They don't want me to have mayo at the basketball game.

Just need to quickly rant about mayo haters.

There’s an embargo on mayonnaise at The Barclays Center. No matter who you ask, no matter what vendor you beg, there is no mayonnaise on the premises.

Yesterday I made my return to Barclays for the WNBA season, and forgot that last season I wrote to myself, via my notes app, saying: “Liberty game is BYOM”. Reader, that’s gonna go ahead and mean Bring Your Own Mayo. Past Hayley was trying to help Future Hayley and she didn’t listen. Flop!

I often communicate to myself in my notes app, this time in hopes of reminding myself to bring my own mayo to games should I be engaging with french fries or chicken fingers. But someone, somewhere, for some reason, has it out for the real mayo heads like myself by not providing mayo to eager women’s basketball fans.

In the absence of mayo, country girls make do…

Mayonnaise haters are upsetting to me because I pass a judgment on their pleasure receptors. Mayonnaise is one of the only condiments that is just about fat content. It’s about richness. It’s not about any flavor beyond the flavor of fat. That’s its whole thing. Low key what is going on with you if you don’t want that?

Sorry, sorry. I really am trying to promote a judgement free zone. I promise!

Samin Nosrat helped bring an elemental understanding of flavor to the masses with her amazing book Salt Fat Acid Heat. Samin’s book, and the subsequent TV show, brought a cooking shorthand to the masses: a quick way for every chef to evaluate their food for balance. Salt enhances flavor. Fat carries flavor. Acid balances flavor. Heat transforms flavor. Ideally, you make all four of these elements walk a circus-like tightrope together, where they have to rely on each other’s balance to achieve a successful end product without flopping. 

I value people who value pleasure, and fat content is a giant part of pleasure to me in my cooking. Relying on fat to carry flavors is to say: I want to turn up the dial on pleasure. I am not afraid to allow myself pleasure.

I am a Kewpie sun, Duke’s rising, and Hellman’s moon. If that matters to anybody. 

I went to stand on a hill with some friends to look at the full moon last night (this insane sentence?) and my reflective thoughts were all about pleasure. I jotted down some things I wanted to remember to write about, and then some things I just wanted to remember. 

From the studio behind “BYOM” comes “chicken fingers yum”

My pleasure receptors are primed for decadence, for following what I love, for hedonistic desires like chicken fingers dipped in mayonnaise. I am thankful for how seriously I can take pleasure, and I credit cooking (and eating) for this. My advice, if you’re seeking to add more pleasure to your life, is to start with fat. Always keep softened butter handy for any bread that needs dipping (don’t refrigerate). Drizzle any meal with good olive oil. Free yourself from oat milk, and move back to whole - or even cream. Keep the bacon grease. And always add mayo.