Author: brandon
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An October Batch, Nothing Fancy
Two photos, one plate, late October 2024 — a straightforward batch with no particular story attached, which after this many entries has become its own kind of tradition. Sometimes the wings don’t need an occasion. They are the occasion. Recipe inspiration: Inspired Taste’s Crispy Baked Hot Wings.
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Albany, NY: Wings in the Dark (Literally, Bad Lighting)
A dark bar, a white plate, wings with ranch, carrots and celery doing their part. The lighting situation in this photo suggests either a very moody restaurant or a photographer (me) who had already had a beer. No signage visible either way, so we’ll never know which. If you’re in the area anyway: check the…
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Sudbury Pub Wings, Served on the Obituaries
A red plastic basket lined with what is, on close inspection, a page from the Boston Globe — specifically, the obituary section, dated around March 2024. I want to be extremely clear that I do not think this was intentional editorial commentary from the kitchen, just a local pub reusing yesterday’s paper as basket liner,…
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The Post-CJ’s Era: A New Framingham Spot
This one’s GPS-flagged about 1.8 miles south of the “same spot” cluster above — a genuinely different restaurant, and given the timing, quite possibly where I went looking once the old regular haunt shut its doors for good. Two flavors split down the middle of the plate, cucumber spears standing in for celery, an imported…
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The Charred Grill Pizza, Sudbury Backyard
September 2023, back in Sudbury, and this one has serious grill-marks-and-char energy — a heavily blistered crust on a wood board with grass in the background, looking every bit like it came off a hot grill or outdoor pizza oven rather than a conventional indoor one. By 2023 this household had clearly graduated from wire-rack-on-the-counter…
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Late Summer, One Plate
The first of September, 2023, still warm enough to eat with the windows open, one plain plate, no company mentioned or pictured. A quiet, solo wing dinner to close out the summer. Recipe inspiration: Budget Bytes’ Buffalo Wings.
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York Harbor, Maine: Wings With a Sea Breeze
A red plate, two ramekins of dip standing at attention, celery and carrots, and the unmistakable vibe of a coastal Maine dining room with a water glass sweating in the background. May in York Harbor is about as good as New England gets, and whatever this place was called, it earned its keep. No name…
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The Same Framingham Spot, Round Three
Back at what the GPS breadcrumbs confirm is the exact same Framingham Center location as the October 2022 takeout run — whether this was still the CJ’s Northside Grill era or whatever briefly followed it before the space turned over, the wing math checks out either way: ramekins of dip, celery and carrots, and the…
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Bedford Takeout and the Mystery of “Love Energy Food”
Grilled or blackened wings with an herb garnish and a hot sauce drizzle, packed in a plain pizza-style takeout box — and stuck to the bag, a sticker reading LOVE ENERGY FOOD in yellow text I could not fully make out. Is that the restaurant’s name? A delivery service’s branding? A koan I’m meant to…
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A Boxborough Standby
A takeout container and a cup of ranch, six days after the grocery-run post above — whether this is a callback to that raw package finally getting cooked, or an entirely separate takeout night, the timeline is a little fuzzy. Either way, Boxborough was clearly getting a lot of wing traffic in late 2022. Recipe…