Chip City Cookies

 There are so many cookie companie s out there yet Chip City stands out. Why? Their cookies ar ethese huge mounds of goodness, bigger than the average round! Plus they come in all sorts of unusual and traditional flavors.

I discoivered them today in Ridgewood ,New Jersey, Any bakery featuring cookies is always worth investigating.It was a cheery place with the lure of cookies - GIANT ones 

They offered five or four choices.I wen with the safest. Chocolate chip and confetti

These are huge mounds of cookies. Chip City also had the brookie, a brownie cookie , hybrid and caramel apple cider doughnut. Their menus change weekly. You could walk into any of their Long Island, Manhattan and New Jersey stores and try a Key Lime one ,a giant cookie filled with Key lime pie filling or a peanut butter chocolate one. There are eleven flavors on rotation,

How do they taste? An odd mox of crunchy outer shell with a chewy cookie inside. They were interesting  and the chocolate chip had a good amount of chips on. The confetti one was more sugary than buttery.  Keep in mind that they are expensive. Each cookie costs a whopping five bucks!

If you like giant cookies then try Chip City ones. They're big enough for two or three people to enjoy. Try their many flavors , They're a bog cookie with a big taste

The Buffet Returns

 One of the best things pre-pandemic was the all you cna eat buffet. It went dark for the pandemic and now it's coming back with a force. People are enjoying their favorites in large quantities in a fun place.

Kim Severson wrote about this in today's New York Times Food section.Buffets have been taking  hit in th e last years but they're coming back. People want  a good value for their meal and they want flavor and choice. Lily Jan, a food and beverage lecturer at Cornell University  calls it   the Cheesecake Factory effect . She says Americans want the consistency because they are afraid to takes risks with their dollars as it trlates to food.They want to go somewhere with the kids where everyone can have what they want at a good price. They don't have to break the bank to make it an experience. Yet the pandemic helped to  winnow out the weakrer,less popular ones. Fresh Acquisitions which owned Hometown Buffet  and Oldtown Buffet along with another went bankrupt. They cited that some of their restaurants couldn';t meet the seventy-five per cent capacity to keep them going and ruen a profit.It also symbolized an end to those cheap Las Vegas buffets. Only eight remain out of the original sixteen.

Yet diners jkeep coming and enjoying their offerings, expecially in Las Vegas. The buffet was born there as a way to keep gamblers from leaving the casinos. That may be true now as well but many go for the vast array of choices. Sheri Orner  who mananged  buffets for Station Casinos where they had to close for the pandemic now works at the very popular Wicked SPoon at the Cosmpopilitan Casino. It reopned in June 2020, On a busy day they serve 1,800 (!) diners at a pricry $49 dollars a head. The price shoots up to $75 if diners want alcohol. These buffets would be unrecognizable to Frank Sinatra or other headliners of Vegas' Golden Era. There are Korean spiced chicken wings and a deep purple horchata, a milky cinnamon spiked Mexican drink. Diners can try a black garlic ramen made for order. Yes there's those gleaming piles of lobster and crab claws that are always a draw. Other buffets all over the country are following the Vegas ones. Gen Xers' who grew up in the golden age of buffets in the early 2000 's are  embracing them, heading to local Chines e buffets , the Sizzler and even Pizza Hut.For many immigrant kids like professional pianist Choo Choo Hu this was the first taste of America. Kids were told no noodles and no rice. , their parents wanting them to eat the best of what the buffet had to offer. They offer newcomers American food while offering American a chance to  have a culinary travel trip.

Buffets are here to stay. They;re a fun escape, full of interesitng and tasty dishes.People want them .

Refreshing Ades

The temps are up. The humidity is crushing. It's time to make refreshing thirst quenching ades that cool you down. They're easy to recreate and wonderful to sip, especially on a hot night.

One of the most refreshing and popular is agua fresca. This can be made with any fresh fruit and even veggies such as cucumber. It goes back to Aztec times when it was made to appease the gods' thirst. Now it can satisfy ours.It's simply fresh chopped fruit, water, and sugar. They can be made in a blender or using an immersion blender. A fun one is the watermelon  flavored, made with about four cups of watermelon chunks  , muddled with three cups of water, two tablespoons of sugar and the juice of one lime. It's a quick blitz and then serve over ice. Another fun and tropical twist is using pineapple. You may not need as much sugar for this one. For a truly refreshing agua fresca, think cucumbers.  You will need more sugar - about half a cup for two cucumbers and one half cup of lime juice.Mint leaves can be added for more refreshment.Another great cooler from Mexico is horchata. Again, this is another easy mix. It's taking long grained white rice that's been cooked, along with almonds and cinnamon sticks and blitzing them in a blender or with an immersion blender.It;'s then adding water and vanilla. Milk is added when it's ready to be chilled for a few hours.

Ades are an old fashioned way to quench your thirst when the temps go high. One of the most popular is lemonade. Keep in mind that the recipe starts with simple syrup and not sugar tossed in. Sugar will sink to the pitcher's bottom and you'll be left with a sour drink. Simple syrup is just that, a cooked syrup made with only a cup of sugar and  a cup of water boiled together. It;s then stirring them together over a low flame until a syrup is created.  You can add fresh lemon juice if you want a more lemony flavor. It's then adding one cup of fresh or bottled lemon juice and two to three cups of ice cold water. Mix and chill. You can add a few to a 1/3 cup crushed fresh mint leaves if you want.Limeade is another refreshing summer cooler. It takes seven large limes and five cups of water. Add simple syrup to sweeten it and served, iced with sliced limes. You can also do the same with oranges for a refreshing hot afternoon treat.  You'll need seven to eight medium sized oranges along with  a third of a cup of lemon juice to balance the flavor. Again use about a  half cup of the simple syrup to sweeten the drink.

This is the time of year for thirst quenching drinks. Make up an icy pitcher of any of them to cool off.They're the perfect sip for a hot , steamy day.