We’ve been a big fan of late of hosting small quarantine dinner parties and brunches, allowing us to try out new recipes and get some social interaction every week. Below are some of those recipes, as well as other things I’ve been eating.

Pair with new cocktail recipes or local beer.

Mexican night

Forget enchiladas. While I had to visit three grocery stores to find all the ingredients, it was so worth it. Tonight’s menu included homemade epazote salsa, grilled carrots with limey hot sauce and cotija cheese, strip steak with dried chiles (guajillo and new mexico) and salted peanuts. Finish with crispy chocolate cake with hazelnut and sour cream. Seriously just buy Alison Roman’s book Nothing Fancy.

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Bo Ssam

Korean pork butt, slow-roasted for 7 hours in sugar and paired with kimchi, ginger-scallion sauce and ssamjang. A recipe from David Chang’s Momofuku.

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Other recipes

I continued with more marinated meat (strip steak in crispy garlic and chile oil), and while I still haven’t worked my way up to a mole, I did open my Oaxacan cookbook to cook picadillo de pollo taquitos (very sweet, please include other dishes in your meal).

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Supporting local restaurants

Local restaurants need our support now more than ever – please don’t forget about them while you’re cooking away. Because if you don’t support them now (even if takeout food can never be as good as fresh), they may not be there when you want them.

Below are photos from Hadramout (Houston’s only Yemeni restaurant!!) and Taqo (a unique taco joint in the Heights).

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