Friday Faves 2/21: Pammy's, Cadbury, Pearl Jam, Taco Bell Tuesdays, Knives Out

Best Activity

Last Friday, Tiff and I ventured to Cambridge for a Valentine’s Day dinner at Pammy’s. I’ve written about Pammy’s before, but it is amazing. It’s impossible to get a reservation on a normal Friday, let alone Valentine’s Day, so we got there early and stalked the bar scene. They had a prix-fix menu, four courses, two choices for each course, so we ate every on the menu for the night, sharing each course. Biggest upset of the night was Tiff’s fear of red snapper and then liking it more than the chicken dish that was served along side it.

The highlights were the the Taglierini with Wagyu Oxtail, chocolate, and horseradish. It’s a regular on the menu, but was part of Friday’s menu, too. It’s so so good. The best new dish from Friday night was a chocolate Torte. It had this insanely delicious crust on the bottom and an sorbet with whipped cream that tasted like a creamsicle.

I’ve said it here before, I’ll say it again. If you live in or are visiting Boston, you have to make time for Pammy’s. Get to the bar early or make a reservation weeks in advance.

Best Watch

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood - What a fantastic movie. I am not a huge Quentin Tarantino fan, but this movie gripped me for the entire two hours and forty minutes. The old time western aspects of the movie were amazing, and watching actors pretend to be actors is always a strange universe to step into. There’s a scene where Leonardo DiCaprio and Timothy Olyphant are shooting a scene in a western movie. It’s actors pretending to be actors and actually acting. It’s inception level stuff.

I didn’t know that the Charles Manson murders played a role in the movie, and it added a creepy edge to the story. The ending, which was gruesome in a classically Tarantino manner, was great and satisfying. Oh, and Brad Pitt was superb the whole way through; he’s slowly morphing into Robert Redford.

Knives Out - Another fantastic movie (two in one week!). A witty Who-Dunnit that is well-paced and kept me guessing the entire time. Daniel Craig sheds his James Bond skin and is wonderful as the New Orleans detective hired to crack the case when well-known murder mystery author dies suspiciously.

Best Listen

“Ten” by Pearl Jam: Maybe it was Starbucks osmosis, but on Tuesday, as I searched for something to listen to, Pearl Jam popped into my head. I have never listened to “Ten” or any Pearl Jam album, for that matter. I just missed the Nirvana and Pearl Jam grunge-band fervor of the early 90s. I have to say, I enjoyed the album; obviously, I was familiar with a lot of the songs, but just hadn’t listened to them in the order Pearl Jam intended (and about three decades late, too).

Peter Kostis interview: Hell hath no fury like a scorned lover or a fired golf commentator. Peter Kostis was fired by CBS this fall and he joined Chris Solomon to air some grievances, inform the listener about the challenges of covering golf on TV, and label Patrick Reed as a dirty, rotten cheater…

Best Read

Meet Lazarus Lake, the Man Behind the Barkley Marathons: I read this article when it came out nearly a year ago, but returned to it this week because I saw a trailer for a documentary about the hardest race in the world. Over the last 25 years, only 10 people have even finished the race. This is a profile of the man who dreamed up this insane race through the woods in Tennessee. Outside Online.

Best Eat

If you skimmed over the “Best Activity” section, go back for some of my favorite foods of the week… any other week, these were stand-outs…

Cheesy Gordita Crunch: Our favorite Charlestown spot, Monument, does a Taco Tuesday every week. Every couple months they roll out a very special Taco Bell Tuesday and remake some of the Taco Bell favorites that every college kid and pothead enjoy. The place fills up so quickly that we arrived at 4:55 to get a seat. It was a little over zealous, but by the time we left at 6:00, there wasn’t a seat available in the restaurant.

The Cheesy Gordita Crunch is a hard shell taco with ground beef. However, wrapped around the edge of the hard shell, and secured with cheese, is a soft tortilla. If given the choice, hard shell taco takes last place in my taco hierarchy. I’d even place it behind a taco bowl. But when you add the soft shell wrapper, it keeps everything together, and the hard shell provides a satisfying crunch.

Easiest Chicken Noodle Soup: This is one of Tiff’s favorite NYTimes cooking recipes. It calls for ground chicken; the egg noodles are delicious even though they soak up so much broth that the leftovers need either more broth or an open-mind to eating a pasta dish. Soup season is dying soon as spring approaches, so get on this one soon!

Cadbury Chocolate Mini-Eggs: These delightful eggs might be the best holiday themed chocolate in the world. Listen, I’m not talking about the Cadbury Cream Egg. Those are weird. I’m talking about the small, candy covered chocolate eggs that make M&Ms run and hide for a few weeks. I bought a bag at CVS last week, and while it might have been the greatest choice I made all week, it’s something that can’t become a habit.

Best Plugs

Book Club on Midnight in Chernobyl: Did a little write up on Midnight in Chernobyl, an excellent read about the Chernobyl disaster and cover-up. Here’s the link.

The Random Division: Hometown dates were last week. Give our podcast a listen to catch up or relive the families and fights! iTunes. Follow us on Instagram! TheRandomDivision

The Imperfect Game: I was back with Both Long to talk about Blackburn Rovers. This was a special one, as Both and I did it in person at my apartment. iTunes.

Friday Faves: 11/1: Dinner at home, Hot Sauce, Pinegrove, and Pammy's

Best Activity:

Celebrating a big birthday: This past Saturday we celebrated my mom’s birthday. It was a big one and we decided to do something different. We had a chef come to my mom’s house and cook dinner for nine of us. It was an insane five-course meal, soup, salad, app, entree, and dessert. Usually when the whole family gets together my mom is cooking us dinner, no matter how many times we ask, “What can bring?” “Can we pick something up on the way over?” The answer is always, “No, I think we’re all set.”

It was worth every penny to watch my mom just get to hang out on Saturday with the rest of us, watching college football, talking, joking around. Usually she’s in the kitchen whipping up something delicious.

If you’re ever looking for a break from the “let’s go out for a nice dinner” routine for birthdays or special occasions, I can’t recommend hiring a chef enough. We used Bistro-at-Home. Chef Ryan is a magician in the kitchen. He brought everything he needed (pots, pans, silverware, dish ware, cutlery… every. thing.). When he left, the kitchen was spotless. Our overstuffed bellies were the only evidence of his visit. Ryan had an assistant who delivered each course to us, so it really was like we were eating in a restaurant.

Best Watch:

Hot Ones: This Youtube show has been around for a while (200 episodes!). The concept is simple: hot sauce, wings, questions, and celebrities. Sean Evans is the mastermind of this show. Over the course of 25 minutes, Sean and the celebrity eat 10 wings (the wings are of their choosing… vegans are welcome…). Each wing is dapped with hot sauce, each wing gets a little bit hotter. While it’s entertaining watching people struggle through ridiculously hot sauces, the questions Sean asks are superb. They’re thoughtful and catch the celebrity off-guard, particularly as the hot sauce heats up. It’s like a truth serum. The Paul Rudd episode was my first introduction to the show… so watch it below if you’d like… beware, it’s a deep rabbit hole…

The Witch: I’ve decided the more people I watch a scary movie with, the less scary it is. On Saturday, four of us watched The Witch, a New England Folktale about a family banished from their village. They moved to the edge of the woods which are haunted by a witch. The movie is set in the Salem Witch Trial era, it’s beautifully shot, it scratched the Halloween itch we all had. My brother and his girlfriend were watching it for the second time, and they said they enjoyed it more the second time around.

Best Listen:

Ryen Russillo’s Monday Podcast: If you’re an NFL fan, this is an excellent, honest, and interesting weekly review of the weekend’s game. Former NFL player Chris Long joins Ryen. Long is open and shares great stories every week about his life in the NFL. The two guys have been friends for a while, so their chemistry is great.

Skylight by Pinegrove: Pinegrove is a band I forgot about for a while. They returned to my radar this week when Phoebe Bridges’ album ended and Spotify started playing whatever the heck it wanted. The song “Rings” is what caught my attention. If you’re looking for a solid, low-key band that writes interesting songs with a leader singer who has a distinct voice, then these guys are for you.

Best Read:

Kyrie, KD, and the Nets Culture: I am thoroughly enjoying the start of the Brooklyn Nets season. Kyrie Irving is scoring a bunch of points and the Nets are allowing even more, leading to a 1-3 start. It’s magical and this ESPN article came out four months earlier than I expected. Kyrie was always gonna be weird, but he blasted through that first date/honeymoon phase to stealing-your-email-password crazy real fast.

Best Eat:

Everything Ryan Cyr cooked for my mom’s birthday: Golly, this was delicious. Here’s what we had on our menu (which was selected from a myriad of choices on his fall/winter menus):

Hard Cider Pumpkin Bisque (10/10), Wedge Salad (7.5/10), Scallops with risotto (8.5/10), Filet mignon (13/10) OR herb encrusted chicken (9.5/10), and tangerine creme brulee (9/10).

Bolognese at Pammy’s: My sister is working in Boston this week. She’s allowed to expense her food. So we went to Pammy’s in Cambridge, which is an incredible restaurant. We sat at the bar because you can’t go to Pammy’s on a whim, you have to plan weeks in advance and make a reservation, even on a Tuesday. Their menu is small and rotates weekly. Some items are staples, the “Lumache” is one of them. It’s a bolognese that includes a hint of Gochujang, adding a bit of spice. The bar scene at Pammy’s is great, the bartenders are very nice, they whip up delicious cocktails. Tiff got some crazy fall spice type old fashioned.

After Saturday and Tuesday, I might have gained 10 pounds… it’s a good thing I’m running a marathon in 10 days…

Best Drink:

Homemade Grapefruit Shandy: Buying beers for a group of people is tough. I went super basic and bought a Sam Adams mixer: Octoberfest, a sour beer, and Sam ‘76. We added some grapefruit juice to the Sam Adams sour to make a little shandy. It was really good, and an excellent brunch drink if you aren’t a bloody mary or mimosa person.

Best Plugs:

Read my Atomic Habits Book Club post here.

Read “The Unintended Quiet of Playing a Vinyl Record” here.

Read my quick thoughts on the Celtics-Bucks game from Wednesday night here.

Listen to Both Long and I talk about Arsenal’s captainship problem and the power dynamics in English football clubs on Spotify here. Or on apple podcasts here. Please follow, subscribe, rate, and review!