A Cheerleader for Food
Cooking for the Eagles, writing about cooking for the Eagles, and a Poi Dog sauce giveaway
Back in August 2018, when I was serving bites of chicken lu’au at Philadelphia Magazine’s Best of Philly Event (Poi Dog had, over the years, won Best of Philly awards for Best Food Truck and Best Fried Chicken), I met Christian Molnar. He has been an unwavering supporter of Philly’s smallest restaurant businesses, and I was delighted to interview him for an article for the Inquirer that just came out today.
I never thought that I’d cook for the Eagles, but Christian made that possible (and yes, ordered a hell of a lot of food). He also let me try on his Super Bowl ring.
I also never thought I’d ever write anything related to sports, but my Inquirer editor Margaret Eby made that possible, and patiently explained that the fork at the end of the football field is not a fork but a “goal” and that in American football, we say “touchdown,” and not “home run!”
Not in the article – Christian was instrumental in the plans for Lincoln Financial Field, and we frequently have discussions on how to highlight Philly’s food on the world’s biggest stages. He wants to bring Top Chef to Philly.
But more on that in ensuing newsletters.
These days I spend about 80% of my time writing. Researching, DM-ing sources, scoping out restaurants, sniffing out people and entities doing fascinating things in the food world (and beyond), reading annual reports to track which entities are working with what budgets, where our taxes go and why. This will change next week once my semester at Boston University begins (I’m teaching virtually, I’m not going to Boston every week).
There’s sometimes crossover with working on Poi Dog sauces, as a lot of what I do is look into supply chains, both out of curiosity and necessity.
I’m still cooking, but as you’ve likely noticed if you’ve had my food in Philly or NYC, Ari has been taking a much larger role with the cooking.
Last night, he seared a 65-day aged prime rib, spread enormous platters with roasted veggies, and torched homemade fluff atop a chocolate cake to celebrate a 75th birthday. I helped with the dishes. And I had candied the kumquats that lay across the cake’s fluff.
We’re jointly working on a bunch of cooking projects, which will be available to you…soon. (Obviously if you are a paid subscriber to Palaka, you will hear about these soonest *wink wink hint hint*.
In the meantime, Poi Dog Sauces has launched a giveaway with New York’s Fulton Fish Market! You can enter and win a BBQ 3 Set (which includes Chili Peppah Water, Guava Katsu and Huli Huli Sauce), Poi Dog Hat and $150 gift card to Fulton Fish Market.
Instructions are here:
This involves following @poidogforever and @fultonfishmarket and that’s really about it.
The giveaway ends Jan 17.
Also, Chili Peppah Water Batch: Noelani has spiffy new product photos on our website thanks to the irreplaceable Tami Seymour.
Mahalo and thank you for reading,
Kiki