Binge Like a Broad: The Perfect Broad City Food Pairings Guide

Pizza
Above all else, Abbi and Ilana love each other and marijuana. As they struggle through life, their commitment to both is both comical and commendable. Abbi, for instance, sets out to become an adult who buys her own drugs after discovering Ilana carries hers (that she uses to smoke Abbi up) in her vagina (vuh-yeen-ya)—a method of storage and transportation Ilana argues is safe, adult-like, and perfectly reasonable. While Abbi struggles to find someone to buy from, she finds her dealer, a tween prep-school boy who approaches her and condescendingly informs her that he sells “pizza,” (what the kids are calling it).

SimplyGloria.com

To fulfill all of your own pizza-fueled pleasures, pass on frozen or delivery and get with these homemade stuffed pizza pockets instead. Hot, fresh, endlessly customizable, and just tangentially vaginal enough, these pizza pockets were made for stuffing into your maw while you ponder life’s important questions, like gentrification, rape culture, or who you’d rather get head from: Michael Buble or Janet Jackson.

Vegan Sandwiches
The girls are beyond excited for Abbi’s first gallery art show until they discover that the “gallery” is a vegan sandwich shop. Abbi is as upset that the sandwich shop claims to be a gallery as she is that they call themselves a sandwich shop. As she says, “They don’t even have meat, so I don’t know that I would even consider it a sandwich shop.” Her delight over the sale of her drawing of a hamburger is overshadowed by the store’s offer of store credit for sandwiches as payment.

Trust, though, that there are some succulent, legit meatless burgers out there. As thick and substantial as any meaty counterpart, if these black bean, portabella mushroom, and broccoli-laden chunky veggie burgers were the kind of vegan sandwiches the shop offered Abbi, she would have happily accepted.

Banana Pudding
Promptly after getting the number of the cute guy who called her ‘hot’ in a bar, Abbi loses her phone. Using an app, Abbi and Ilana trek all over the city, where Abbi finally tracks it to NYC’s famous Magnolia Bakery. After exchanging phones with the woman who’d accidentally taken hers, she orders a large container of their famous banana pudding and leaves the woman to pay for it.

Flickr/Marit & Toomas Hinnosaar

One bite of Magnolia’s banana pudding, and it’s obvious why Abbi chose it: only something so classic, rich, and reliably delicious could make up for the all the hard work that went into retrieving her phone (especially after the guy who called her hot turned out to be boring and barely lukewarm). You can duplicate Magnolia Bakery’s version at home with this recipe.

Potato Salad
When a hurricane descends upon the city, the gang—including Abbi’s roommate’s annoying permanent-fixture boyfriend Bevers and his eleven toed sister Marla—gathers in Abbi’s apartment to withstand it. The group tries to maintain a convivial atmosphere, but it doesn’t last—especially after Abbi can’t flush the number two she made from spite-eating all the potato salad (dubbed ‘P. Sal’ by Marla).

With its buttery potatoes, sultry olives, and warm, lemony dressing, this potato salad is simple, yet impressively delicious and unexpected. Bonus points? It is perfect for outdoor gatherings and emergency conditions—no refrigeration required.

Fajitas
During a seemingly promising date with (male) Stacy, who makes Abbi fajitas in her tiny, air conditioner-less apartment, everything seems ok. But the heat became so miserable that he not only has to stuff paper towels down his pants to sop up the butt sweat, he has to remove them before the two have sex, during which he passes out from the heat.

One thing is certain: fajitas are always delicious—especially when you enjoy them in the comforts of an air conditioned pad. Courtesy of chicken, beef, shrimp, sausage, and an array of chili peppers, these hot and spicy fajitas bring the all of the flavor New York City summer heat to you, sans the swamp ass and subsequent loss of consciousness.

Purses (Edible)
It’s New York City, which means great shopping. Ilana and her mother reject the sidewalk salesperson’s pitch and demand to be shown the good knockoff handbags. Meanwhile, Abbi not only pegs her neighbor/major crush Jeremy, but transports the dildo in her purse.

Shopping and laughing hysterically can both cause a hankering for excellent nosh, so in honor of both the utility and panache of fantastic knockoff handbags (and/or dildos), help yourself to these Thai golden purses. Delicious shrimp and fresh spices wrapped inside a fresh wonton wrapper and fried are the perfect, portable bites. Better still, if you’re on the go, just toss them in your bag.

Mountains of Shrimp
The girls eat their fair share of shellfish on the show, but in the delicious spirit of the mountains of shrimp cocktail they eat to celebrate their friend Jaime’s US citizenship—especially the engagement ring-wrapped one Bevers had his girlfriend—these classic bacon-wrapped shrimp fit the bill. No matter the time of day, nibbly bites and bacon are always welcome.

Mini Cannolis
To find a beautiful stranger at a dinner party, Jamie hands Ilana a tray of mini cannolis, promising her that “through the power of the Italian dessert, she will come to you.” And he was right. Just as seductive and irresistible, these bite-sized mini cannolis are sure to bring you whatever your heart desires. Want to make it even better? Serve it with this caramel sauce, not only because it’s delicious, but because, as Ilana points out, “Statistically, we’re headed toward an age when everybody’s gonna be like caramel and queer.”

Foodnetwork.com

As we look forward to that beautiful and inevitable caramel and queer future, let us follow Abbi and Ilana’s example and make it through life with the people we love most—and plenty of pizza.

A bona fide country girl, Brook Bolen is the redheaded, Southern, femme, vegan, gentile version of Larry David. She is routinely surprised to find more people don’t count cornbread and beans as their favorite food and lives in the heart of the Dirty South with her handsome husband, sweet pitbull son, and magical toddler daughter.