The Deebs Digest #13: This Generator Will Give You Your Next Great Dinner Idea!
🚂 All Aboard the Flavor Vehicle
Welcome back to The Deebs Digest - your weekly dose of food, creativity, books, entertainment, and more.
This week we’re talking: lots of recs, cheese dreams, and why I probably won’t be spending $80 on Miller Lite, so let’s get into it!
I cooked up something fun this week - but on my computer, instead of in the kitchen! Introducing: the Flavor Vehicle Generator!
I was thinking about how I like taking my favorite flavors and combining them into new or different types of recipes, and thought it might be fun to create something that would randomly pair a flavor profile (like Buffalo sauce) and a vehicle to deliver that flavor to your mouth (like tacos), to help spark new dinner ideas!
Once you find a combo you like on the generator, then you can click the find recipes button, and it will google that idea to see what recipes already exist! For example:
I had a lot of fun putting it together! Let me know if you try it out!
READING
The Blue Bistro by Elin Hilderbrand - I picked this up as book research as I heard it was a good depiction of restaurant life. I have never read an Elin Hilderbrand book before, because to be honest, I thought the covers all looked kind of cheesy and not really my style. I have to admit, I incorrectly judged her books by the cover because I LOVED this book! I guess I shouldn’t have been suprised that it was going to be good, there might be a reason she is a well-loved and prolific author after all. I will absolutely be reading more from her now. And I think there’s a good chance I’ll revisit this one again through the book writing process - she described the setting so well, I really felt like I was sitting in that restaurant.
El Dorado Drive by Megan Abbott - I also enjoyed this slow-burn thriller about a group of women who are part of an “investment club” that sounds too good to be true.
I was fascinated by this post from about the Erin Patterson Mushroom Murders Trial - I don’t even think I had even heard about this case before; possibly because I listen to far less true crime podcasts than I used to, or maybe I’ve just been living under a rock, but the details of this story are truly crazy:
LISTENING
Really enjoying a new podcast called The Writing Mom Podcast by ! These short episodes provide practical advice for fitting in time to write among all the other responsibilities of being a mom (though I think the content could translate to most other passions or hobbies moms might want to pursue for themselves - it doesn’t have to be writing).
Also, started listening to the Mushroom Case Daily Podcast after learning about it in the above mushroom case post.
WATCHING
We happened to tune into an episode of American Masters about Italian cookbook author, Marcella Hazan that was really great! I made her Famous Tomato Sauce years ago, but I’ve had her Essentials of Italian Cooking cookbook on my shelf for quite a while and am excited to look through it again now. My husband and I were especially interested in cooking her Roast Chicken with Lemons. This chicken recipe is literally just a whole chicken seasoned with salt and pepper and stuffed with two lemons, and it looks incredible! She was really great at showing how sometimes the simplest things are the best.
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I had never heard of Cheese Dreams before, but now that I have, boy would I like to eat a whole plate of them. “Cheesy Carbs” just so happens to be my favorite food group.
Miller Lite is getting wild. They’ve turned a popular (and delicious) cocktail, the Spaghett into a boozy push-pop. Fun idea, but for touting it’s “dive bar vibes”, the price is giving $$$ restaurant… $79 for 6!
[via American Idol] I’m not sure how to feel about the idea of Pickle Biscuits… they sound kind of weird, and also maybe really good?
I would be content eating a breakfast sandwich most mornings, and these versions all look delicious!
I recently bought some watercolor pencils to play around with as I remembered liking to use the ones my mom had when I was younger. Looking forward to trying out some of the techniques in these videos:
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Flavor vehicle generator???? Genius!