It is still hot, sticky August. We are counting down to the first day of school, the beginning of fall, the leaves turning, Labor Day, a break in the weather. As ever, torpid, slow moving August seems like the longest month. Spare me the pumpkin-spiced items that are popping up already. Do not put out displays of Halloween candy. It’s still August. It is National Peach Month. In fact, August 22 is National Eat A Peach Day and August 24 is National Peach Pie Day. I’d like to be a fly on the wall in the office that makes these bold pronouncements.

In the meantime, until National Day Of folks come calling, I feel honor-bound to celebrate peaches. Mr. Sanders and I wandered through our farmers’ market last Saturday, buying an assortment of colorful heirloom tomatoes and warm, fuzzy peaches. It looks like it has been a bountiful peach season despite the heat. The cheerful sunflowers are in bloom and the crape myrtles are nodding in their ruffled glory. As luck would have it, peaches, tomatoes and basil all make deelish salads, some of which don’t require much effort on my part beyond slicing, which is good because it has been so relentlessly hot that I have taken to napping in the afternoon, in a darkened room, alone with my Kindle and Gabriel Allon. It has even been too hot for Luke the wonder dog to go for an afternoon walk. Last night he had a twilight stroll around the block, when the sidewalk had cooled, and the fireflies lighted the way.

Our clever friends at Food52 have the perfect recipe for all those peaches and tomatoes; they call it the “supreme salad of summer.” It is lighter and tangier than the Caprese salads we have started to take for granted; no heavy, slick balsamic vinegar, but a tart apple vinaigrette. Tomato, Peach, Chèvre, and Herb Salad with Apple Vinaigrette. The goat cheese is lighter than fresh mozzarella, and has a little kick. Not that I will ever completely tire of Caprese salads, but I can always make use of another cool, easy-to-assemble dinner. The shallot is attractive and tasty, too. The chèvre was a challenge to find in my little grocery store, since we do not live in Brooklyn, but I was able to score a package, tucked away in the deli department. Be persistent! (I also used Heinz apple cider vinegar, not fancy-pants vinegar from Williams Sonoma, as the recipe suggests. We are on a budget.)

Martha suggests a Peach Panzanella, which I heartily endorse. I happen to have some day-old foccacia that will pair beautifully with the sweet peaches. Peach Panzanella. I am going to toss in a few home grown tomatoes, too, because we are experiencing a second wave of ripening tomatoes, just as the zinnias have started blooming.

Light, cool cheeses help vary summer meals. I love burrata cheese, but it is hideously expensive, and you have to use it up in mere minutes. It does not do well staying in the fridge; bring it home, eat it up. So plan on an early supper tonight. And get some great bread for grilling. I like to rub a garlic clove over the surface of the grilled bread , after it has cooled a little. Yumsters. This is a meal fit for your Tuscan fantasy: warm tomatoes, peaches and bread, with mouthfuls of cool, creamy burrata. Add a nice glass of cheap white wine. A veritable feast.
Tomato Peach Burrata Salad

We have lots of color in the garden these days. Ripening tomatoes, ranging from pale green, to yellow, to Indian summer scarlet. There are the tall and straggling zinnias, and a couple of bright green clumps of basil. The mystery guests have finally stopped noshing on the basil plants, so we have armfuls of basil again. I am hoping the enormous yellow garden spiders have been practicing their stitch-witchery magic in the raised garden bed because suddenly we seem bug-free. I saw the spider busily wrapping white bundles of writhing legs yesterday. Though the busy interstate traffic parade of ants continues, unabated.

“Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education.”
– Mark Twain

It has been a busy week in the Spy Test Kitchens. We have, in the interest of good taste and good food journalism, been testing cocktail recipes that we solicited from Food Friday’s gentle readers. I am surrounded by the detritus of the week’s experiments: every sort of glass, goblet, coupe, flute, Red Solo Cup and jelly jar that you can imagine holding a cool, refreshing summer cocktail. We’ve poured and measured, shaken and stirred gin, London gin, Navy Strength Gin, so many gins, vodka, rum, cognac, lemon juice, lime juice, pomegranate juice, simple syrup, coconut milk, tonic water, club soda, Coke, cranberry juice, Champagne and wine, and even elderflower liqueur. Oh, the things we do for the annual Summer Sips list!

In the Test Kitchen I have a little stash of Post-Its with scribbled notes in Mr. Sanders’s indecipherable scrawl. I’ve got a Google doc with recipes and links from loyal readers. There is even email with links to tasty drinks from the lovely Spy writer, Laura J. Oliver. Next year I think we will need an Excel spreadsheet to keep it all straight.

Our first recipe came from Spy reader Lesley Schless, with the intriguing name: Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler’s Gin Gimlet. You might remember the YA book, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, by E. L. Konigsburg, about Claudia and Jamie, the children who ran away from home and took up residence among the treasures at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. A dream come true for so many of us! At least the Gin Gimlet is an approachable escape.

Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler’s Gin Gimlet
From Lesley Schless

2 ounces fresh lime juice
Lime zest, to taste
1 ounce simple syrup
A few fresh basil leaves
4 ounces gin (or vodka)

Muddle basil leaves in the bottom of a cocktail shaker. Add lime juice and zest,
simple syrup, and a few ice cubes. Shake shake shake. Add clear stuff and shake some more. Pour in a chilled martini-type glass.  Aahhh….

Another reader recipe comes to the Spy from Lisa Meyers, whose recipe is capable of serving a party of hearty vacationers. Sunset on the dock, while waiting for the Sturgeon Moon to rise, is the perfect time for a pitcher of fruity sangria. Before the mosquitoes carry us away.

Peach and Blackberry Sangria
From Lisa Meyers

2 bottles white wine, such as Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc
1/2 cup Lyon Blackberry Rum
1 peach, in bite-sized slices
1 cup blackberries
1 can peach hard seltzer, such as White Claw

In a pitcher combine everything but the seltzer and chill for several hours. When ready to serve stir in peach seltzer and pour over ice and enjoy!

Should I be surprised that the French 75 is a favorite drink for Spy writers? It is my fancy, go-to cocktail, and it is Laura Oliver’s, too. Her recipe comes from the venerable Bon Appétit magazine website.

French 75
From Laura J. Oliver

1 1/2 ounces gin
3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice
3/4 ounce simple syrup
2 ounces Champagne
Long spiral lemon twist

Combine gin, lemon juice, and simple syrup in a cocktail shaker. Fill shaker with ice, cover, and shake vigorously until outside of shaker is very cold, about 20 seconds.
Strain cocktail through a Hawthorne strainer or a slotted spoon into a large flute. Top with Champagne; garnish with lemon twist.

The French 75 received its name after the French 75-millimeter light field gun used during WWI, the Canon de 75 modèle 1897 is the source of the name of the cocktail. It is a kick-y drink that packs the punch of artillery. I never have more than one. The Olivers also enjoy a Pomegranate Martini, which is a pretty pink, perfect for the holidays, or your Barbie-staycation sunsets on the back porch.

Not to be outdone, Mr. Sanders has three recipes for the French 75; two with gin, one with cognac. He is a completist. This weekend we managed to find the time to make Limoncello Spritzes. Wowser. Talk about artillery fire! Easy peasy, but a little too strong and sweet for me:
Thanks for sharing your recipes, Gentle Readers. Be sure to serve lots of deelish nibbles with your cocktails, and to responsibly enjoy your cocktail hour.

“The adventure is over. Everything gets over, and nothing is ever enough. Except the part you carry with you. It’s the same as going on a vacation. Some people spend all their time on a vacation taking pictures so that when they get home they can show their friends evidence that they had a good time. They don’t pause to let the vacation enter inside of them and take that home.”

― E. L. Konigsburg, From The Mixed Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

Welcome to the hottest summer on record! As we try to walk every day, lingering under the shady trees as much as possible, Luke the wonder dog and I are longing to be home, in the coolth. He can at least lie on the floor, on top of the air conditioning vent. He also doesn’t have to worry about what to do with the sudden abundance of zucchini. Like Homer Price’s doughnuts, ripening zucchini is everywhere. Luckily, there are just about as many recipes for zucchini as there are the ubiquitous and magically regenerating vegetables themselves.

Very popular this year are zucchini boat recipes. I like the idea of filling hollowed out vessels of zucchini with a variety of fixings, vegetarian or not, and using up all the lingering leftovers. Zucchini Boats

Luckily, zucchini is oh, so versatile. You can find it in soups, salad, chips, galettes, casseroles, hidden in breads and cookies. You can roast it, slice it, twirl it. This is a link to a virtual compendium of zucchini recipes.

Do not be sneaky with zucchini. You don’t want to be the formerly favorite aunt who brings zucchini ginger cupcakes to the birthday party. Kids have a different perspective on summer. They never forget so-called “gourmet” baking experiments, or deliberate kid deceptions. https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Zucchini-Ginger-Cupcakes-1222207

Nobody is fooled by zucchini bread. Least of all the small children into whom you are trying to stuff healthy vegetables. They are wise to your ways. Discuss the benefits of adding vegetables to your daily diet before feeding them this delicious Lemon Zucchini Bread.

Good luck with the annual glut of zucchini. Just remember that they are the harbingers of fall and cooler weather. We just have to get through August first. And a good way to enjoy August is sitting in the shade, hoping for a breeze, having a cocktail before engaging with that pile of zucchini. Maybe even listening to a podcast, like Slate Magazine’s Culture Gabfest’s Annual Summer Strut.

Every year (except during COVIDtimes) these podcast hosts have asked their listeners to submit their favorite Song of the Summer, for strutting along merrily through the summertime heat. We listen to all these songs of summer as we walk the dog, walk to the ice cream shop, mow the lawn, and drive to the beach.

Here in the much vaunted Spy test kitchens, we will be listening to the Summer Strut while testing perfect summer cocktails. Something to sip after a long day at the drawing table. After walking on the sun-softened sidewalks with Luke the wonder dog. Something cool and delicious to remind us of summers past: vacations, sojourns, by the lake, by the ocean, in a hammock. Won’t you join us? We are asking Spy readers for their favorite drinks of summer: the Summer Sips 2023. Please email me your favorite summer cocktail recipes: [email protected] and next week we will share your recipes.

“The trouble is, you cannot grow just one zucchini. Minutes after you plant a single seed, hundreds of zucchini will barge out of the ground and sprawl around the garden, menacing the other vegetables. At night, you will be able to hear the ground quake as more and more zucchinis erupt.”
*
-Dave Barry

*This is my favorite zucchini quotation of all time, and I haul it out almost every year.

Summertime. Summer vacation. Long days on the water, or on the front porch, reading piles of library books. Waiting for the Good Humor man. Walking to the corner store for an Italian ice. Slicing into bone-chilling watermelon. Turning the hand crank to churn the ice cream. We have lots of childhood summertime memories.

Mr. Sanders remembers icebox cakes fondly. His mother would assemble Famous Chocolate Wafer icebox cakes in the summer, using the recipe printed on the side of the yellow, cellophane-wrapped box. She’d layer the brittle chocolate cookie wafers carefully, nestling them in a pan swathed in clouds of cool, whipped cream. After a few agonizingly long hours she would serve slices of cake – sweet, cool chocolate-y zebra patterns of black and white. A young boy’s dream dessert.

Snap awake in the present day: in the twenty-first century Nabisco has stopped making Famous Chocolate Wafers. Boom. That’s it. It’s over. Discontinued. There wasn’t even an announcement so we could stockpile them for our Doomsday prep. Unaware, I had been looking for them periodically as I walked by the wire shelf near the ice cream in our grocery store where I remembered seeing the packages, and there just never seemed to be any Famous Chocolate Wafers. There were plenty of bottles of Smucker’s Magic Shell Chocolate Fudge. And Hersey’s Syrup. And lots of ice cream cones. Plenty of sprinkles and dragées. But never any Famous Chocolate Wafers.

Last week NPR released the sad, sad news. NPR Famous Wafers Are No More There went a cool, sweet summer memory of childhood that could be recreated by a well-meaning grownup, now in our dotage, in the hottest summer we’ve ever known. In the grand scheme of things, with all of the problems of our post-COVID existence, this just seemed unfair. It was the very last straw. There wasn’t even an appeal process.

I set out to make that childhood taste treat. If NPR could publish a recipe for ersatz Famous Chocolate Wafers, then I could certainly follow it, and bring back a halcyon moment. I am nothing if not dogged.

I followed the directions in the article for “Chocolate Wafer Cookies and Ice Box Cake” from Zoë Bakes on Magnolia Network as reported by NPR, measuring carefully. I sifted together the cake flour, unsweetened Dutch process cocoa powder, baking soda and kosher salt. I hauled out the enormously heavy KitchenAid stand mixer and religiously tipped in the room temp butter, the fog of confectioners’ sugar and the two teaspoons of pure vanilla extract. To which I added the sifted flour mixture. And then I looked sadly at the dry, crumbly mixture that resulted. It was evenly mixed, but it was never going to be dough. It looked like gritty cocoa. So I did a little backtracking, and found that even though NPR must have spell-checked the recipe, no one thought to compare the list of ingredients with the recipe writer’s actual recipe. There was no liquid listed to wet the ingredients, and hold them all together.

So DO NOT FOLLOW THE RECIPE in the NPR story. Here is the fancy pants version of it, with all of the ingredients listed: Fancy Pants Chocolate Wafers

In the end, I still could not make that modified recipe work. I could not slice the well-refrigerated dough into 1/8” circular slices. They wobbled. They oozed. They were not circles, but instead they were wily amoebas. Short of stomping my feet and huffing out of the kitchen, I improvised. I didn’t want to waste all that expensive Dutch processed cocoa, plus I had invested several hours on this sentimental journey, and we still needed a dessert. So I rolled the dough into little balls, rolled the balls in granulated sugar, and flattened the balls with a jelly jar dipped in sugar on parchment paper-lined cookie sheets to get a nice crisp sugary surface. Once the cookies had baked, and cooled, I slathered them with some softened mint chocolate chip ice cream. Yumsters.

And thus we began our new summer tradition, Faux Famous Wafer Ice Cream Sandwiches, with fat, homemade chocolate cookies. We now have a little stash of ice cream sandwiches in the freezer. They are perfect for today, when it is 91°F before noon. Thanks a lot, Nabisco. Thanks for the memories.

“Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.”
– Russell Baker

The Spy Test Kitchen has returned from a smashing vacation, brimming with ideas and new experiences. Despite what Agnes Callard said in her New Yorker piece, The Case Against Travel, I think travel is good for the soul. We got out of town, saw old friends, met new people, saw lots of art, and water, and fireworks, and ate constantly, and with gusto. I polished my toenails, slathered on the sunscreen, donned brightly-colored, light weight summer togs, and kept filling my canvas market tote with fresh, local fruits and vegetables at each and every farm stand.

Foodwise, as it was a New England vacation, the ubiquitous lobster roll was a favorite, as were oysters, and scallops, and fried fish sandwiches, and cooked-on-the-grill hamburgers. There was also gelato, focaccia, Parker House Rolls, pesto, sugar snap peas, tomatoes, panisse lettuce, and blueberries, blueberries, blueberries. We trailed dreamily through busy Italian food markets, independent bookshops, edgy galleries, cavernous museums, and tchotchke-stuffed antique stores. We waited for a ferry, rode in unaccustomed Ubers (and traffic), walked miles in the sun, and got caught in a downpour while strolling to the beach. We went on pilgrimage to the shrines that are Car Talk Plaza, Eataly, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Harvard, and the Oxford Creamery in Mattapoisett, home of the Tall One’s very first lobster roll. We unwound in a very busy fashion.

We went out to dinner often, but the best things we ate were homemade: carrot cake is good for a birthday celebration, but it is even better a couple of days later for breakfast. And a bloody Mary brunch should always include snappy little homemade Old Bay biscuits from Dorie Greenspan’s Cookies cook book. Dorie says she wanted a cookie that would go with beer: I applaud her noble impulse. This was the perfect New England vacation crunchy little cocktail nibble, made ineffable by the addition of good Maryland Old Bay Seasoning.

Dorie Greenspan’s Old Bay Pretzel and Cheese Cookies

Makes 3 dozen

Ingredients

1¼ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons Old Bay Seasoning
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
12 tablespoons cold butter, cut into 24 pieces
4 ounces (1 cup) sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
2 ounces (57 grams) salted pretzels, coarsely chopped

Directions

Put flour, Old Bay and salt in a food processor; whir to blend. Scatter the butter over the flour mixture and pulse in long spurts. Pulse until dough forms clumps, stopping occasionally to scrape down sides of the bowl. Add cheese and pretzels; pulse to combine. Turn dough onto a work surface; knead briefly to bring it together. Divide in half; roll each half into a 9-inch log. Wrap each tightly in plastic wrap; freeze at least 1 hour. Preheat oven to 350°F. Position racks to divide oven into thirds. Line two cookie sheets with parchment.

Use a serrated knife to cut dough into ⅓-inch-thick slices. Place slices 1 inch apart on baking sheets. Bake 19–21 minutes, rotating sheets front to back and top to bottom after 10 minutes, or until firm and golden. Cool on sheets 5 minutes and then place on cooling racks.

The sous chef wanted a taste before the cookies had cooled completely. He was chastised. The pretzels need to cool to regain crunch, and the Old Bay needs time to mellow. Patience is a New England virtue: think of all those widow’s walks. This is also the perfect time to make a batch of bloody Marys, watch some tennis, or to get out the beer. Enjoy your summer!

“Every person needs to take one day away. A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future. Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence. Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for. Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.”
― Maya Angelou

This is a column from last year, when we were still COVID-wary. I have taken the Spy Test Kitchens on the road for a little R&R. We’ll be back next week. Enjoy!

Last Friday night we popped out of our COVID-imposed bubble and ventured into public for dinner in a restaurant. There were people! There were people who had made bad shoe choices! There were people who brought me a tall, sparkly French 75, and would have brought me another one had I been foolish enough to think I had the youthful stamina for a second. But best of all, there were people who cooked for us.

Normally I am a little leery of the fancy, au courant, artisanal places whose menus are heavily reliant on ingredients that are currently in season. I am always sure that I will wander in during lima bean season, or rutabaga season, and then will I will be sunk. But on Friday night we walked smack into the middle of peach season.

We shared a lovely plate of lightly grilled peaches and tomatoes, doused with olive oil and dotted with soft clots of bleu cheese. Yumsters. Such a light and sweet appetizer! And easily recreated at home. Except on Saturday night we grilled the peaches and tomatoes, substituted some fresh mozzarella for the bleu cheese, and drizzled a homemade vinaigrette dressing over plates of crisp arugula. Dining at home can be seasonal and au courant, too!

Emily Nunn’s Perfect Mustard Vinaigrette

1⁄2 cup good quality extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard (Mr. Sanders prefers it without the mustard)
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1⁄2 teaspoon of sea salt (or more to taste)
Freshly ground black pepper
Place the ingredients in a jar and shake until it is completely emulsified. If you like garlic on your salad (I often do) start the recipe by mashing together a clove of garlic and the salt in a mortar and pestle (or with the back of a spoon, in a bowl), then whisk in the remaining ingredients.

Yotam Ottolenghi can teach us all how to prepare wondrous peach dishes:https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/aug/19/peach-recipes-yotam-ottolenghi-galette-shrub-bellini-runner-beans

It’s time to get creative! Summer is the time for juicy watermelon, thick tomato sandwiches and dripping peaches. How can you appreciate a peach unless you feel the velvet skin with your own sticky fingers? If you haven’t had peach juice run down the front of your shirt, you have not had a satisfactory summer experience.

Mr. Sanders sliced half a peach onto his bowl of cold twiggy cereal this morning, leaving the other half for me on the cutting board. I ate it over the sink, because the juices dripped furiously and there wasn’t anyone around who would point out that I should have been ladylike and used a napkin. Don’t neglect any opportunity to just seize the day, and a peach, early, and eat it in your own free-spirited summer fashion.

Perhaps I will have to ditch the usual French 75, and opt for a Bellini the next time we venture out of the Bat Cave. But I think I will practice at home first:
https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/bellini And I will pretend to be sipping it at Harry’s Bar with a crowd of pretentious American ex-pat writers from a previous era. Remembering to limit myself to just one, because they do pack a punch.

“The people that I liked and had not met went to the big cafes because they were lost in them and no one noticed them and they could be alone in them and be together.”

― Ernest Hemingway

Sometimes I forget that we live in a country that is so vast and diverse that a New England hot dog is so different from a Chicago-style hot dog, and neither of them is like a hot dog from Texas, or from California. And this is one of the great American qualities – we are true blue and we love our regional delicacies.

In Boston, a Fenway Frank is boiled first, and then lightly grilled. (It is served in a split-top roll, which is also used for the best sort of lobster rolls: Split-top Roll) The Puritans among us prefer garnishing a Fenway Frank with just a thick wiggly trail of spicy mustard. But since this is America, feel free to pile on your own favorites.

As you travel west to Chicago, you will observe that the Chicago-style hot dog is a completely different creation. Chicago-style hot dogs are cooked in butter in a pan, and then served in warm, poppy-seed rolls, with lots of veggies on top. Chicago-style dogs are “dragged through the garden”: topped with sweet pickle relish, chopped onions, pickled peppers, tomato slices and sprinkled with celery salt. Have you been watching The Bear? You’ll know then how popular these franks are.

Then you’ll mosey down to Texas, to encounter the Hot Texas Wiener, a frank cooked in hot vegetable oil. If you place an order for a “One”, you’ll get a blisteringly hot frank topped with spicy brown mustard, chopped onions, and chili sauce. Yumsters.

As you continue west, and stop in Los Angeles for a some street food, you will encounter an L.A. Danger Dog. This frank is wrapped in bacon! I cannot imagine the state that Gwyneth and Meghan call home would do anything so decadent and audacious as a grilled, bacon-wrapped hot dog. More controversial to a hot dog purist are the toppings: catsup, mustard, mayonnaise, sautéed onions, with peppers, and a poblano chile pepper. Catsup? Mayo? But to be polite, you must eat like a local, and it will be deelish.

Common sense teaches us to not use catsup on our franks after the age of 18. You might as well make bologna sandwiches with Wonder bread, and douse them in catsup.

Have you ever seen the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile on the road? I can remember driving on a Florida highway once, and suddenly, puttering alongside us, was the Weinermobile. What a cheap thrill that was! Sadly, now it is called the Frankmobile. Time marches on. You can follow the Frankmobile on Instagram:

July is National Hot Dog Month, and the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council says that some of the top hot dog consuming cities include: Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Chicago, Phoenix, Atlanta, Detroit, Washington, DC, and Tampa. You’ll want to brush up on your hot dog etiquette, I’m sure.

And here are the official rules for Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest, in case you want to try this at home.

NPR 1A – Hot Dogs

Happy Fourth of July! (I will still be in Massachusetts enjoying my first post-COVID vacation next week, so we will be repeating a column, something from the Way Back Machine. Enjoy!)

“A hotdog at the ballgame beats roast beef at the Ritz.”
― Humphrey Bogart

Happy summer! It’s finally here. School is out, and you can hear screen doors slamming up and down our street with busy folk intent upon enjoying summer. Luke the wonder dog and I have to dodge out of the way of the young bicyclists who are toting colorful towels or tennis racquets as they pursue summertime activities. It’s nice to be outdoors.

My chore avoidance tendency is reemerging as thoughts are reluctantly turning to the Fourth of July, and summertime entertaining, and eating in general. I wake up every morning and think about the day ahead; Luke and I take our first walk, and that’s when I decide if I need to head out to the grocery store for provisions. It’s nice to have planned ahead enough that I have already made a couple of kinds of sturdy salads that can sit in the fridge for a few days.

Potato salad seems to get more flavorful as it steeps in its mayonnaise dressing for a few days. It was excellent with grilled chicken on Sunday night, and it will be even better on Tuesday night with baked salmon, and for a side dish with my cheese sandwich on Wednesday. I’m going to make a double batch for the Fourth: half to bring with us to the picnic, and half for another home-cooked dinner, or two, later in the week.

This is my standard potato salad recipe, which tend to repeat here every year or so:
My Popular Potato Salad

This is a recipe that people actually ask for – and not just because they are my in-laws and trying hard to be polite! It that constantly evolves and adapts, and each summer brings a new twist. I don’t always have green onions – Vidalias work just fine. No red bliss potatoes? Go for Russets. A little fresh thyme? Why not? This potato salad is dependable, tasty and can be adapted and stretched to feed the masses. Just add more potatoes and more mayonnaise. It is particularly fine for large picnic gatherings, but Mr. Sanders has been known to make a midnight snack of it, too. It tastes best if it has a little time to sit and mellow, so if you can make it in the morning, it is just right by suppertime.

Many, many servings…
2 pounds little new, red bliss potatoes (do not peel!)
1 cup Hellmann’s mayonnaise, thinned with milk, enough to be pourable
1 bunch green onions, chopped
Sea salt and pepper to taste

Boil the potatoes until tender. While warm (but not still steaming hot) slice potatoes and begin to layer them in a large bowl – one layer potatoes, then a handful of green onions and salt and pepper. Pour on some of the mayonnaise mixture. Repeat. Gently stir until all the potatoes are coated. You may need to add more mayonnaise mixture when you are ready to serve, as the potatoes absorb the mayo. Deelish.

Martha, who is famous, and I am not, has another recipe for potato salad that calls for hard boiled eggs. Also cornichons and buttermilk. I suppose, in this day and age, there is room for differing viewpoints: Martha Stewart’s Potato Salad

The Smitten Kitchen has a novel approach to potato salad – to use a tzatziki dressing: Smitten Kitchen’s Potato Salad I just love using cucumbers as much as I can in the summer.

More colorful, and probably more nutritious, is this chick pea salad. Chickpeas are loaded with protein and fiber. Tomatoes, especially if your homegrown are ripe, are sweet and delightful. And the lemon juice helps keep the salad fresh for a few days in the fridge. Who could ask for anything more? Chickpea Salad

A panzanella salad is the ultimate lazy unfamous-woman’s dish: tomatoes, dried bread, cukes. Add my favorite cheap white wine, some candlelight, and this is total bliss. And it perfect environmentally, because nothing goes to waste: this is why we stash bread in the freezer: Panzanella Salad

Nobody likes cooking in the summertime, unless you are a happy-go-lucky year-round resident of Tuscany, in which case you cannot ever complain. The rest of us mere mortals need to cope with summer heat, doldrums, and constant existential dread. Let’s enjoy some simplicity, and graze from bowls of deliciousness already stashed awayin the fridge. Let us be grasshoppers for a little while.

“Summer… when fireflies come out at dusk and ice melts too fast in lemonade; ice cream tastes better even though it’s the same-old flavor.”
― Nanette L. Avery

This June 19th marks 158 years since Union troops arrived in Galveston, Texas and announced to people who were still enslaved that they were legally free. The Emancipation Proclamation, which was made on January 1, 1863, had been suppressed by slave owners in Texas for two and a half years. Jubilation ensued. The first Juneteenth freedom celebration was held the following year.

That inaugural Juneteenth celebration was in Texas, where they believe in doing things bigger and better. Texas barbecue and all its fixings are fitting for Juneteenth. In 2021 President Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act into law establishing Juneteenth as our newest federal holiday. The White House celebrated Juneteenth the other night, and we’ve got a lot of cooking to do!

Traditional Juneteenth foods are: cornbread, fried catfish, shrimp and grits, ribs, pulled pork, fried chicken, collard greens, Cajun gumbo, jambalayla, and potato salad. Make the kinds of foods you would have at a cookout, but be sure to have lots of traditional, celebratory red foods: watermelon, tomato salad, red beans and rice, red velvet cake and strawberry pie.“Watermelon and red soda water are the oldest traditional foods on Juneteenth,” said Dr. Ronald Myers, head of the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation.

This Juneteenth I will be doing some home cooking to honor the legacy of the Black Texans on the anniversary of Emancipation Day. I will remember the enslaved cooks who brought African cooking to America while cooking some of their traditional recipes which continue to enrich our cooking.

Some of our tomatoes are starting to ripen, but aren’t quite ready for harvesting. It looks like a great time to wander through the watermelons in the produce department, though. I saw yellow watermelons for the first time a couple of weeks ago – they were positively incandescent! They looked as if they could glow in the dark. But we need some bright red watermelon for a proper Juneteenth dish.

Matthew Raiford, the South Carolina Chefarmer, talks about growing up and eating Georgia Rattlesnake watermelons. They had “dark green stripes resemble a diamondback rattlesnake” and were extremely sweet.
This is his recipe for:
Watermelon Steak Salad with Heirloom Tomatoes and Sangria Vinaigrette
Serves 4 to 6

FOR THE SALAD
1 to 11/2 pounds freshly mixed salad greens or microgreens
1 pound heirloom tomatoes of varying sizes and colors, such as Cherokee Purple, Yellow Brandywine, black and yellow cherry tomatoes
1/4 medium seedless watermelon (5 to 10 pounds)
Olive oil for brushing

FOR THE VINAIGRETTE
1 cup traditional red sangria, either homemade or store-bought
1/2 cup olive oil
Freshly cracked black pepper
Sea salt

DIRECTIONS
Prepare your grill for medium- high direct heat, 375° to 450°F.
While the grill comes up to temperature, wash and dry the salad greens, then divide the greens among four to six serving plates. Wash and dry your tomatoes. Slice the whole tomatoes into ½- inch rounds and halve the cherry tomatoes. Divide and arrange the tomato slices evenly among the plates. Set the plates in the refrigerator to chill while you finish the dish.

Slide the watermelon into ¾- to- 1- inch- thick “steaks,” then quarter the steaks into wedges. Brush each side of the watermelon with a little olive oil, then set the wedges on the grill for approximately 3 minutes per side, until you get grill marks. The longer you leave the wedges on, the sweeter they’ll get. Remove the watermelon from the grill and arrange evenly among the salad plates.

Pour the sangria into a large measuring cup with a pouring spout, then whisk the olive oil into the sangria until it makes a nice, loose vinaigrette. Generously dress the salads. Sprinkle the salads with pepper and salt to your liking, then serve.

https://georgefox.cafebonappetit.com/matthew-raiford-juneteenth-recipes/

I also liked this sweet and hot Watermelon Chow Chow. The jalapenos deliver a great kick.

“Juneteenth has never been a celebration of victory or an acceptance of the way things are. It’s a celebration of progress. It’s an affirmation that despite the most painful parts of our history, change is possible—and there is still so much work to do.”
— Barack Obama

In the summer the much vaunted Spy Test Kitchen cooks are just like everyone else – who really enjoys cooking when it is hot? We are just fine with snacks, thank you. Toss a cheese sandwich our way, please. But if you insist on perpetrating the three-square-meal myth, could we cut down on the number of dishes we have to wash?

I don’t watch many YouTube or TikTok videos because they send me down rabbit holes where I lose all sense of time, and I find the amateur camera work distracting. There are reasons why people go to film school. Please give me something shot with a Steadicam, a beginning, middle and end, throw in a plot, some English accents, and roll a stylish credit crawl. But, I have lived through COVID. So, of course, I watch the occasional viral TikTok. This recipe has gone spectacularly viral, and deservedly so. It is super easy, tasty, colorful and is perfect for the summer avoidance of extra time spent in the kitchen.

https://www.tiktok.com/@foodmymuse/video/6924800060656045318?lang=en&q=baked feta and tomatoes&t=1686228446167

I am still waiting for the tomatoes in our back yard garden to ripen, but luckily there are many colors and flavors of cherry tomatoes available. I am eager to try Twilights, which are a dark, rich grape tomato – almost black, as suggested by David Plotz in a recent Slate Political Gabfest endorsement. I am haunting the produce department of our grocery store, hoping for a delivery. But there are others: https://www.gardeningchores.com/types-of-cherry-tomatoes/

Except for the tomatoes and the feta, this is practically a pantry staples recipe: a shallot, garlic, olive oil, salt, red pepper, pasta, lemon and fresh basil. You don’t need to go to the fancy grocery store, which is always a relief. This recipe can serve more than two people. It cooks quickly, and in one pan, so if you hustle, you won’t be in the kitchen long at all.

Baked Feta and Tomatoes

2 pints cherry or grape tomatoes
1 shallot, quartered
3 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 cup olive oil, divided
Maldon salt
A pinch crushed red pepper flakes
1 (8-ounce) block feta
10 ounces cooked pasta
Zest of 1 lemon
Fresh basil, for garnish

Step 1
Preheat oven to 400°F. In a large ovenproof skillet or medium baking dish, combine tomatoes, shallot, garlic, and all but 1 tablespoon oil. Season with salt and red pepper flakes and toss to combine.

Step 2
Place feta into center of tomato mixture and drizzle with remaining tablespoon oil. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until tomatoes are bursting and feta is golden on top.

Step 3
Meanwhile, in a large pot of boiling salted water, cook pasta until al dente according to package directions. Reserve ½ cup pasta water before draining.

Step 4
Add the cooked pasta to the skillet of tomatoes and feta, add the reserved pasta water, and lemon zest and stir until combined. Garnish with basil.

We skipped the pasta and went directly to schmearing the mixture on pieces of crusty garlic bread – a perfect summer meal. Bread, hot cheese, tomatoes, basil and the obligatory glass of cheap red wine. Take off your glasses and squint at the world around you. In the setting sun, it could almost be Tuscany.

Baked feta and tomatoes with pasta can be the perfect light summer meal, or when you serve it on garlic bread, is a nice cocktail nosh, when all you really want to do is barely more than to tear open a bag of Doritos. You will be almost as cool as a TikTok influencer. Enjoy.

https://www.eatwell101.com/baked-feta-recipe

“Hold summer in your hand, pour summer in a glass, a tiny glass of course, the smallest tingling sip for children; change the season in your veins by raising glass to lip and tilting summer in.”
― Ray Bradbury