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New Year, Same Wings
Twelve days into 2025, and whatever resolutions may have been floated at midnight clearly didn’t touch the wing habit. A plate, a fork (a fork! rare for this archive), some carrots for the health-conscious veneer of it all. Recipe inspiration: Budget Bytes’ Buffalo Wings.
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Three Angles of the Same Plate, Because I Was Proud of It
November 2024, and this batch got the full photoshoot treatment — three separate angles of the same plate of deep-orange, well-charred wings, because apparently I nailed the color on this one and wanted proof from multiple angles. No notes. This is what confidence looks like. Recipe inspiration for chasing that same color: RecipeTin Eats’ Truly…
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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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Bar-Bill Tavern, East Aurora: A Little Overrated, Still Excellent
No photo for this one either — but the Bar-Bill Tavern in East Aurora, NY is famous enough to deserve a post regardless. Went about three years ago while in Buffalo visiting family. Honest take: it’s probably a little overrated at this point — the reputation has outgrown the actual experience a bit — but…
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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…