Let’s make a sandwich like Hannah Hart

My Drunk Kitchen: a guide to eating, drinking and going with your gut is the opposite of a booze book. It is about you. It is about growing up. It’s about getting really real for really del realz. Please know I used that ‘z’ ironically. This book is about embracing the reality that is you.

It is a funny, funny self-help book disguised as a comedic cookbook that happens to have life tips thrown in for good measure. Author Hannah Hart rose to Internet fame just being herself, getting drunk in the kitchen on YouTube. Hart goes, in my mind, in the adork-able category. Just messed up enough to identify with, and oh so cute about it. The thing is, Hannah Hart is wise, too.

The recipes in her book are less recipes and more. . . let’s call them guidelines. There are no measurements. Each recipe includes a Life Lesson that the “recipe” helps you realize. Some of the tips are super important. For instance, Saltine Nachos teaches you that “In adulthood, you will still have to overcome difficulty, but you will increase your ability to problem-solve”. Problem? No nacho chips. Solution? Use saltines instead. Boom! For where there is nacho cheese there is winning at life.

Other life lessons are maybe a little less important, but funny none-the-less. Hart’s Scotch Egg is not the sausage-covered eggs we usually call Scotch Eggs. Her Scotch Egg is a visual pun: an egg in a glass of Scotch. Important Life Lesson for this is that “Puns are important. This is an amazing visual pun.” Any lover of puns is a friend of mine.

There is word-play galore in this book. The recipes for String (Cheese) Theory, Naan of Your Business and Heart-Beet Salad (it has artichoke hearts and beets) are good examples. For each of these witty recipes there is a drink to go with. Sometimes the drink is simple. A Sweet Dip gets gin because it is “the opposite of sweet”. Some drinks, like the one I made up are more complicated. Fortunately this sandwich recipe isn’t, unless you want to make your own potato chips—which you can do in your microwave! I know. Life is crazy.

A sandwich and chips aren’t a new idea. But the homemade microwave chips sort of are. I didn’t have chips at home so I made them. The drink suggestion for this recipe was a “Blueberry vodka-tini with a peanut butter rim rolled in crushed potato chips.” I basically smeared some peanut butter around the rim of my glass, dropped some blueberries in, and poured in varying amounts of citron vodka, dry vermouth, and creme de cassis until I got something I liked. That is about as exact a recipe as I am giving on that one. Just be careful. It is easy to consume way too much. For a more nuanced yet funny recipe try this. Then fire up the microwave for your chips and you are on your way!

The PB and J and PC with inspired by My Drunk Kitchen by Hannah Hart, chips adapted from this recipe on The Kitchn website

For chips:

• as many potatoes as you want
• salt

Slice the potatoes super-duper thinly, put in a bowl and rinse until the water runs clear. Then blot them dry on a clean kitchen towel or heck, I used paper towels, and put them on a microwave-safe plate in a single layer. The more potatoes you slice the more plates you use. Unless you want a single giant chip (which if you could do in a sandwich shape could be convenient) make sure they don’t touch or they’ll stick together.

Sprinkle on some salt if you like. Put in the microwave at regular power for three minutes. Be careful, everything is going to be very hot. Turn the chips over, and microwave at 50 percent power for three minutes. If any chips look like they are done take them off. Keep microwaving at 50 percent for 1 minute, rotating and removing chips as they brown.

For sandwich:

• chips
• 2 pieces of bread, your choice (I used wheat)
• peanut butter, again your choice (because I am indecisive I did half Jif and half the crazzzzeeee but good chia seed and cinnamon infused Betsy’s Best )
• jam or jelly or heck… maybe even sriracha…whatever you like

Layer it up. Slice if you feel it. Just eat it. That vodka-tini needs something to sop it up.

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