hey, streethawk
lazy pride, zucchini brownies, and my fav pasta salad
Every year, Pride arrives, and I’m underprepared and overwhelmed. Luckily, Liang also usually prefers to keep things pretty low-key. Before heading to the Dyke March on Saturday, we had brunch at Yolks on Hastings, which neither of us had eaten at before. We sat on the patio with our mimosas and shared the day’s special, a short rib benny, with sides of fruit and tater tots— you can’t go wrong with some breakfast tots. After the march and an hour or so checking out a bit of the subsequent festival at Grandview Park, watching some performances and saying hi to a few friends we ran into, we’d had our fill. It’s so nice to be around other queers but we both tend to have a finite limit for noise and crowds. We made our way over to Superflux to have a beer in a more chill environment, and get a hot dog for lunch, because any day is a good day for a hot dog.
In the evening, Jeff and I went to a backyard jam at Eryn and Graham’s, where we hung out playing (or listening to) tunes and talking until almost midnight. Ed had made blackberry lemon tarts just before he and Chris showed up, and they were still warm from the oven. He’d even created little packets of four tarts each wrapped in foil, for people to take home with them. I guess we’re all drowning in blackberries that need to be used this time of year— Jeff has filled our freezer with at least five pounds of them so far. I don’t think we’ve even managed to use up all of last year’s berries yet.
On Sunday, I went over to see Liang and Tim’s new apartment in the afternoon, and then we went to check out the main Pride festival in its new location nearby (if you’re not in the know, for space and accessibility reasons it’s now at the Concord Pacific pavilion on False Creek, rather than at Sunset Beach). The performance schedule wasn’t listed on the website, so we unfortunately missed the drag performances we were interested in, but c’est la vie.
It was really busy, which is great in that it means lots of queers were out having a good time, but not so great in that it means it was loud and packed. So after a wander through the booths and getting some tacos at The Taco Tigre truck (I liked the caramelized pork best) we decided to take our leave, and went to Batch, an outdoor pub that sells canned cocktails, beers, and wines. I had a tart saison from Dageraad that I really liked. Liang fondly remembered a Beatles cover band she’d seen there last time she went by. This time there was a pianist which we weren’t as keen on, but they did play a rendition of “Piano Man” that got the whole bar going. Billy Joel’s power cannot be understated.
In my ongoing zucchini quest, I made these chocolate chip zucchini brownies on the holiday Monday while marinating zucchini and red onion for a salad to go with our burgers for dinner (see photo above). They’re vegan if you use vegan chocolate chips, easy, and super tender, and helped use up a big chunk of the overlarge zucchini Jeff’s mom missed in the garden while we were away. I assume the coconut oil is for flavour rather than structure, because I used canola and they came out just fine. I also recommend saving some of the chocolate chips to sprinkle over the top, since the moisture in the zucchini will make them basically dissolve within the brownies. Sprinkling flaked salt on top before baking is necessary, not optional, in my opinion, but otherwise these are perfect and I will definitely make them again.
We got an eggplant off the dollar rack, so as a treat, we had a meal that didn’t involve zucchini! I made this pasta salad, one of my summertime favourites. We’d grilled the eggplant the night before while cooking the burgers so prep for this was pretty easy. I toasted the walnuts while the pasta water was coming to a boil, and made the rest of the sun-dried tomato pesto while the noodles cooked. I use feta in this rather than ricotta salata, since that’s one we always keep in the house, and we also have hundreds of little tomatoes right now, so I threw in a few of those, too. I do think creamy pasta salads are unfairly maligned, because the right one can be really good, but a vinegary pasta salad with lots of crunchy elements almost never goes awry.
It rained on Wednesday and I was having an emotional time (unrelated to the weather), and Jeff tried to convince me that we should make the vegan smoky squash mac & cheese. I reluctantly agreed, if only because we’ve had that spaghetti squash since last November and I was sick of looking at it. I linked my recipe above, but I’ve made this dish so many times now that I just set my pan and pot on the stove and then start gathering everything I need from memory and putting it on the counter, never really measuring anything, putting ingredients away as I go. It doesn’t need to be perfect, it needs to be creamy and smoky and it needs to use up that fucking squash.
When I make this with spaghetti squash I usually increase that to a cup or a cup and a half, and decrease the number of other veggies I add to it. Unlike a squash purée it won’t dissolve to become part of the sauce, adding texture instead. But we had some leftover charred broccoli I’d made for a peanut noodle salad on the weekend, and a couple of kale leaves I wanted to be able to use, so I just added a little pasta water to stretch the sauce a bit further. The timer didn’t start when I turned on the broiler (why with the broiler? the most dangerous game!) so I had to pick a couple charcoal-y spots off the top, but otherwise, this was a great dinner for a rainy and sad day. And the brownie I got to eat afterwards helped, too.
It was nice eating restaurant pizza while we were away, but it was nice to get back into our Friday pizza nights at home last week, too. I’d put some pepper salami in the freezer before we left, so I thawed that out for one of the pizzas, and grated some zucchini for the other. I really like the briny acidity of a tapenade base for shredded zucchini on pizza, but didn’t have time to make one, so we did an olive oil and garlic salt base instead, and chopped up the olives to put on top. I also cooked the zucchini down in a pan with salt and lots of black pepper before making the pizza, since I worried that with the short cooking time on the pizza stone, it would release too much liquid and the crust wouldn’t cook properly. This turned out to be the right choice.
I used a combination of mozzarella and pecorino— mozza on its own is fairly mild, and so is zucchini, so something more pungent like pecorino or aged provolone or gruyère is nice to mix in. The other pizza had the salami, some fresh cherry tomatoes from our garden, and jalapeño. Both were excellent.
Thanks for reading— if you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with someone new! I like providing this to you for free, but it does still involve time and effort, so donations I can use towards cookbooks or future treats (or moving costs 😓) are much appreciated. This week felt filled with bad news, and the wildfire destruction in Lahaina is absolutely devastating. I encourage anyone who can to donate here to help residents who have lost everything, especially if you’ve visited Maui as a tourist in the past.