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Hello and welcome back to The Late Plate, This week we are going back to basics. If there is one thing that I cook at home in the warehouse, time and time again, it is a pot of simple pasta. In my book, you can’t go far wrong with a good plate of pasta. When done right, it is filling, easy, quick and delicious. The key is to make sure everything is well balanced, and I’m not embarrassed to say that I spend a *lot* of time thinking about how to achieve that.

My biggest pet peeve when it comes to lemon cakes is when they don’t actually taste like lemon. I’ve tried so many cakes claiming to be a lemon cake, you bite into them and find a vanilla cake with a sugary frosting. I can promise you, this cakes is packed with packed in lemon flavor: the batter contains fresh lemon zest and juice, we drizzle lemon juice all over the baked cake for some extra tartness and moisture, and to finish it all off, we top the cake with sour candied lemons and a lemon glaze.

INGREDIENTS CAKE 3 eggs 1.5 cups sugar zest from 2 lemons 2/3 cups oil 3/4 cups milk 2 cups flour 1/4 tsp baking soda 2 tsp baking powder 3 tbsp lemon curd juice from 1 lemon 1 cup frozen raspberry LEMON CURD 2 egg yolks 1/4 cup lemon juice 1/2 cup sugar 4 tbsp butter, cold CREAM CHEESE FROSTING 4 oz cream cheese, softened 1/2 cup butter, softened 2 cups powdered sugar

Hello and happy 2024! Before I drop the tea (sorry lol), a short PSA that today is the LAST DAY to sign up for Nourish Yourself with Brooklyn Strength. Cadence and I will host Nourish’s first group coaching call this Saturday 1/6 to kick off seven weeks of learning how to tune into our bodies’ natural cues and signals, cook and snack with confidence, and divest from a lifetime of guilt and shame around food.

Lenny’s Pizza had made it to a huge milestone — 70 years. If 1953 was an important year for Lenny’s, the most significant in its history came 24 years later — 1977. It was during that year, in which New York saw the rise of Studio 54, the capture of the Son of Sam and the saga of the 1977 Blackout, that Lenny’s Pizza enjoyed a cameo in “Saturday Night Fever,” and the rest, as they say, is history.

Leor is a writer and researcher. He’s currently a fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a frequent contributor to City Journal, particularly on issues of gender identity and public policy. I know of few people more likely to provide light than heat in the agonizing debate over treatment for children with gender dysphoria. You can listen to the episode right away in the audio player above (or on the right side of the player, click “Listen On” to add the Dishcast feed to your favorite podcast app).

I’m back with another queer advice column. Today’s question is about sex, long-term relationships, and what to do when your girlfriend wants more sex than you do. If you’re new to this newsletter or catching up after a break, there have been so many good questions lately!! Check out: ”I'm a 33-year-old dirty slut who loves to be alone and go to bed at 10… ncG1vNJzZmilkZmxuq%2FOrqmtZqOqr7TAwJyiZ5ufonyxe9CunJ6qXZaxt7XCnmRuaF2hsrSuyJqlZpqVmXqlscCtnw%3D%3D

Leslie Feist played Toronto last week, at a venue called History. This newsletter just celebrated its six-month anniversary. Today I present one half of my Feist conversation from 2020, for Hearts on Fire. She doesn’t need an introduction here. You probably also know that she has a new album, Multitudes, and that it’s very good and a continuing evolution of her craft. But this is about her earliest days.

Even if Leslie West had never sang or played another note after the summer of 1970, his place in rock history would have been assured. The summer before, he’d stunned attendees with his breakthrough performance at Woodstock – his band Mountain’s third or fourth gig. A few months later, Mountain’s “Mississippi Queen” – 2:32 of pure nitro, with Leslie’s unmistakable voice and head-scalping guitar front and center in the mix – became a national hit.