All The Things I Eat

The Manhattan noodle shop closed a few years back, but I still wanted the curry soup comfort food.

The Philadelphia Italian Roast Pork sandwich doesn’t get as much attention as the Philly Cheesesteak, but it probably should. This Italian American hero–sorry, I mean hoagie–combines slow roasted pork, provolone cheese, and bitter greens like broccoli rabe on a crusty bread dripping with meat juices.

Chefs Angie Rito and Scott Tacinelli founded Don Angie in 2017, a modern Italian American restaurant celebrating the red sauce cuisine synonymous with Italians in America. The restaurant has achieved plenty of acclaim, earning and then losing a Michelin star, publishing a popular cookbook under the title Italian American, and achieving fame on social media like TikTok. Perhaps no better symbol of their success is the famous spiral lasagna dish.

This whole dinner began because we had taken our toddler with us to the grocery store, and as we walked through the produce section he was insistent we buy an orange pepper. And then he wanted a yellow pepper. And then a red one. It was like we were writing If You Give a Mouse A Bell Pepper in real time.

We fried up some eggplant drawing inspiration from Win Son’s fried eggplant recipe, which is to say the result was nothing like the original.