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I have been banging my head against this dish for three months now, and it’s finally getting close to being ready to go on the menu. My big breakthrough came about a month ago when I made this dish for the nine millionth time and was so angry at it that I smashed the plate and…well, more on that later. For now, gaze upon my Broccoli Dawgz!!!

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They’re not in their final form yet, but those are salt and vinegar broccoli rabe chips. Oh, yeah! It’s summer and time for a picnic on your plate!

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Sorry to be such a negligent poster this week. It’s been a bit crazy here but I’m hoping to have one more post up before the end of the week, and then be back to more regular posting starting on Monday.

Tuesday Family Meal: sauteed red cabbage, fried egg whites, and cornmeal crusted eggplant moons.

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Why are they moons?

Now that Dirt Candy is one year old we’re changing some things and making some upgrades.

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First off, we’ve updated this site’s press page to include links to reviews and interviews and we’ve also added a link to buy gift certificates in our sidebar. We get a lot of requests about gift certificates and sell a ton of them, but we figured rather than making people  jump through hoops to get the info we’d put it all in one easily-accessible place.

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We’ve also changed the lighting at the restaurant. When we put in our lights no one thought to make sure there was a way to dim them. The only solution was a $1000 control box, but we got a friend who’s a lighting designer to come in and they lowered the light levels through a handy little hack and now the amber lights are slightly less in your face. It’s subtle, but it really changes the mood of the room and makes it more intimate and romantic. Oo la la.

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Also, we’ve added links in the sidebar of this site that take you directly to some of our most popular posts and categories of posts. You can learn “How Not to Open a Restaurant,” read about Canadian things, hear why your food costs money at all or even just see what holidays we’ve been celebrating.

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None of this is perfect and all of it is a work-in-progress, so if you see a technical glitch or something’s eating at you, email us and let us know. Thanks!

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Dirt Candy does sell gift certificates and, in fact, we sell a lot of them so we figured it was time to make this a little more formal. We’ll happily sell you a gift certificate for any amount of money you want, and we’ll mail you an actual certificate that you can present as a gift to your friends, loved ones or frenemies.

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All you have to do is call (212.228.7732) or email us and we’ll set you up and get your gift certificate out to you. We’ll also send it to the recipient directly if you’d like, just let us know.

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Dirt Candy Gift Certificates – the present that says “I love you more than the other people giving you gifts this year.”

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Dirt Candy gift certificates are a way for

men to show their emotions  without

feeling all weird about it.

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(The final installment of Halloween Horrors, an examination of the five monsters who truly give me nightmares)

#5) Goldfish

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I’m not a big animal fan. It doesn’t mean I hate them but I firmly believe that they should go their way and I should go mine and we should just have nothing to do with each other. I don’t want dogs or cats coming around me and sniffing me because when the revolution comes I want them to remember that I was always scared of them and gave them a wide berth and that the people who dressed them in sweaters and reindeer antlers were definitely, positively, not me.

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This fear of animals can be traced all the way back to the primal trauma in my life: The Goldfish Attack. I was young, maybe nine years old, and I went to the kitchen to get something (probably food). We had a fish tank in our kitchen back then, because we were naive and didn’t understand the dangers. I’m in the kitchen and I hear a noise: “Flap.”

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My blood runs cold. There it is again.

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“Flap.”

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I look down, and on the ground is a goldfish that has leapt out of its tank.

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“Flap?”

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And as I watch in horror, it sees me…and it comes at me.

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“Flap. Flap. Flap. Flap.”

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I back away, but it starts coming faster.

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“Flapflapflapflapflapflapflapflap.”

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I run in terror, screaming from the room, the goldfish flapping along the floor right at my heels. I finally lock myself in the bathroom until someone can capture this homicidal goldfish that was going for my throat and put it back in the tank. But after that, I don’t go in the kitchen for a long, long time. And to this day, on quiet, dark nights, I can still hear it flapping…flapping…flapping…

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(Of course, goldfish aren’t all bad. For instance, these Japanese goldfish live in a deep fat fryer and keep it clean!)

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If you sent an email to our “info” address in the last two weeks, and wonder why you didn’t hear from us, or if it bounced back, please resend it. Apparently our server was attacked by monkeys and that address was wonky for the last little bit and a lot of emails didn’t get through. It’s fixed now, however, so resend your message if you’d like.

From August 28 – September 9, Dirt Candy will be on vacation. It’s been a hot, wet, sticky summer and we all need a break over here. In fact, Kristen has already gotten a jump on her vacation and she bailed out on us earlier this week! But don’t worry, dear customers, she’ll be soundly beaten for her disloyalty when she returns. Actually, I’ll probably just start locking her in the basement and paying her in kitchen scraps.

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I’ll be vacationing in Paris, and I’ve heard it’s full of French people, which is exciting.

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My new friend. He is French.

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Dirt Candy will be open again for reservations starting September 10th. Have a happy rest of the summer!

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People have been asking, “Where’s your RSS feed? Where is it? Where is it!???!??” We didn’t know. Hunting and pecking ensued. Panic set in. We asked the guy who built this site. We tried to figure out how to add one. We were on the brink of despair. Then, we realized, it was right in front of us all the time.

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Here’s the RSS feed. And you can also find it at the very bottom of the right-hand, bright pink margin of this page, underneath “Email us.” Just click on it and you’re in business.

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(What is an RSS feed? Glad you asked. It’s a useful way to see when we have new content rather than checking this site all the time, and you can read all them here.)