Hot-and-Sticky Lemon-Pepper Chicken Wings adapted from Richard Blais in Food & Wine

         A couple of years ago, I went on a Chicken Wing Diet.  It was about the time that New York restaurants were obliged to print the calorie count of their dishes on their menus.  In New York, with Mayor Bloomberg at the helm, we’ve gotten very used to the Nanny-state. And to tell the truth, it’s not all bad.  Smoking is virtually impossible—you cannot smoke anywhere indoors at any bar or restaurant or office building. You can't even smoke in city parks or on its beaches. There even are apartment buildings that ban smoking altogether. Thank you Mayor Bloomberg.

Think this Chicken Caesar is healthy?
No way!

          Nanny-state behavior or not, to me the requirement to list calories really was an eye-opener.  There, clear as day, was the Chicken Caesar Salad weighing in at something like 1200 calories. But on the same menu the Baked version of Buffalo Chicken Wings with dressing and carrot and celery sticks came in at a mere 535 calories.   Anytime I can save 665 calories at a clip, I’m there.  Besides, I love the things.  The heat of the hot sauce dipped into the creamy blue cheese dressing, the crunch of the skin and tender meat underneath are irresistible.  And of course, the wings were way less expensive than the Chicken Caesar.  So I pretty much adopted them as my blue plate special from then on.  I also made them any number of ways at home. In the land of budget cooking, Chicken Wings take the prize. But none were ever as delicious as the ambrosial wing recipe cooked up by Atlanta’s Richard Blais, ex Top Chef All Stars winner and proprietor of a new Atlanta restaurant called “The Spence” (5th Street NW, Atlanta GA 30308 Tel: 404-892-9111.

Our 325th Post! Melissa Clark's Quick Banh Mi with Pickled Carrots and Daikon

  

         Today marks another milestone on Chewing the Fat. It’s our 325th post and sometime in the very near future we will achieve our 300,000th page view.  Not bad for a couple of self-taught cooks who just love to bake and cook and have never had a lesson in our lives. But that was the whole idea when we started: If we can cook it or bake it, you can cook it or bake it.   And although it may appear that we are whizzes in the kitchen, I can quite promise you that Andrew and I do not share our bombs—our soufflés that flop, our spice mixtures gone haywire, our cakes that didn’t rise.  We never publish anything that didn’t turn out right until it does turn out right.  I think this is why when we get comments from Mary in Oyster Bay, Kate in Alberta, Lauren in Dallas or Bubbles in Montreal, I am always so pleased that they really use the recipes we post, that their guests and/or husbands love their cooking.  So here’s to all of us who get our kicks in the kitchen, who love discovering new tastes, new adventures in cooking old favorites and new ways to please everyone who comes to our table. And one more thing:  Just when I think what can I possibly cook today? How can I find something new to share with our readers?  Along comes a recipe like today’s Banh Mi sandwich with its Pickled Carrots and Daikon.  And for the first time, I made my own pickles in all of 30 minutes flat.  And guess what? If I can make my own pickles, you can too.