Friday favorites 7/1

Quirky dinnerware, paella in outer space, and homemade liège waffles

Adorable fish plates from Zara Home lined up on our table

Happy Friday, and rabbit rabbit!¹ July was always an exciting month in my childhood home since many of my family members have birthdays this month. To add to the excitement, July also meant celebrating Independence Day at my maternal grandparents’ house. My grandfather’s prize crop was the huge watermelons he grew in his garden, and I remember sitting on the steps of the front porch and chomping on huge slices of the melons while sticky red juice ran down my forearms. The best part, though, was the fireworks. My cousins and I would watch mesmerized, sitting in the black wrought iron chairs on our grandparents’ hexagon checkerboard patio as gold, silver, green, and pink flashed in the sky. Many years ago a friend of a friend proudly told me that he didn’t like fireworks because fireworks were “too blue-collar”. At the time I thought this declaration showed that he was alternative and edgy; now I just think that anyone who doesn’t like fireworks is jaded.

Unfortunately no one is shooting off fireworks in Madrid this weekend—that’s reserved for San Isidro and when Real Madrid wins the Champions League. We’ll probably still cheers to the holiday with a burger, or maybe even a slice of watermelon. Before we get there, though, you can find my favorites from this week below.

---

• Since my meals this week were less than thrilling (Stomach virus: 1, Kiki: 0), I’ll take this opportunity to talk about another food-adjacent obsession of mine: dinnerware. We are a household of two (three if you include our cat), but we have enough plates to feed an army. Our collection is a combination of Anthropologie dinnerware that I lovingly packed in bubble wrap and stashed in my suitcase to transport to Madrid, pieces we’ve picked up in our travels,² and basics from Zara Home. Our recent plate purchase from Zara Home was not so basic, though. I have a weakness for quirky kitchenware that I’ve mostly grown out of in recent years (not having an Anthro in Madrid helps), but I couldn’t resist these fish plates from the store’s summer collection (pictured above). Now I just have to find an excuse to use them!

• This week my love of the show For All Mankind and paella collided, as famed Spanish chef José Andrés wrote about the logistics of launching paella into space. I enjoyed reading about all of the different obstacles he and his partners had to overcome (appropriate stock concentration, cooked vs. raw chicken, and how to keep the paella pouches from exploding while cooking to name a few). Also, me daba risa³ that they performed a final taste test between paella made with rice from Valencia and one made with Ben’s Original. Spoiler alert: the Valencian rice won.

• I grew up a baker more than a cook, and recipes for sweet treats are still the ones that typically catch my eye. The problem with baking for two is that you either end up with lots of leftovers that you have to give away (actually not a bad way to get in good with your vecinos⁴) or you end up scarfing down a whole batch of chocolate chip cookies (no judgement—chocolate chip cookies are good for the soul). But in the past few years, I’ve learned to make use of our freezer: not only is it a great way to avoid having delicious baked goods go bad, but it also means that weeks or months down the road, you get to pull out a sweet surprise that’s been hiding behind your stock of frozen homemade chicken stock. Even though it may darme pena⁵ in the moment to pack away half of our dessert, I’m always happy when I get to take advantage of the forethought that past-Kiki had to plan ahead.

  

  Liège waffles made with Smitten Kitchen’s recipe (linked below)

  That’s how I felt yesterday when my stomach was finally up for a dessert a little more exciting than baked apples. I was poking around our freezer to see what we may have to fit the bill and found a few leftover liège waffles from when we made them back in the winter. Our favorite recipe is the one from Smitten Kitchen; we substitute Oatly barista oat milk to make them compliant with my milk protein allergy. These waffles are not ones that you can roll out of the bed and decide to make; they call for a double rise, with one being an overnight chill in the fridge. Trust me though when I tell you that these waffles are worth it. With little pockets of pearl sugar that explode in your mouth and a crunchy caramelized crust, they’re so delicious that they need no additional topping (this coming from a maple syrup lover!). If you must, you can add a sprinkle of powdered sugar, but I think they’re perfect as they are, hot off the waffle iron. As Deb explains at the end of her recipe, these freeze beautifully. We just let them cool down and then pop them into a freezer bag. Deb suggests reheating them in the oven, but we typically heat one or two at a time in our toaster by wrapping the waffles in parchment paper and setting them to toast on low heat. This may or may not be possible for you; our toaster is extra-wide like this one, so it can accommodate the thicker waffles. If your toaster is too small, a countertop toaster oven should work perfectly, or there’s certainly nothing wrong with firing up the actual oven.

  ---

I know it’s a long weekend for my friends in the US, so I’m sending wishes for good weather and good vibes to everyone back in the States! As for me, I have lots of eating to make up for this weekend (including dairy-free chocolate sorbets to sample; for research purposes, of course). Have a fantastic weekend and see you on Wednesday! Comments are open below as always!

Ki

1. Rabbit rabbit: For those of you who aren’t five years old at heart (or 90), saying “rabbit rabbit” the first day of the month is supposed to bring you good luck. You can read more about the history of the superstition here. I don’t know when I first learned about the phrase, but I still try to remember to whisper it to myself before rolling out of bed on the first day of each month.

2. On dishes we picked up from our travels: Without knowing that I was writing about our excessive amount of kitchenware, yesterday David passed by our open shelf that holds some of our bowls that we snagged a couple of years ago in Portugal and commented, “Maybe we bought too many of these.” I contend that once our Friendsgiving bash is back in full swing in the post-COVID world, we’ll be happy to have so many dishes.

3. Me daba risa: It made me laugh

4. Vecinos: Neighbors

5. Darme pena: Make me sad