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Ruby’s Wood Grill, York ME: A Rave Review
Ruby’s Wood Grill, York, Maine, May 2023. This is a rave review and I’m not going to pretend otherwise: these were excellent wings — well-charred, real heat that builds instead of just sitting on top, a properly thick coating that stayed put through the whole basket. Two ramekins of blue cheese because one is never…
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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…
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Before They Were Wings: The Grocery Run
Every home-cooked batch starts somewhere, and this entry captures that somewhere: a plain package of raw chicken wings, straight off the store shelf, price tag and nutrition panel included. Not glamorous. Not yet sauced. But honest — the unglamorous middle step that every single other post on this blog conveniently skips over. Recipe inspiration for…
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Framingham Center Takeout, Round Two (Same Spot, Probably)
The GPS on this one lands within about nine meters of the February 2023 entry below — same address, near-certainly the same restaurant, whatever it was calling itself by late 2022. Styrofoam container, foil liner, and a sauce cup with a handwritten “B” on the lid, which I’m choosing to believe stands for “Buffalo” and…
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The Pepper Rub Experiment
August 2022, and this batch got a heavier hand with the black pepper than usual — you can see the coarse crack all over the skin in the photo, alongside, once again, a side of bacon, because apparently that pairing became a habit sometime after the 2019 Acton entry and never really left. The extra…
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Lancaster, NY: Wings With a Basil Garnish, Very Fancy
A white plate, a black ramekin of white dip, and — I want to stress this — an actual basil garnish. Someone in the Lancaster, NY wing scene is trying, and I respect it, even if I can’t tell you who. This is easily top three for “restaurant clearly cared” in a photo where the…
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Backyard Pizza, Boxborough Edition
June 2022, Boxborough, Massachusetts, and this pizza made it all the way outside — photographed on a wood peel with grass visible in the background. Olives and assorted toppings on a crust that looks like it got real oven (or maybe outdoor pizza oven) heat. Boxborough is a new town for this archive too, which…
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West Albany Patio Wings, Basket Included
A wooden bowl lined with pink parchment paper, a pink-tinted dipping sauce that means business, an outdoor patio, and an Allagash beer (a Maine brewery, several states from where I was actually sitting, but that’s craft beer distribution for you). This is one of the more visually distinctive presentations in the whole archive and I…