Folks, we’re at a very special time of year right now.
No, not August. (Are you kidding me?)
Not back to school.
Not even football season.
It’s state fair season.
I’m not going to lie: I love a state fair.
I love deep-fried foods and carnival rides; I love judging livestock and ducklings on slides. I love past-their-prime bands and desserts on a stick; I love fireworks, neon and organ music.
But maybe you don’t live close enough to a fair, or perhaps the traffic and heat’s just too much to bear! Fret not, my dear friends, because I’ve got a plan. We’ll throw a state fair right there where you stand!
We’ll make unusual foods and refreshing libations; we’ll judge animals and ditch our workday frustrations! So come by yourself or come with a date… The ACBN State Fair is opening its gates!
(This is what happens when I write immediately after reading three bedtime stories to my daughter; I can’t stop rhyming, even if I oughta.)
It’s Friday at The Action Cookbook Newsletter, and—like every Friday—I’m here with Seven Good Things to prepare you for a great weekend ahead. I’ve got a recipe, a cocktail, music, a book, something to watch, a discussion topic, and a menagerie of ACBN readers’ pets.
Welcome to the weekend, friends.
7) Forgive me but it’s time to go back to the old me
I share a recipe here every week, and I’ve done so for more than three years running. Most of the time, these are recipes that I think you might actually want to make—and I take great pleasure when I find out that you have. (No fewer than a hundred people have sent me pictures of their attempts at the Kentuckiana Hot Loin over the years, and I have delighted in every single one.)
Sometimes recipes are mildly outlandish—like the KHL—but other times they’re simple weeknight dinners or side dishes.
Every once in a while, though, I just have to do something stupid.
Once or twice a year, I find myself gripped by a ludicrous food idea that I cannot free myself of without 1) making it and 2) sharing it with you, the adoring public. This is how we’ve ended up with monstrosities like the Loaded Cheeseburger Picnic Pie, the Deep-Fried Skyline Chili Footballs, and American Pizza.
(For the record: all three of those were in fact legitimately delicious, and my kids still speak with reverence about the pizza. Ridiculous or not, I’m not out here to make food that tastes bad.)
ANYWAY,
A couple weeks ago, a sandwich made some waves on social media.
The Kansas City Royals baseball team announced this abomination, a pulled pork sandwich with Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups on it. Now, it’s not new for ballparks to announce stunt foods, and it achieved its intended reaction: it got people talking.
It got me thinking, though.
Yes—that sandwich above both looks and sounds disgusting. I love both pulled pork and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, but the combination of the two just feels wrong.
Although.
Is there a chance that this unusual combination of flavors could be made to work?
Could… could I make a good version of this?
I retired to my laboratory for hours of study. I sketched ideas and scrapped them. I tested ideas and abandoned them. I nearly went mad in the process.
But I think I just might’ve pulled it off, and made something actually worth eating.
/record scratch
Want to read the rest?
(You really do. It’s a good one today.)
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I’ll admit, this is a bit of a tease today, so I’ll make it up to you: this weekend only, I’m offering 25% off annual subscriptions—that’s only $37.50/year for over 150 newsletters, or roughly one shiny quarter per email!
(I also accept non-shiny quarters. They all spend the same)
I appreciate your readership, and I hope you’ll consider joining the legions of ACBN subscribers in getting great stuff in your inbox three times a week!
—Scott Hines (@actioncookbook)