Long time, no see, dudes. Ill give you the usual excuse: Ive been busy at work and often, once my ass hits the couch around 9 PM, Im ready to just watch some TV and chill and not do more editing. That doesnt mean Im not cooking every day! Im just trying to achieve some sort of balance in my life. Maybe that actually means blogging more and going out less, but lets be real, its New York and there are too many tempting things to do (and eat). Last night, I was determined to get home and edit some photos and get a post up, though. I was supposed to work out, but I told myself that I deserved to spend some time here. I even got off the subway early to stop over at my favorite place ever, Osakana, to pick up some fish and pickled veggies for dinner. They always have these wonderful cuts of fish marinated in koji miso or sake kasu (I got some cod AND some tuna belly last night because I couldnt decide), or sometimes theyll have these delightful tiny sweet shrimp that taste like butter and Kramer and I will just eat raw as a snack. I could buy everything there. They make the most amazing roasted fish bone stock that they sell alongside freshly made ramen noodles that you can take home and heat up and bliss out over. ANYWAY, I grabbed the fish and started walking home, which really is barely half a mile away, but nobody told me that it was windy as shit outside and also apparently freezing. Thats what I get for being in the office all day, I guess. But yeah, that walk sucked, so I threw the fish in the oven with some carrots and eggplant and couldnt wait to curl up under a blanket and watch Netflix and get to blogging. Arent you lucky?

I made these lime bars a while back and brought them to a bar for some friends to eat. Their reaction was as I had hoped it would be. They were in love. And I was in love, too. These bars rule. I love lemon bars, dont get me wrong, but theres something about these lime bars that kind of blow them away. Yes, you could use Key limes, but look, I already have tendonitis as it is, so Im not really about to spend time juicing 1,000 little limes. Regular ol limes will do the trick just as well. Juice and zest some of those bad boys, bake off your shortbread crust, and get ready to bite into the thickest, chewiest lime bars of your life. These arent wimpy little thin, sad bars. Nope. I refuse to have any of that. If youre making a citrus bar of any kind, you better make it at least two inches thick. Thats what the people want. These are the perfect thing to sort of tease spring out, especially if youre like me and youre looking at your PTAC unit and it doesnt even say a temperature, it just says LO. Fear not! Make some lime bars–the oven will warm up your apartment AND youll be a hero among your friends and family for bringing a little sweet sunshine into their lives.

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Today is International Womens Day, and while I wont be striking, I will be donating and showing my support for women everywhere I can. I am obviously extremely lucky to have a job that I absolutely love, where I am appreciated and valued and paid fairly for the work that I do. I dont know many straight up human beings that can say that, let alone people that identify as female. I encourage you to do what you can to show solidarity today, and just as importantly, educate yourself on the issues that are being brought up as a result of this strike (and the Womens March this past January). Its crucial that our feminism is intersectional. It has to be inclusive. White women especially need to understand these concepts. We need to help each other, build each other up, and have the capacity to understand the struggles of those around us who identify as female. Its not always as easy as showing up to march or making a donation, though both of those things are hugely important in carrying out the cause. I am personally always learning and reading about issues that days or months or years ago I was totally ignorant to, and owning up to that ignorance, correcting it, and learning from it are important steps to making modern feminism something that everyone feels welcome to participate in. Im certainly no expert, but Im also not going to sit here and say that what were doing is good enough. We can always do more. I really enjoyed this piece by Jia Tolentino about the strike and everything that comes with it. It gave me a little more perspective and helped me start to come to terms with my own contradictions. I hope youll read it! And I also hope youll take some time to donate today, if youre lucky enough to do so. My choices today are the Transgender Law Center and the Center for Reproductive Rights. Each are fantastic organizations dedicated to using the law to fight for the rights of the people that they represent. Of course, Planned Parenthood, the ACLU, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations are all excellent places to donate, if youve havent already. I have very small monthly donations set up for each of them. I used to think I couldnt afford to do something like that, but then I looked at what I had been spending at bars and on manicures and whatever other stupid crap I was buying and decided it was time to redirect my money to a place that actually did something good. But again, not everybody can do this. Donating your time via protesting or volunteering are equally important and impactful ways to help do good in the world. AND one more thing: THANK YOU SO MUCH to all of the wonderful people leaving such amazing comments here in the past few months. There have been some extremely hateful comments, but others have been there to stand up and take those morons to task, and for that, I am so grateful. It really gives me hope for the future!

I figured Id share a simple recipe today, given everything thats going on and the fact that we should really be focusing on toppling the patriarchy and all. But a girls gotta eat, and more importantly, a girls gotta snack. This buttermilk pound cake is honestly just amazing. It truly brings a tear to my eye. I had like, I dont know, half a jug of buttermilk a few weeks ago, and I was scouring the internet trying to find something that used more than two tablespoons of it. This recipe popped up and Ill be damned if it isnt one of the best things Ive ever tasted. The crumb is buttery and dense, but not overwhelmingly so, and the crust on top, oh the crust! Its crunchy and crispy and contrasts perfectly with the velvety cake. I could truly have made myself sick eating this, but thankfully I had the willpower to give some of it away to friends. Who knew that such simple ingredients could result in the most wonderful cake? Its incredible on its own, really, but if youre so inclined, spread a little jam and whipped cream over a slice, or take two slices and stick a few scoops of ice cream in between them for the best damn ice cream sandwich you ever did have. Maybe even bake a loaf and bring it out to the next protest you attend–youll make friends faster than ever before.

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First things first, before I get into recipes and vacations and all of that. If you havent already, please attend a town hall hosted by your local representatives while theyre out on recess. You can find out where they are being held here. This is especially important in areas with representatives who are not doing their jobs and questioning the constant insanity that President Trump and his team continue to push forward. Demand that your representatives listen to you. There are great lists of resources here to help you do everything from ask a question to organize your own town hall if your rep isnt going to be holding one. Im going to again encourage you to also give Pod Save America a listen if you need inspiration. Katie Couric was a guest this week, and it was both incredibly informative and also just plain refreshing to hear a well-respected journalist talk honestly and bluntly about the current state of our government. People are still being held up at borders, the government is rolling out a ridiculous program to deport good, hardworking members of our society, and people are in danger of losing their healthcare. If you want to feel really awful this morning, check out this article (with photos!) of people trying to actually leave the United States to seek asylum in Canada, only to have their family literally torn apart by border agents. Im really hopeful that this weeks protests and town halls can make a huge difference. Keep writing, keep calling, dont become complacent. Continue to have tough conversations with friends and family. Its only been one month of this administration. If anyone is doing something that they want me to post about, too, please email me on sydney [at] crepesofwrath [dot] net and Ill post it here. Its not much, but its something. Keep it up, guys!

After youve done your political activism for the day, I encourage you to sit back, relax, and take care of yourself. Maybe have some friends over this weekend, and over discussing the current political climate that were all living in (and how we can fix it), perhaps you could bust out some of these tarts? Theyre incredibly easy to make, but they look super fancy because theyre made with puff pastry, which I actually hadnt ever used before this. I had a package of it in my freezer for months, thinking Id use it to make all kinds of tasty finger foods, but it wasnt until New Years Eve that I decided to make these (wow, Im really behind on posts). Its always nice to have something vegetarian to offer to your friends, and while they are made with buttery pastry, the result is a light, crispy appetizer perfect for popping in your mouth and not having to worry about crumbs falling all over the place. You can use pretty much anything here–maybe use mozzarella cheese and add some olives, or sprinkle chives over everything to make it extra gourmet. You could add sausage or peppers or even just keep it simple with onions and cheese. The world of puff pastry is your ready-to-bake oyster. I made these earlier in the day on NYE, then popped them in the oven quickly to warm up before people came over. They were all gone by the end of the night, thankfully, or else I would have had to eat them all myself.

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I forgot it was Valentines Day until I looked at the calendar, but thats okay. Kramer and I arent the biggest Valentines Day people, though well probably hit up a bar tonight and eat some chicken fingers. Thats romantic as it gets, as far as Im concerned. Were also headed to Austin tomorrow for a working vacation. Kramer has meetings, and I figured Id tag along and shoot some video while he works. Im planning to hit up some really delicious spots, so make sure youre following all my adventures on INSIDER Food and INSIDER Dessert, if youre not already. Thats my real-life grown-up job, for those of you who didnt know! Now you do. Anyway, Im really excited for Austin. We went once last year and really loved it. I feel like I havent felt warm sunshine inwell, a while. New York winters, man. So Im ready for a little rest and relaxationin between doughnuts and barbecue and breakfast tacos, of course. Thats why I figured Id post these ribs today. Theyre not traditional barbecue, of course, but theyre pretty good for a small Brooklyn kitchen. You just rub em down, cover them, and pop them in the oven for about two hours. Thats it! Theyre as tender as can be and I promise theyll disappear before you can count to ten.

I was inspired to make these ribs by my friend Jeenas mom. Ive never met her, but she is an angel who always sends Jeena back from her home state of California with lots of goodies for me. Ive gotten a big tub of gochujang, which is a sweet and spicy Korean pepper paste, a bag of gochugaru, which is a Korean chili pepper, toasted sesame seeds, different kinds of pickles and banchan, and more. Its awesome. Jeena even once brought me a tub of some kind of paste that I cant remember the name of, but its pungent and sweet and sour and spicy and all of the good things you want to use as a base for a soup or a marinade. You can, of course, get gochujang and gochugaru at a local specialty or Korean market, but it really makes me feel special to get these little packages from Jeena and her mom, especially because theres always something new that Ive never tasted before in there somewhere, and whats more exciting than that? These ribs are fall-apart tender, but theyve got that punch that you expect from Korean food, which Kramer and I love. I added a little honey for sweetness near the end of the cooking time, just to caramelize the tops and give the ribs a bit of crispiness, but otherwise, this simple four-ingredient marinade is all you need to make wonderfully delicious ribs.

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Hows everyone holding up? Its scary out there, but thank you to everyone thats been protesting, calling, sharing information, and not backing down. Now, more than ever, it seems easiest to just retreat back into ourselves and be quiet. Quiet sounds so peaceful, doesnt it? Unfortunately, we dont get to do that anymore, because there are people out there that need our help, from immigrants trying to get to the United States to make a better life for themselves and their families, to legal citizens who are just trying to get back to the lives theyve already built here. Could you imagine detaining a woman and her young children, without food, at an airport for 20 or 30 hours? What kind of a monster lets that happen? My privilege is more glaring now, more than ever, but I hope that you will join me in using that privilege to do something good. Please continue to call and write to your representatives and voice your opinion on all issues, from immigration to Steve Bannons National Security Council appointment to Betsy DeVos. Continue to donate your time and money. If nothing else, if you are fortunate enough to be able to give, the best way to make a difference is still with cold, hard cash so that people can keep working day and night to stop these horrible things from happening. Set up a monthly donation to the ACLU or the Southern Poverty Law Center or the Council on American-Islamic Relations, even if its just a small amount. I know I probably sound like a broken record at this point, but honestly, this is what matters right now, and we should all be thinking about it constantly. We dont get to sleep well at night until everyone gets to do the same, and I dont foresee that happening any time soon with this administration. If you do want a little comfort, honestly, I suggest listening to President Obamas last interview in office that he did with Pod Save America. I hadnt listened to it until yesterday, and it just made me feel like we could do this. Give it a listen on your way into work this morning. It definitely reenergized me.

So, in the spirit of working towards the common good, a group of food bloggers decided to get together and share some stories about immigration from our own friends and families. Obviously, American food has been hugely influenced by immigrants. We really wouldnt have the various foods we eat on a daily basis here without immigrants. Sadly, we certainly have a history of denying entry to people from a wide swath of places throughout Americas history, but for those that were able to come to the States for a better life, with them, they brought their food. My great-grandfather was Irish (though he went to Canada first before my moms parents moved her and her siblings to the US in the 60s/70s) and my great-great-grandmother was Italian. My husbands family came here from Eastern Europe during the pogroms in the early 1900s. They came here and started a rope-making business, eventually turning it into a robe (yep) business, if you can believe that. Kramers grandmother still has a few of them. My own great-grandfather was from Poland, which is why Im sharing with you this recipe for Szarlotka, or Polish apple pie. Its sort of a combination of a cake, a pie, and a cobbler, but its not-too-sweet and perfect for breakfast or a light dessert. The top has a sort of biscuit quality to it, which I personally find to be irresistible and so did the people I shared it with. We never fully embraced the Polish side of our family as we did the Italian side, but I always loved hearing stories from my grandfather about growing up with a Polish father in America. My favorite story was about his class pet. Remember having a class pet in elementary school? Everyone would have to take turns watching it over the weekends or on long breaks. We had a hamster and I remember my mother absolutely hated it when I brought that thing home for the weekend. I was thrilled then, but now, if someone tried to make me take care of a hamster for the weekend, Im not sure how stoked Id be. Either way, my grandfather excitedly brought the class rabbit home for summer break. He put it out back and then left to play with his friends. When he returned, he discovered that his father had taken a liking to the rabbitso much so that he decided it would make a delicious dinner. He cooked the rabbit before my grandfather could explain that it was a pet, a concept my great-grandfather was not familiar with. Dogs are pets, cats are pets, rabbits are dinner. For the rest of the summer, kids from school would see him on the street and bring him discarded vegetables from their gardens to feed to the rabbit. My grandfather didnt have the heart to tell them what had happened, so he accepted their vegetables and gave them to his mother to cook. This was during the Depression, after all, so he felt extremely guilty for taking even these discarded bits of lettuce and carrots. He said that, eventually, after a month or so, the kids forgot about the rabbit, as kids are often wont to do, and he kept the secret to himself for years. My grandfather went on to fight in World War II, earn a purple heart, become a mason, and build his own typical American life for himself, but he always remembered that rabbit (and I will, too). I remember him talking about fitting in and feeling a little different than everyone else because his family ate food that others found weird, or that his parents didnt speak the best English, but that also made him who he is today. Now, I think about who Id be if my great-grandparents hadnt been able to come to America in the early 1900s. Where would I be, if at all?

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This past weekend was (and still is) a truly dark time in American history. Its certainly kept me up at night. The audacity of this ban on people from Muslim-majority nations is beyond me. It makes me feel numb. When I look at pictures of people finally being reunited with their families at airports across the country, I want to cry, both tears of joy for them but also tears of anger and sadness because they had to go through SO. MUCH. already, and then to be put through this additional gauntlet is just heartbreaking. These are human beings. The United States should be a place of refuge, a place where people can feel safe, not a place of fear and hate-mongering. And of course the countries where Trump has business ties have been left off of his list. We are a nation of immigrants. We know that. Everyone knows that. And to turn people away, people that need our help, people that are already legally residing in the country, people that have put their lives on the line to help our military and government abroad, is sickening. I implore you to please donate to the ACLU on a monthly basis, if your budget allows. Go to protests (you can easily find them in your area by searching on Facebook). Find your local chapter of CAIR and look for volunteer opportunities. Call your representatives. And for those of you who have left comments about how you dont like my politics (or worse), you are welcome to go elsewhere, because this is important and if youre going to turn a blind eye to the world right now because its too hard or you just dont want to deal with it, then I feel ashamed for you. This is about people and they deserve every chance and opportunity that every American deserves. We have to keep having these tough conversations, especially with people who disagree with us or people that voted for the current president. These recent actions are indefensible. Even Republicans think so. This is not the time to just wait around and give him a chance and see what happens. Its clear what this administrations priorities are, and we cannot stand for it.

Its honestly hard for me to even put a recipe up right now. Its hard to think about anything other than the current political climate and all of the horror that is being inflicted upon people, from this ban to the struggle of so many other people in this country, but its important to rest and stay focused and spend some time re-energizing yourself. If that means going for a run, watching a movie, meditating, or, in my case, baking or cooking, then thats a good thing. One of my friends sends out a weekly email blast with various calls to action and ways to help, and one thing she mentioned was that its easy to burn out, so find the things that you are passionate about and make sure you take care of yourself while you work on them. Im trying to do that as best I can. I am obviously very lucky and I am in a position where I am able to donate, protest, and try to spread information to others. Not everyone is so fortunate, and I realize that. Thats why I feel a responsibility to use this blog and whatever reach it has to try to do some good. But at the end of the day, it is a food blog, and I do want to share some recipes with you, if anything, to help alleviate some of the pain everyone has been feeling. And bread is a great way to do that. Kneading the dough together is soothing and therapeutic, and theres really nothing like the smell of freshly baked bread. This is a simple rye bread recipe. Its perfect for sandwiches or toast or even just snacking with some butter and salt. We made a brisket a few weeks back, had some friends over, made sandwiches, and watched a movie. This bread was wonderful slathered in mustard and piled high with tender slices of meat, pickles, and onions. If youre new to baking, especially to baking bread, then this is a wonderful place to start. Bake some bread, take care of yourself, and while it rises, give your representatives and senators a call. Thanks to everyone who has been working tirelessly to make a difference, and thank you especially to all of the people around me who are inspiring me to be better and work harder.

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