Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Weegee's

holy trinity chili, that's the holy trinity of meat: beef, pork, italian sausage

bought it first, now reading article. love SE.

totally agree with gamingwithbaby's original comment...no love loss for SE, not a huge deal, we're cool. great name for that pup though!

truffle salt popcorn...white truffle oil + ricotta salada...never the real thing though

I have to say, Momofuku is one of my favorite cookbooks, not for the recipes but for everything else. It tells the compelling tale of David Chang and his restaurants, and it's written in that agitated, fight-the-man, Tony Bourdain style. It almost makes the recipes an afterthought. I haven't tried any of them yet because even the "easier" ones demand at least a few hours (lots of recipes reference other recipes as "ingredients").

So to answer your question, I'm going to go "coffee table book" over "actually make the recipes." If anything, it will introduce you to unique flavor combinations and cool ideas that could enhance your repertoire or inspire your own creations.

All that said, cooking from the book can definitely be done: http://www.momofukufor2.com - steph does a fantastic job over there.

nettles

HOP KEE BABY

2 is lunch...and honestly, saturday 2am implies you're either out or your up being social - in such cases, i totally agree a slice of pizza hits the spot - but such a circumstance would be more aligned with the "snack" number.

i would add another wrinkle: 1 is a snack, 2 is lunch, and 3+ happens only in free pizza scenarios.

fresh tomato sauce over ziti

if it's in the cooler behind the counter, i pick grape soda.

my mom used to make a delicious frittata with leftover spaghetti. it's a little tough to judge how many beaten eggs to use per cup or lb. of pasta, but i tried it once and it came pretty good. cook the eggs slowly, and add a little cinnamon.

Cakeman wouldn't take my order on Wednesday for Saturday, and I'm glad. I ended up ordering 2 dozen red velvet cupcakes from Joyce's Bakeshop on Vanderbilt Avenue and Park Place - they were a HUGE hit.

Thanks for all the help everyone!