recipe | the hot chick
A perfect buffalo chicken sandwich that will cure a hangover, fuel a frat party or at the very least, help you make it through toddler dinner and bedtime with the energy of a college student.
I’ve mentioned before that when I was in college I spent my summers living in the MIT fraternity houses. For a student at a women’s college, it was an excellent way to get extremely cheap summer housing (fantastic for those unpaid psych internships) and a great way to make friends from other schools. The houses were all centrally located in Boston’s Back Bay neighborhood, much more convenient to jobs, internships, bars and nightlife than my campus in the suburbs.
The houses themselves were old row mansions that had definitely seen better days, usually with communal kitchens in various states of disarray (and in some cases, decomposition). The residents were a mix of the brothers of the house, students from Wellesley, BU and Northwestern, and other schools in New England in Boston for the summer.
Two years in a row, I lived in the same house in Kenmore Square. Just a stone's throw away from the Citgo Sign and Fenway Park, I spent my weekdays doing psychology research, my weekends working retail at J.Crew, and many many nights at one themed party or another.
Most weekends I would roll out of a full day’s shift knowing I was going to walk into a full-blown frat party when I got back to the house. Often, I would stop at UBurger, one of my favorite restaurants in Kenmore Square, for a meal that would prepare you for any amount of jungle juice and shenanigans – the hot chick, a perfect, so-spicy-your-face-sweats while you eat it, buffalo chicken sandwich. It was hearty enough to keep you from hitting the party on an empty stomach, and a perfect location to meet up with friends to catch up on all the gossip you’d missed from the night before.
Today, I can’t say I spend much (any) time at frat parties. But, I’d be damned if parenting a toddler all day only to have dinner and bedtime stare you down doesn’t sometimes feel as mentally and physically daunting as working all day and then needing to gear up for a rager. Recreating this one at home was deeply satisfying, and hilariously sentimental. Life has changed so much, but this one somehow hits just as hard as in the frat house days.
the hot chick (@home)
