from limb, Marge finally had to say goodbye. RIP Squirrelly.