Dispatch from the Hot Dog Startup

In case you've checked in on my blog lately and wondered where the heck I've been, here's the answer by way of photos:

Starting in June, Mr. Homewrecker and I have been testing our hands at making food... in public... for paying customers.  And the craziest part is it's working out.  The food is really, really good, and people have been enjoying it!  What's less enjoyable is lifting a deep fryer and a giant grill on and off a truck twice a week and having no social life any more, but the payoff will be sometime next year when this blossoms into a full-time food business and we can call ourselves professional cooks!

You can find us grilling and deep frying weekends through October.  Just check out www.snaptrucknyc.com for more info.  This winter we'll be turning our focus back to fund raising (feel free to give us money) and building our Chevy step-van into a beautiful mobile food truck so we can hit the road for real in 2012.  Wish us luck!

Photos: panko-crusted avocado fries with chipotle mayo, Belgian fries with housemade mayo, Chicago-style hot dog, Andouille sausage burger.

Home-Brewed Ice Coffee

Finally figured out the trick to making good iced coffee at home. Make it twice as strong. I ground 6 scoops of beans rather than 3, brewed it in the french press and then simply stuck it in the fridge overnight.

In the morning, add it to ice and a little cold water to dilute the concentrated coffee. If you really want to keep the coffee strong, make coffee ice cubes too!

Summer Salad

It's officially too hot to spend much time in the kitchen, and I'm so sick of turkey sandwiches every day for lunch. This antipasto salad was the perfect bring-to-work solution.

Arugula, mozzarella balls, pepperoni, olives, roasted red pepper, red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt, oregano, and orecchiette pasta. I had half the ingredients in the house already, so I splurged on fancy cheese, meat and olives at Choice Greene.

The Hungover Cookbook

For the days when you sleep right through brunch and don't know what to do:

Hangovers, like the one-night-stands that precede them, come in all shapes and sizes. Acknowledging this fact, THC's a choose-your-own-adventure-style cookbook that diagnoses your brain-pain via a series of visual & multiple-choice questions, categorizing it as one of six different species of delerium tremens, and directing you to a range of detailed recipes particularly suited to said genus.

Read more on Thrillist.com and buy Milton Crawford's book here.

Petunia Window Boxes

Fingers crossed I won't kill them this year. We also anchored the window boxes better so they won't get blown off the ledge and smash into our landlord's yard like last year. Thank GOD she still renewed our lease!

Baby Bookmarking

Two things recently have contributed to an acceleration of my maternal desire to spawn, which has already been kicked up a notch by getting married.

1) My cool urban friends are starting to have babies. Not the old high school classmates who married years before me. Not the college buddies who settled in suburbia. Those friends are all cool in their own way, but recently my friends who are on the same career-oriented, urban-living track as me have started to get preggers. They have cool blogs about their babies and post adorable videos of their tots playing guitar and dancing to Of Montreal and they get to dress them in ironic onesies. It's sort of sweet.

2) One of my clients at work is expanding the marketing of their baby products, so I'm getting a daily dose of smiling baby pics and shinny new stuff baby needs from the store.

The result is a slight up-tick in my desire to have my own little bundle of joy, but perhaps more immediate is the way I've started to bookmark ideas for designing a delightfully decorated room for my eventual mini me.

Like how cute are these Skwirrols decals for redecorating a kid's Ikea dresser set?

Ok, so for now I'm still just really into the peripheral fun things that comes with having a kid. But at least as I watch my awesome friends figure out how to work being moms and dads into their busy lives, and see how they deal with the scary stuff and figure out the tough things and embrace the wonderful moments, I feel a little more prepared to tackle that challenge when the time is right.

Pacifist onesie pic from plutokidstwo on Etsy.

Channeling Frustration Into Baked Goods

Call it cabin fever, or call it misplaced frustration, but I have been baking up a storm. I have all these long-term projects inching forward, but held up by finances or time or energy or whatever. The beauty of baking is you can set out to make something, and a few hours later it's done, it's beautiful and it's delicious.

When you're feeling bad about not accomplishing more, baking cookies is not only satisfying to complete, but very comforting to eat. And eat. And eat.

Thankfully this weekend is sunny and warmer, and I got out of the house on my bike to burn off some calories and keep away from the oven.

Shown above: Lemon Cherry Scones adapted from the Baked cookbook. Macaroons from the Joy Of Cooking, but I took 'em up a notch (bam!) and dipped them in melted chocolate.