You thought that we had forgotten about chicken and rice, didn’t you? You thought that we had left the blog to stagnate and fade in a cyber-world that would simply envelope it in other forgotten sites, a relic among relics, a standalone among forsaken user-created geocities pages. Well, friends, this was all part of an elaborate scheme 10 months in the making. And you’ve been had!

How could anyone forget about chicken and rice, let alone its writers? Hilarious!

We hope you’ve learned your lesson, and that you will never doubt us (or our flawlessly executed absences) again. Seriously, those who doubt chicken and rice have no business reading our amazing material, and probably don’t even get the joke that we just played on them.

But, in fairness, the Greeks got three things right: democracy, food, and making a ton of money by peddling said food to us non-Greeks. And each of these three things came into play when I tried the Greek dessert καταιφι (kataifi).

I knew they got their food right because it was delicious. And I knew they were good at peddling it to non-Greeks because I spent a ridiculous amount of money buying pastries. But the democracy part took me by surprise, as the very ideal of democracy was embedded in the preparation– nay– the design of the food.

The most interesting thing about kataifi is that it appears to have very little substance. It is comprised of countless pieces of what we might call “shredded wheat,” wrapped around pine nuts (or walnuts or pistachios in some cases) and smothered in honey.

Each strand of dough is separate, twists and bends in its own way, and stands apart from the whole. Yet each contributes to the whole through its uniqueness, as the disparate and sometimes random microshapes add a new dimension to the flavor, enhancing the dessert through a sense of unpredictability. And yet all of these strands are united around the core of pine nuts. When you take a bite, you could swear you had eaten something denser and more flavorful than was actually the case. And in this dynamic dichotomy– the interplay between part and whole, individual and community, randomness and order– we find the profound Greek understanding of the democratic ideals that they introduced thousands of years ago, an experiment in governing that continues to this day.

And that rapturous revelation may be just enough for us to forgive them for Zach Galifianakis.

2 slices rye bread
3 pounds amazing corned beef

1. Place one slice of rye bread on flat counter top.
2. Pile on all the corned beef.
3. Top with second slice of rye bread.
4. Cut in half to give the illusion that you serve manageable portions.
5. Serve with no extras, sides, condiments, or garnishes.
6. Rake in serious dough. And by dough, I mean money.

I had taken the subway from Penn Station to Carnegie Deli. But the only viable return course, after eating several pounds of meat, was to walk into Central Park, by Strawberry Fields, to the American Museum of Natural History, up to 81st Street, back through the park, around the lake, to the Plaza Hotel, across the street to the Apple Store (play with an iPad for 5 minutes), back over to 6th Avenue, down to 34th Street, and over to the train station.

This is precisely what I did. And I still burned off only a fraction of the sandwich. I have no plans to return to the Carnegie Deli anytime soon. Once is enough for even the strongest of constitutions to endure a challenge of such epic magnitude. I dare say, no one has ever returned to the Carnegie Deli after their first meal there. Except for Larry King, who– judging from the pictures on the wall– has eaten there many times.

Oy gevalt! What a clever title! Unfortunately, I can’t take credit for it. The title of this post is the menu listing for the impressively pungent bagel pictured above. Just north of Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse Square is a little deli called Rachael’s Nosheri. And while their coffee is somewhat weak, their bagels strong-arm their way into your heart and stomach.

As if an everything bagel wasn’t flavorful enough, you get lox, the wonderfully cured fillet of salmon on a bed of cream cheese. Then, to add bite, they sneak in a red onion, which– in addition to the fish– makes for the freshest of breath. To garnish and add even more flavor, the chefs at Rachael’s add an olive on a toothpick to each half of the bagel. The first bite is tantamount to a blast of cold water in your face, a blast of cold, salmony, oniony water. Continuing through the bagel, your taste buds begin to acclimate themselves to the onslaught of zest.

But perhaps the best part of my trip to Rachael’s Nosheri was that I got to enjoy my bagel with a friend of mine, a real live Jew named Rachel. While she is in fact from New York (not Philadelphia) and spells her name differently, Rachel gave her whole-hearted endorsement of Rachael’s bagels. And that stamp of approval was good enough to convince me to keep eating, even after the first bite nearly knocked the wind out of me.

Sound too good to be true? Well…it is too good to be true. But at the Shabu-Ya restaurant in Harvard Square, you can come pretty close. Rather than you being on a boat, you can order a giant boat filled with sushi, which dominates the table, upon which you can feast to your heart’s content. But what is this? To your left, you suddenly notice that the next table has ordered a similar boat. Your eyes meet. There is a moment of indecision. And then, without a word spoken, the race is on.

Some may wonder if a food as rich and delicate as sushi should be rushed through, and whether instead it should be savored. Friends, there is a time to savor sushi, much as there is a time for joy, a time when the age of men may end, and a time to sleep. But, my friends, I assure you that it is not this time. When you look to your left and see a sushi boat, it is not this time. This is the time when proper decorum is put aside, when chopsticks become secondary to sheer will, and when the only thing that matters is not the art of your form but the size of your appetite.

And so we raced on, long into the 8pm, and in the end, it did not matter who won or lost. All that mattered was that the table was clean, and we were satiated. In a sushi boat race, everyone is truly a winner.

It’s easy to see why Spätzle is often overlooked. It is essentially a soft, chewy, pleasant noodle side-dish of central Europe. My most recent experience with spätzle was just before a trek up a mountainside in southern Germany.

I ate enough of the delicious, gummy stuff to fuel an adventure into the Bavarian Alps. Well, into the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. Or at least a large cliff in full view of the Bavarian Alps. OK, so I ate spätzle before hiking up switchbacks on the backside of a cliff in full view of the foothills of the Bavarian Alps. And in such an admission comes a concession of greatness, a negative image of the awesome feats I could have accomplished but did not. It is somewhere in this second-rate tier, below greatness, that we find spätzle, so often fulfilling a supporting role to a beef goulash or a pork chop or a generally more exciting food.

It would be natural to say, then, that spätzle lives in the shadows of giants, always an afterthought or a palate-cleanser or a nutritional supplement as a balancer of carbohydrates. Yes, friends, spätzle seems to lead a sad existence. But one must wonder, where would we be without spätzle? We would be overcome by flavor, overstimulated by beef goulash and protein and fibrous meats. We might not appreciate the taste of the main dish without something to humbly ground that taste in reality and pull us back to earth with a tiny tug at our tastebuds. And so, it can be said that main dishes everywhere owe their greatness to the solid and steady existence of spätzle, the base from which we draw distinction, and the rock upon which we build our appetite.

One can imagine (through intense suspension of disbelief) a plate of beef goulash citing Sir Isaac Newton by stating, “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.” Spätzle, you are that giant. You live not in the shadows of others, but you lift them to their savory glory.

Even standing just alongside the foothills of the Bavarian Alps, I have seen a little further. And I credit that to the food who fueled my ascent, the meal whose energy became mine, the giant upon whose shoulders I stand. I see further because of you, spätzle, because of you.

Let me count the ways:

1) You are greater than pi, which was compared to pie, which is delicious.

2) You are not a letter. Especially not T. T is a jerk.

3. You look good in light blue.

4. You are easily uploaded as a tiny JPEG, so that I may link to you as the logo for my fantasy football team, who is undefeated. Oh, 4, you bring me perfection.

This delicious of the week represents many firsts. It was the first meal I ate–nay, the first meal I decided to photograph– in Germany. It was the first time I had eaten Franconian sausage while in Franconia. It was my first al aire libre experience in Europe. And it was the first time that I had a meal served to me on a heart shaped pewter plate.

It was the first time that I was in the presence of rice while I ate a meal I would later write about. Yes, just out of the frame above is rice. It was the first time a little bird landed next to my plate and told me to write a post about firsts.

This is the first chicken and rice post about the idea of firsts. And this is the first time that I’ve written such a post. This is the first time you are reading one. This is probably the first time you have realized that this is your first time reading a chicken and rice post of this nature, as this is the first time I’ve pointed it out to you.

But for every first, there is a second, third, fourth, etc. Firsts are unique. They are the initial prods into uncharted territory. They are the trailblazers, the leaders, the sparks on the flint edge. They ooze ambition, they emanate adventure, and occasionally, they taste like Franconian sausage.

Oh Mittelfranken Brats, in a world of seconds, you truly are a first.

Do you remember the days when the milkman stopped at your house regularly to deliver fresh milk? If you’re reading this blog, your answer is likely, “no.” But that doesn’t mean that you can’t appreciate the idea of home delivered milk and what a wonderfully simple and heartening system it was.

A company in Des Moines has taken this idea one step further, one step more wholesome, one step more delicious. Instead of milk, they deliver bread to your door. Yes, bread, sustainer of life and motivator of souls.

The Daily Loaf offers a wide variety of breads, and they deliver the loafs directly to your door. The catch? You must live in Des Moines. I admit that I have weighed the pros and cons of living in Iowa many times. This realization that I could have fresh bread delivered to my house falls neatly into the pro category.

If I do indeed move to Iowa, I await excitedly the moment when an apparition of  ”Shoeless” Joe Jackson walks up to me in a corn field and asks if he is in heaven. I will break off a piece of herb batard, hand it to him, and say, “This is Iowa. But yes, Joe. It is also heaven.”