This was one of those weeks where life had other plans, and the food followed suit. Two leftover situations, a lunch so big it erased dinner, some of the best steaks we’ve had yet from right down the road, a PTO day that turned into a final exam and a basement repair job, and a weekend of serious outdoor labor. The meals weren’t the story this week — life was. But somehow, the food still showed up exactly when it needed to.
Monday: Leftover Love and an Italian Bread Sandwich
Monday had that comfortable, post-weekend energy that only works when you’ve cooked well over the previous few days.
The fridge still had plenty from the weekend’s cooking marathon, and there was a beautiful loaf of Italian bread sitting on the counter waiting to be useful. So I did what any self-respecting Italian-leaning home cook does with leftover bread and leftover ham: I built a sandwich. Ham, whatever cheese was on hand, and a handful of peppery arugula tucked in between slices of that bread. Simple, generous, completely satisfying.
There’s something almost triumphant about a Monday where you don’t have to decide what to eat, because the weekend already answered the question.
Tuesday: Quick Weeknight Pasta
By Tuesday, the leftovers were done. Time to cook.
When nothing is planned and the week is already in motion, pasta is always the answer. I threw together penne with chicken, broccoli, and a garlic butter wine sauce — the kind of dish that comes together in the time it takes to boil the water. The garlic softens, the butter and wine find each other in the pan, the broccoli brings some freshness, and the chicken makes it a real dinner rather than just a side. It hit the table fast and disappeared faster.
Weeknight pasta like this is one of life’s quiet pleasures. It asks very little and gives a lot back.
Wednesday: A Brisket Bowl That Ended the Day
Wednesday was all about one lunch. One enormous, exceptional lunch.
I ended up at Mighty Quinn’s BBQ in the city, and I ordered the Brisket Bowl — brisket over jasmine rice with braised beans and roasted brussels sprouts. The brisket was as good as slow-smoked brisket gets: tender, deeply flavored, with that dark bark that tells you exactly how long it sat in the smoker. But the beans were the surprise. They tasted like candy. That sweetness balanced against the richness of the beef was something I wasn’t expecting, and it elevated the whole bowl.
I was full for the rest of the day. Not “I probably shouldn’t have dessert” full. Done-for-the-day, no dinner necessary full. That’s the Mighty Quinn’s promise delivered.
📍 Mighty Quinn’s BBQ | 225 Liberty St, New York, NY 10281 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Thursday: Shaggy Coos on the Grill
Thursday felt like a real occasion, even though it was just a Thursday.
I’d thawed some steaks from Shaggy Coos Farm that we picked up over the weekend — a ribeye and a skirt steak — and got the grill going. Shaggy Coos is right down the road here in Easton, a female-run farm raising antibiotic and hormone-free beef, and the quality shows up immediately on the plate. The ribeye had the fat marbling that makes a steak worth eating. The skirt steak brought that intense, beefy depth that takes high heat beautifully.
Both were excellent. I’ll leave it at that, because sometimes a great steak doesn’t need much more commentary than “wow.”
📍 Shaggy Coos Farm | 53 Center Rd, Easton, CT 06612 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Friday: PTO, a Milestone, a Broken Pump, and Romanacci to the Rescue
Friday was a day off, but the kind of day off that keeps moving.
First, the big thing: I finished my last final exam for my MBA at Auburn University. I started that program back in 2021, and sitting there thinking about how much has changed since then — the moves, the house, the life we’ve built — it hit differently than I expected. That chapter is officially closed. A real milestone, even if I celebrated it quietly.
Then the afternoon arrived, and with it: a hole to dig. The flooded basement wasn’t going to fix itself, so I got to work on the sump pump installation. Which went fine until it didn’t — the pump they sent turned out to be broken, which meant a lot of effort for a partial result. The frustration of that kind of day is real.
Dinner needed to be zero effort. I ordered from Romanacci — a margherita pizza, cavatelli with sausage, and meatballs. Romanacci is owned by the Ricci brothers, the same family behind Osteria Romana, and their Roman-trained sensibility comes through even in something as simple as a margherita. Fresh, clean, exactly what it should be. The cavatelli with sausage and a side of meatballs did exactly what comfort food is supposed to do on a complicated day.
When no time to cook and everything else has gone sideways, Romanacci never disappoints.
📍 Romanacci | 4244 Madison Ave, Trumbull, CT 06611 ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Saturday: Tractor Work, Grilled Chicken, and Getting It Done
Saturday was a full work day outdoors, and the food reflected that.
Step one of fixing the basement drainage meant renting a tractor and getting into the ground outside — digging, laying pipe, ensuring everything would move water the right direction going forward. It’s the kind of work where you don’t really think about eating. You just keep going until the light starts to fade.
Dinner was grilled chicken and asparagus. Simple, clean, exactly what a tired body wanted after a day of physical labor. There’s a quiet satisfaction in a meal like that — not elaborate, not exciting, but aligned with the day. The chicken was good. The asparagus did its job. And the work outside was done.
Sunday: More Outdoor Work, More Shaggy Coos
Sunday closed the loop on the outdoor project and the week.
One more session outside to finish what Saturday started, and then the reward: another round from Shaggy Coos. This time the sirloin. It’s a leaner cut than the ribeye, but from a farm like this, where the animals are pasture-raised and fed well, the flavor doesn’t sacrifice anything. Excellent is the right word.
A week that started with a ham sandwich on leftover Italian bread ended with a farm steak from down the road. There are worse ways to travel through seven days.
Closing Reflection
This wasn’t a week of big restaurant moments or elaborate cooking projects. It was a week of life moving fast and food keeping up.
A leftover-bread sandwich that made Monday easier. Pasta that came together in twenty minutes. A brisket bowl so good it made dinner irrelevant. A grill lit on a Thursday just because the steaks deserved it. Takeout that arrived exactly when the day had used everything else up. Two days of outdoor labor, and a sirloin waiting at the end of it.
And somewhere in the middle of all that: the quiet finish of an MBA four years in the making.
Food follows life. This week, life had a lot going on.