Jean Sanders - Centreville Spy

Food Friday: Tailgating

September 19, 2025 by Jean Sanders Leave a Comment

This is an updated version of a column from last year. Mr. Sanders and I are moving, and taking care of packing and being appalled by the number of dust bunnies we keep discovering has left me little time for cooking. Let’s enjoy the good old days!

Tailgating season has begun, and the Spy Test Kitchens have been busy testing and tasting, planning and plotting, shopping and schlepping. It is a wonderful time of year, with the changing seasons, exciting sporting events, and all sorts of socializing which still feels like a huge relief after the COVID years. (But be sure to get your boosters and your flu shot – you don’t want to get sick and miss the big game.)

Some folks go to great lengths to have an Instagram-worthy tailgate event. Think Martha. Think color coordination. Think branding. I’d rather focus on some delicious food to share with friends. You’ll have to decide if you will prepare your foods in advance, or if you will be cooking on site. It’s tricky to pack all that grilling equipment, but experienced season ticket holders have personal systems for packing the car with all their food, grill, ice, cups, corn hole board and dog bowls. I admire their organizational skills.

The week before a tailgate I have Post Its sticking up everywhere, reminding me what I need to bring: cups, table cloth, paper towels, Wet Wipes, Off, plastic ware, plates, nibbles, buns, beer, fizzy water, Cokes, cupcakes, a pop-up tent, table, folding chairs, blankets, picnic basket, raincoats… It is an endless, ever-changing list.
Here is a more definitive check list of tailgate necessities:
Ice – in a cooler (which doubles as extra seating)
Folding table & camping chairs Tablecloth (if you have a long table, consider using a fitted bed sheet)
Grill and lighter fluid (check the rules – be sure you can have an open flame)
Matches
Grilling utensils
Paper plates
Plastic utensils and cups
Napkins
Wipes and paper towels
Bottle opener and koozies
Trash bags
Beverages and mixers
Condiments
Water

Our Luke the wonder dog is always up for an outdoor adventure. He tried to figure out how to chase after a frisbee at a University of Florida tailgate, but he is more adept at, and much prefers, chasing his favorite ball, so I have to be remember to pack his Chuck-it ball and launcher. And his bed – Luke is 15, and likes his canine comfort.

I try to keep the food simple, and make sandwiches ahead of time. Luke still dreams about the giant 8 ounce bacon burger he had at his Florida game. But we were all younger then, and foolish, and thought nothing about calories and cardiac health. Now is the time (for us humans, at any rate) to modify our behavior. One of my faves is a French ham and butter sandwich on a fresh baguette: baguette, ham, and lotsa good butter. What more could you need?

Perhaps a Pan Bagnat. I substitute chicken in mine, not being a huge tuna fan.  Pan Bagnat

We have even been known to stop by the grocery store deli counter to pick up a few ready made sandwiches before a game. So easy, so deelish. Food prepared by other people always seems to taste better. More tailgating sandwich ideas: Tailgate Sandwiches

Martha always has wonderful presentation, but Martha also has a staff of ambitious and talented Martha Wannabees. I do not have the stamina for a fully thematic tailgate. I might bake some football-themed cupcakes, but that is where my cleverness end. My energy wanes, and truly, my ideas for tailgate foods are the sorts of things we prepared for little boy birthday parties, not this sort of grand bon vivant gesture: Martha’s Game Day Recipes

I will pack up a warm platter of pigs-in-blankets and stuff it into a thermal bag, so they are still warm-ish as we socialize. Fresh, warm, soft pretzels are always gobbled up. Apples, veggie platters, charcuterie boards, barbecued chicken, cookies and Doritos all go with us to the game, but very few ever come home again. The playful outdoor atmosphere leads to healthy appetites at a tailgate: Rule of Thumb – always bring more than you think you will need. And don’t forget your tickets to the game!

“I think baking cookies is equal to Queen Victoria running an empire. There’s no difference in how seriously you take the job, how seriously you approach your whole life.”
 —Martha Stewart

Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil and ink.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Food Friday: Autumnal Apples

September 12, 2025 by Jean Sanders Leave a Comment

Crunch! Give me crunch. Walking through piles of leaves. Eating apples. That little bit of tooth that defines the perfect French fry. Bacon. The delicious snap of a thin, carmelized-along-the-edge chocolate chip cookie. To intone Martha, these are good things.

It is still pretty warm out there. The sun is still shooting death rays at us and I am still slathering on the sunscreen, but the shadows are growing longer and the sun sets earlier. There was a wind out of the north yesterday that teased us with an exotic tinge of coolth which Luke the wonder dog and I enjoyed as we trotted through our daily paces.

Apples always remind me of brown-bagged lunches, with warm, wax paper-wrapped cheese sandwiches. And they make me think of Jo March, scribbling in her cold New England attic, her inky fingers clutching apples as she gnawed away, reviewing her latest lurid tale. Apples bring knowledge and comfort, and at this time of year, there is a profusion of reasons to eat them often.

It’s still a early for the strolls through crunchy leaves, but the autumnal yen of eating crunchy apples can be indulged right now. You need to motivate and travel to your favorite farmers’ markets this weekend and stock up on freshly picked treasures, because there are so many good things you can make! Of course, it is always gilding the proverbial lily to do anything to an apple but wash it and take a bite. Even pies seem unnecessarily vulgar. Does an apple really need brown sugar, cinnamon and dabs of butter to taste better? Of course not! But any iteration of an apple is a good thing!

It is apple time now. And different dishes call for different kinds of apples. How do we pick them? Do we need baking apples or eating apples? What is a baking apple? I tend to pick the biggest, shiniest apples I can find, much to Joni Mitchell’s consternation, I am sure. Bon Appétit magazine says there are three good baking apples: Honeycrisp, Mutsu and Pink Ladies. But they also like Granny Smiths. They are nice and crisp, and are not prone to mushiness or graininess. They hold up to the heat, and your creation is not reduced to glop.
Baking Apples

The Farmers’ Almanac has a handy-dandy chart for which apples are best suited to various dishes: sauces, cider, pie and baking. Best Apples

There is romance and poetry in the kabillion known varieties of apples: Adirondack crab-apple, Albermarle Pippin, Allen’s Everlasting, Ambrosia, American Mother, Annie Elizabeth, Cameo, Captain Kidd, Cellini, Coeur de Boeuf, Gala, Granny Smith, Maiden’s Blush, McIntosh, Red Jonathan, Rhode Island Greening, Winesap, and Zuccalmaglio’s Reinette. You should go to this site and read some of the apples’ characteristics. The Zuccalmaglio description reads: “Flavored with tones of wild strawberry, quince, pineapple, ripe ear and a fine floral touch. Rough sticky skin flushed brown-red with faint red stripes and some russeting. Fine grained flesh.” Sheer poetry.
Orange Pippin

Our first world problems include having very few varieties of apples at the grocery store. Which is why you need to get to your farmers’ market. I would rather rummage through 19 varieties grown locally, than choose from 5 kinds shipped 2,000 miles across the country – fruits chosen for their long shelf life and bruise resistance. Here is an interesting article about testing 10 different kinds of apples to see which is the best for pie: Apples for Pies

Now here are just a few ideas of what you can do with all those delicious apples: applesauce, apple butter, apple fritters, apple cobbler, apple cookies, apple fritters, apple jelly, candy apples, apple crisp, mulled cider, apple cake, apple chutney, apple-tinis, cider doughnuts, apple pancakes, apple turnovers, apple stuffing, Waldorf salad, apple tarts, baked apples, apple brown Betty, apple muffins, and, of course, apple pie (deep-dish or regular).

This Apple Crumble is easy peasy and so good!

6 Golden Delicious or Braeburn apples, peeled, sliced into ¼ inch pieces
4 tablespoons sugar
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoons lemon juice
Grated zest of one orange
2/3 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup uncooked oats
Preheat oven to 375°F.

Mix apples, sugar, lemon juice and orange zest. In another bowl combine flour, oats, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Toss with butter. Combine with apple mixture in a buttered baking dish.

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes. Cool 10 minutes before serving. Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a nice big splotch of whipped cream. Yumsters. All of the taste of apple pie with no fragile or temperamental pie crust to contend with.

For a boozier cream try this:
Bourbon Cream
1 cup heavy cream
¼ cup confectioners’ sugar
1 tablespoon good bourbon

Appletinis:
This is a serious treatise on the awful syrup-y sweet cocktails of the 90s. It treats apples with respect and good vodka: Appletinis

“Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard.”
― Walt Whitman

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Food Friday: Hello, Breakfasts!

September 5, 2025 by Jean Sanders Leave a Comment

Let us take a page from Christmas. Don’t panic – we still have a few months to go before we start worrying about that! But summer vacation is over. And school has started. What are you going to serve for breakfast on a busy Monday morning?

I suggest that a little of the planning, just like holiday prep can be applied to our everyday, real life breakfast experience. So easy to natter on about, so difficult to to sustain. Which is why it is a good thing that Christmas comes but once a year. Point of fact, on Christmas morning, we wander groggily into the kitchen, where we always have a couple of favorite breakfast casseroles pre-cooked and sitting in the fridge, waiting to be re-heated. And while you might not want to prepare a casserole or a sheet of sausage rolls every night, you don’t need to panic every single morning about breakfast, now that school is starting, the busses are rolling, and time is not on your side.

You can start off small, with a batch of Scrambled Egg Muffins, courtesy of Food52 that you can bake on Sunday afternoon. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy. By Thursday you’ll feel confident enough to toss frozen, homemade pancakes into the microwave. (Emily Peck on Slate’s Money podcast recently extolled the deliciousness of the Lemon Ricotta Pancakes from a recipe in the New York Times – enjoy! Lemon Ricotta Pancakes On Friday you’ll enjoy revving up the blender for a healthy, avocado smoothie. You can make a new playlist for every week, or get some items into a regular rotation.

It will be almost a full year before you will again enjoy leisurely summer vacation breakfasts, spent contentedly scrolling through IG at a picnic table overlooking a lake from your summer rental. You won’t be tasked with documenting the perfect sunrise to humblebrag about any more, either. You are back in the saddle, like it or not. And some of you have young folk who need to be stoked up and filled to the brim with healthy brain food every morning.

There’s a lot going on in those growing brains, and we know that we should be doing better than a bowl of Cap’n Crunch. We want them to concentrate, remember what they are learning, and keep their energy levels up until lunchtime. It is a daunting task, particularly when we are trying to feed everyone good, healthy food, fast and with the fewest morning squabbles.

A lot of the prepared foods are full of sugars, fat and salt; all the deelish things we human beings are naturally drawn to. But they are not very healthy for us, I’m sad to say. And look at that fourth grader, staring moodily at you across the counter. Does he really want a bowl of heart-healthy oatmeal. Not likely. So consider your audience as you peruse my handy dandy sheet of breakfast ideas.

I love repetition. I can eat a turkey sandwich every day for a week. Maybe even two weeks. But you might be a little more normal, and like to shake things up. When you bake a sheet of twelve muffins, that might seem like money in the bank. But only for a couple of days. Don’t plan on foisting off healthy crunchy twiggy muffins on your first grader for the next 5 days in a row. Even if they really seems to like them on Monday, by Tuesday it could get ugly. Maybe you can consult with said child, and see what their take is, and maybe the two of you can make a plan. Rapid rotation is probably key!

Most mornings I have about enough energy and enthusiasm for a slice of cold pizza and the headlines. But given the proper motivation (this list) and a calming trip to the grocery store, even you can have a variety of healthy ingredients on hand to make some tempting make-ahead, back-to-back breakfasts. And then you can devote your worrying to charging the iPhones, signing permission slips, finding the sneakers, getting the laundry out of the dryer, putting the dog in his crate, and finding your car keys.

Maybe the two (or three, four, five) of you can make it a weekly family event. Quality Family Breakfast Prep Time might only last for the first couple of weeks of school before it comes crashing back down on your shoulders, but it could be a pleasant time for you all. Instead of sinking onto the sofa with HGTV after dinner, maybe you can whip up a little batch of granola – which can then be a cereal base, an ingredient in a yogurt parfait, or tossed into a smoothie or made into snack bars.

I have some great memories of times in the kitchen with our children. You can’t expect every minute to go smoothly, and you have to keep in mind that their attention spans can be short (it’s a lasting effect from all that Cap’n Crunch they used to eat). Consider it a moment of triumph when someone learns to measure a cup of whole wheat flour, or remembers to line the muffin pan with paper cups without first being asked. You can teach some life skills, like how to bake bacon, or wash blueberries or peel carrots. And don’t forget about learning first aid!

You are saving time from chaos and tears in the morning, and exercising those potentially sizable and vulnerable little brains. And it is screen-free quality time. Maybe after you figure breakfast out you can all go read a little Harry Potter. Magic!

Muffins
smoothies
eggs
granola and muesli
oatmeal
pancakes
fruits
pizza
bagels and breads

Pizza (I had to include it!)

Bagels

“My breakfast is usually a wholegrain cereal or porridge, with walnuts sprinkled in it, berries, a tablespoon of honey, and chia seeds. I have coffee and a little cherry juice with seltzer. I have a seat by the window, and I look out at the view.”
—Amy Tan

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Food Friday: Goodbye, Summer!

August 29, 2025 by Jean Sanders Leave a Comment

Mr. Sanders, Luke the wonder dog, and I have snuck out for the Labor Day weekend. We hope you have an excellent weekend of grilling, fireflies and backyard enjoyments.

Ah, the mixed feelings that arrive with Labor Day: regrets for not having gone to the beach often enough; relief that the sand-strewn car no longer needs to be vacuumed with regularity. Rueful that cooking is moving indoors; cheered that this will be the last can of mosquito repellent we use this year. Hasta la vista, homemade, hand-cranked-by-kid-power-ice cream; hello, sweet treats whipped up in the kitchen.

In theory, the summer has seasonal experiences that we can’t enjoy during the rest of the year. Oh, yes, we could go to the beach every day if we didn’t have middle-class concerns, like holding down jobs to pay the mortgage. And yes, the beach is a fine place to visit in the fall, with sweaters and scarves and a feeling of adventure. But nothing is quite so delightful as sitting in a low-slung beach chair, with your toes wriggling in the sand, as the tide creeps up the beach while the afternoon sun warms your soul, and you munch happily on a tuna sandwich, and you never remember to turn the page in your paperback.

Conversely, I am still hauling the little hand-held vacuum out to the car to suck up yet another drift of sand that has suddenly appeared from some hidden car crevasse from that trip to the beach two weeks ago. Thank goodness we emptied out the cooler. Two week-old tuna sandwiches would be toxic.

I love grilling on the back porch, as you know, because I do very little of it myself. I think Mr. Sanders is a marvelous grill master, and I encourage him to practice his talents often. Which isn’t to say he won’t rustle up a ceremonial steak or flip the odd burger in the winter months, but it is not a given. I like certainty. I like not having to clean the cooktop every night. During grilling season I enjoy standing on the back porch while Mr. Friday flips and times and prods our dinners. We have a little wine, and hold our breath while the hummingbirds zoom into the twilight, changing places with the fireflies, who begin to sparkle. Which signals, alas, the arrival of the mosquito cloud. Not even the swooping bats have made much of an impact on the damn mosquitoes this year.

Summer desserts are simple delights that you can enjoy year ‘round. But homemade ice cream is best consumed before it is ready, scraped off the paddles, while it is still soft, and the sugar granules haven’t quite dissolved. It is always sweetest when the youngsters are cranking the ice cream maker. We have an electric ice cream maker that we have used once. It seemed like a good idea at the time – but strawberries and peaches bought in February are never as sweet as they are right now, overflowing at the farmers’ markets, luscious and ripe fruits in brilliant oranges, golds and reds.

I suggest we remember summer in other ways. A coconut pie in October will cast our memory nets back to sun screen and lotions from the beach or pool. A delightful profiterole, dripping in chocolate and oozing vanilla ice cream in November will harken back to back porch-churned vanilla ice cream. And this lemon custard is summer sunshine in a bowl. Hello, fall!

This is a recipe from The New York Times.

No-Bake Lemon Custards
By Melissa Clark

INGREDIENTS

FOR THE CUSTARDS:
2 cups heavy cream
⅔ cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest (from 1 to 2 lemons)
Pinch of fine sea salt
⅓ cup fresh lemon juice (from 2 to 3 lemons)
FOR THE STRAWBERRY TOPPING:
1 cup sliced strawberries
1 to 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
Freshly ground black pepper, for serving

PREPARATION
In a medium saucepan, combine cream, sugar, lemon zest and salt over medium-high heat. Bring to simmer, stirring frequently to dissolve sugar. Simmer vigorously until mixture thickens slightly, about 4 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice. Let sit until mixture has cooled slightly and a skin forms on top, about 20 minutes. Stir mixture, then strain through fine-mesh strainer (I used a cheesecloth) into a measuring cup with a spout; discard zest. Pour mixture evenly into six 6-ounce ramekins or small bowls. Refrigerate, uncovered, until set, at least 3 hours. As the custards chill, prepare the strawberry topping: Toss strawberries and sugar in a small mixing bowl. Let fruit macerate at room temperature for 30 minutes to 1 hour, until the sugar is dissolved. To serve, top each lemon custard with some strawberry topping and grind black pepper on top.

Personal note: when I made this, I do not get 6 ramekins of custard. Instead, because the liquid reduces, I got 3 small bowls of custard. So do not attempt this recipe if you are serving a crowd. But it is a heavenly and light distillation of bright sunshine. Something to file away for a gloomy day in February, when you need a little hope.

“The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last for ever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year – the days when summer is changing into autumn – the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change.”
 ― E.B. White

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Food Friday: Let’s Do Lunch

August 22, 2025 by Jean Sanders Leave a Comment

My favorite meal of the day is lunch. Let’s go out for my favorite lunch, which is a BLT sandwich, with a scalding hot pile of crispy French fries. BLTs are reliably delicious and always seem celebratory.

No matter who makes the BLT, it will always spark joy. Miss Dee’s snack bar during our Washington College days offered an excellently greasy BLT, which was quite the perfect hangover cure. As I remember. Even if she was a little cheap with the potato chips. A large fountain Coke, with pearly pebbles of ice, helped cut through the extra bacon grease, as it refreshed and rehydrated. Ah, youth. Resuscitated and ready for more.

Post-grad, I would order club sandwiches when I was out for a grown up kind of luncheon, trying to signal familiarity with club life. Club sandwiches, with those extra layers of bread and turkey and fancy ruffled toothpicks, are just too baroque for purist me. I realized that club sandwiches didn’t signify sophistication, they were just unwieldy. They are not first date material. The bread would slide, mayonnaise would ooze, turkey was slimy and slippery, and where did the used toothpicks go on my plate? Simple is better.

During this summer tomato season I have been enjoying some delicious tomato sandwiches. Who doesn’t love thick slabs of tomato, carefully coated with a thick impasto of creamy mayonnaise, lightly salted with a cloud of Maldon, and a swift grind of fresh black pepper, on a raft of lightly toasted Pepperidge Farm white bread? But you know what would make a tomato sandwich even better? Of course you do. Bacon. Oooh. And some French fries. The potato chips will keep until cocktail hour.

Food52’s latest on BLTs

This is the Spy Test Kitchen’s favorite time of the year – when we pull out our annual sandwich ingredients list. Have an excellent school year!

I always loved that first day of school: new shoes, new notebooks, new pencils, and a pristine box of still-pointy, aromatic crayons. Though I always forgot about about my crippling anxiety about my locker combination. I never recalled the social implications of lunchroom seating during my leisurely summer, either. When I was a responsible parental-unit, I loved shopping for school supplies, and shoes, and new lunch boxes. It was only after the sun set on the night before school started that I confronted the horror: the woeful lack of organization in our lives.

While the young ’uns were setting out their new sneakers for the morning, and frantically paging through books that should have been read weeks before, I was peering into the fridge and taking stock of our jumble of foodstuffs. What nutritional and tempting combinations could I conjure that would actually be eaten? Once, when Mr. Sanders had been out of town for a very long business trip, we attempted to set a world’s record for eating pizza for every meal, for many days in a row. I understand that that sort of tomfoolery doesn’t set a good example nowadays with iPhones and social media.

Now all the cool kids carry cute, eco-friendly, bento box lunch boxes. There are cunning little compartments for vegetables, for fruits, for proteins. Some people cut vegetables on Sunday afternoons, and put them in the fridge for easy access on school mornings. They roll up lettuce wraps, dice carrots, prepare tuna salad, bake muffins and stack little cups of applesauce. These people also involve their children in the lunch assembly process. Loathsome creatures… The despair I often felt in those dark, early mornings racing to get lunches made before the school bus arrived no longer exists, because now those people are grown up and organized and thorough. And they use a lot of Door Dash.

While we are still leftover-dependent in this house, these folks know what to do about school lunch organization: Make Ahead Lunches
A handy guide to Sunday night preps: Make Ahead Prep And at Food52, the ever-clever Amanda always has some really fab lunch ideas. Amanda’s Clever Lunch Ideas

And now, with shameless drumroll, is the Spy Test Kitchen lunch list, which I haul out, shamelessly, every fall. Feel free to make your own spreadsheet, Google Doc or PowerPoint deck so you never have another moment of lunch ennui. The Test Kitchen came up with this flexible list of ingredients for packing school lunches a few years ago. It is just as timely today:

Luncheon Variations

Column A
Let’s start with bread:
Ciabatta bread
Rye bread
Whole grain breads
Hard rolls
Portuguese rolls
French baguettes
Italian bread
Brioche rolls
Flour tortillas
Croissants
Bagels
Challah bread
Crostini
Cornbread
Naan bread
Focaccia bread
Pita bread
If storing overnight, layer bread with lettuce first, then add the spreads, to keep sandwich from getting soggy.

Column B
Next, the spread:
Mayo
Sriracha
Ketchup
Dijon mustard
Honey mustard
Italian dressing
Russian dressing
Cranberry sauce
Pesto sauce
Hummus
Tapenade
Sour cream
Chutney Butter
Hot sauce
Salsa
Salsa verde

Column C
Cheeses:
wiss cheese
American cheese
Mozzarella
Blue cheese
Cream cheese
Havarti cheese
Ricotta cheese
Cheddar cheese
Provolone cheese
Brie cheese
Cottage cheese
Goat cheese

Column D
The main ingredient:
Meatloaf T
urkey
Chicken
Corned beef
Bacon
Crumbled hard-boiled eggs
Scrambled eggs
Corned beef
Salami
Italian sausage
Ham
Roast beef
Egg salad
Tuna salad
Ham salad
Crab salad
Shrimp salad
Chicken salad
Turkey salad Lobster salad
Tofu

Column E
The decorative (and tasty) elements:
Tomatoes
Lettuce
Basil
Onion
Avocado
Cucumber
Cilantro
Shredded carrots
Jalapeños
Cole slaw
Sliced apples
Sliced red peppers
Arugula
Sprouts
Radicchio
Watercress
Sliced pears
Apricots
Pickles
Spinach
Artichoke hearts
Grapes
Strawberries
Figs

Column F
Finger foods:
Cherries
Carrots
Strawberries
Green Beans
Broccoli
Celery
Edamame
Granola
Rice cakes
Apples
Bananas
Oranges
Melon balls
Raisins
Broccoli
Radishes
Blueberries

And because we live in a time of modern miracles, there are even apps for your phone so you can plan lunches ahead of time. Ingenious! LaLa Lunchbox and Little Lunches are among many apps.

“ ‘We could take our lunch,’ said Katherine.‘What kind of sandwiches?’ said Mark. ‘Jam,’ said Martha thoughtfully, ‘and peanut-butter-and-banana, and cream-cheese-and-honey, and date-and-nut, and prune-and-marshmallow…’”
 —Edward Eager

Lunch ideas

Lunch Box Ideas

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Food Friday: Last Chance!

August 15, 2025 by Jean Sanders Leave a Comment

Tempus fugit, along with all the other Latin I have forgotten from high school. I was innocently wandering through the grocery store yesterday, through the produce department and its display of fancy cantaloupes that were neatly piled in bespoke net bowling ball bags, past the deli section, and around the corner toward the Gatorade aisle, when my eye wandered over to a sale wall. I expected to see back-to-school items – it’s almost the best time of the year, isn’t it? Maybe there would be piles of granola bars, or Bluey-themed water bottles. What I saw was even more horrifying: Halloween candy. It’s a million stinking degrees outside, there are hurricanes lurking off the coast of Africa, the hydrangeas are brown and panting for rain, but corporate America has determined a new timeline for me: now I need to confront the immediate future, which is candy corn and tiny 3 Musketeers bars. Where has summer gone?

We have two and a half months to live through before Halloween. To be honest, I am always in the camp that remembers to pick up the candy for trick or treating along about October 29th or 30th. The pickings are slim by then – which is why for the last couple of years I have done our Halloween candy shopping at Aldi – the tempting P.O.P. full-size Snickers bars were $1.19 each last year (though who knows what the tariffs will be doing to chocolate prices this year) and I could afford to be a neighborhood legend for the nearly half dozen children who come to our house. I am not about to spend money on candy corn and tiny 3 Musketeers bars in AUGUST.

No sirreebob. I am going to clutch and grasp at all the summer straws I have neglected thus far. I am going to make some lemonade from scratch. I am going to sit on the back steps and spit watermelon seeds out onto the lawn. I am going to Dairy Queen for a soft serve ice cream that will melt all over my hand and down my arm, and it will drip off my sticky elbow.

I haven’t shucked enough corn this summer, have you? I need to make more cole slaw. I haven’t shelled any peas, or strung enough beans. When did I last have a piña colada? College? (Why on earth do we have a blender now if not to remember our misspent youth, when we made frozen drinks using a blender and the convenient electrical outlet found in the baseball bleachers at Washington College?)

A couple of weeks ago Mr. Sanders and I were in Boston. Oysters were slurped. Lobster rolls were inhaled. Drawn butter was splashed everywhere. Baseball and hot dogs and French fries and Italian ice. That’s summer.

The farmers’ markets are burgeoning with perfection: peaches, pears, plums, watermelons, beans, berries, sunflowers, squash, zinnias, zucchini. Carpe diem, baby.

Spiked Watermelon Lemonade – let us kill a few birds with this stone.

I don’t see how I can possibly contemplate the idea of buying Halloween candy when I have yet to melt my own fingerprints while eating a scalding hot s’mores concoction. How can I move through the seasons without having had cotton candy? Or kettle corn? (Pro tip: kettle corn is a fabulous morning treat to nibble on while circling the farmers’ market on a Saturday. Just as healthy, I suspect, as Cap’n Crunch cereal, and just as disgustingly deelish.)

Sadly, my annual gardening ambition has not played out successfully. I am going to have to admit to defeat in growing tomatoes. We started out with four tomato plants. We are now down to three. The total harvest has been two tomatoes. Two. One tomato’s life cycle zipped from green, to rotten, overnight. The second tomato is still sitting on the kitchen window sill, readying itself to reach perfection while I am asleep one night this week. I am not enjoying much return on my investment. Another foolish summer romance. I will have to rely on the kindness of strangers, who can actually grow tomatoes, at the farmers’ market. I still aim to get my fill of summertime tomato sandwiches, with thick slices of sun-warmed tomatoes, and some tall frosty glasses of lemonade. Yumsters!

Go make some hay while the sun shines. Back-to-school and Labor Day are nearly here. Resist the siren song of Halloween candy corn. Can sweater weather and Christmas be far off?

“Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape.”
—Harper Lee

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Food Friday: Delicious Summer Radishes

August 8, 2025 by Jean Sanders Leave a Comment

When we can easily nosh away on zillions of packages of deelish crunchy and salty snacks, I like to remember the pure delight of radishes. They come in an assortment of colors and sizes, so they are a delight to behold. They are compact. You can fancy them up by carving them into roses (if you must) or you can enjoy them plain and unadorned.

I like to remember sitting on the back porch on summer evenings when I was a little girl, watching my father transform four uniform pink hamburger patties into the charbroiled hockey pucks of family lore on the tiny black hibachi. My brother and I would nibble on the raw, red-skinned radishes that my mother doled out to us in small Pyrex bowls, filled with bone-chilling ice water. How could anything so cold have such a spicy kick?

Cherry red, fuchsia, magenta, hot pink, carmine, crimson, scarlet, carnelian, vermilion, coral, cardinal, cerise – I could go through my art supply catalogues picking out the names of vivid reds and pinks all day long – radishes are deeply satisfying to look at, and to gobble up.

How can we resist the lure of fresh radishes? Especially when we get fancy, and doll them up with butter and a hint of Maldon salt? The butter truly tones down the peppery, hot flavor of radish and turns it into an indulgent treat. Dorie Greenspan says, “It’s a little trick the French play to bring foods into balance, and it works.” We have taken, recently, to adding paper thin coins of radishes to our homemade tacos. And then there is this Spicy Salsa, too.

For the data driven – radishes are high in fiber, riboflavin, and potassium. They are low in calories, and have lots of Vitamin C. They are a natural diuretic, and have detoxing abilities.
Radish facts   Though I prefer to dwell on the spicy flavor and the crunch.

Have you tried sliced radishes on buttered bread? They will jazz up your next tea party the way cucumber sandwiches never have. Although, if you were French, you would have been eating radishes on buttered slices of brown bread for breakfast for years. Mais oui!
Radishes on Brown Bread

And if you’d rather not be chasing after runaway disks of radishes escaping from your sandwiches, try this easy peasy radish butter. Yumsters!
Radish Butter

Consider the cocktail, and how easy it is to add some sliced radishes to your favorite Bloody Mary recipe. Our friends at Food52 think radishes in Bloodies are an excellent idea.

For your next book club meeting, here is a cocktail with literary aspirations: Radish Gin Cocktail I
I haven’t been able to find the Cocchi Americano at our liquor store, though. So I have left it out, and no one seems the wiser. Nor has it been noted by my well-read blue stockings that I also used Bombay instead of the requisite Dorothy Parker gin. (For the crowd that is used to extremely cheap white wine, this is an eye-opener, just like Uncle Willy’s in The Philadelphia Story. It packs a punch.)

Here’s one for Mr. Sanders to perfect: grilled steak with grilled radishes.
Grilled Steak

It makes me sad, though, to cook a radish. There are some vegetables that are meant to be eaten gloriously simple and raw – like fresh peas, carrots, green beans and celery. Luke the wonder dog agrees.

I think I will just mosey out to the kitchen now and cut the tops off some fresh, rosy red radishes. Then I’ll slice off the root ends, pretend that I can carve the little globes into beauteous scarlet rosettes, and plop them into a small bowl of ice water. Then I will sprinkle some crunchy Maldon salt flakes over the clumsy rose petal shapes I have created, and eat one of my favorite root vegetables. Something spicy to enjoy as we await hurricane updates and anticipate the end of one spectacularly hot summer.

“We all have hometown appetites. Every other person is a bundle of longing for the simplicities of good taste once enjoyed on the farm or in the hometown left behind.”
—Clementine Paddleford

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Food Friday: Sweet Summer Corn, Redux

August 1, 2025 by Jean Sanders Leave a Comment

This is a summer rerun – Mr. Sanders and I have deposited Luke the wonder dog at the dog spa, and we are headed for cooler climes. Happy summer!

I love the simplicity of summer cooking, but, as you know, my personal summertime philosophy is to send as much of the cooking outdoors with Mr. Sanders and his grill, as often as I possibly can, without seeming churlish. I need to figure out what dishes I can bring inside, without compromising myself. And that is why I looked into what the cast-iron frying pan can do.

Instead of wandering aimlessly around the internet, and relying on my favorite hangouts at Food52 or Bon Appétit, I thumbed through some of my actual printed cookbooks for some ideas. One of my batter-flecked, cracked-spine cookbooks provides me with hours of entertainment: The Southerner’s Cookbook: Recipes, Wisdom, and Stories From the Editors of Garden & Gun. These are well-researched recipes, which are kitchen-tested, as well as being traditional and time-tested.

I want to enjoy sweet corn for the rest of the summer, or as long as our farmers’ market sells it. Here is a great recipe from Garden & Gun for Cast-Iron Charred Corn:
8 ears of corn, husks and silk removed
1/4 cup finely diced bacon
1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/2 cup minced Vidalia onion
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon minced fresh chives

To removed the corn kernels, cut off the ends of each ear to make flat surfaces. One at a time, stand the ears in a wide casserole dish and carefully cut down the sides with a sharp knife. Next, hold each cob over a bowl and scrape the back edge of the knife to remove the “milk”. Discard the milked ears and set liquid aside.
Place a cast-iron skillet over medium-high eat. Add the cut corn kernels to the pan and cook for 2 to 3 minutes, tossing occasionally. Add the bacon and continue to cook until the kernels are slightly charred and the bacon begins to crisp, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from heat and set aside.
In a medium saucepan, melt the butter over medium-low heat. Add the onion and cook until softened, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the corn “milk”, the charred corn and bacon mixture, and the cream. Reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring often, for 4 to 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle with the chives and serve hot. And now you will never need to read the recipe again. You can add this to your summer side dish rotation, but it can also ease you into fall.

Oh, look! It’s also available online: Cast Iron Charred Corn

We’ve also got to give the Food52 city slickers their due: Food52 Fried Corn with Bacon

I like to steam corn-on-the-cob in a big pot, with just an inch of water, and a collapsible metal vegetable steamer. If we have a crowd I use the big lobster steamer pot. This is a highly theatrical production, full of drama and steamy special effects. On the other hand, Mr. Sanders prefers giving corn the outdoor treatment – he wraps the ears of corn in great sails of aluminum foil, dotted with gobs of butter, which he then tosses onto the sizzling grill. I suspect he is reliving Boy Scout camping trips. Some of the corn must be burnt and charred, just in case you wondered how to tell it was done.
Grilled Corn

I love the idea of using raw everything. I make this early in the day, and let it steep in the fridge, becoming more flavorful by the moment as we lope along toward dinner. No fuss, no muss. And it uses local produce, thus reducing my carbon footprint. This means I have been virtuous enough for one day, and now we can use the blender to whip up a few frozen cocktails before dinner.

Amagansett Corn Salad
Serves 4
8 ears of white corn
2 quarts cherry tomatoes
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
1 medium red onion (Optional)
1 quart sugar snap peas (Optional)
1 handful rough-chopped basil or flat-leaf parsley
Salt, pepper

1. Strip raw corn from ears. Yep, raw. You can use a fancy corn stripper or just run your chef’s knife down the side of each ear about 8 times.
2. Slice all cherry tomatoes in half or quarters depending on your preference.
3. Chop the red onion into a large dice.
4. If using the sugar-snap peas (they can be hard to find when the corn and tomatoes are available — their seasons barely overlap, and even then you’re likely getting corn and tomatoes from the south and sugar snaps from the North.) Anyway, if using them, cut in half or thirds to make more bite-sized. If you’re not using them, and you want a little green for visual appeal, some rough chopped basil or flat-leaf parsley will do the trick.
5. Toss all vegetables in a bowl, along with the vinegar, salt and pepper. Add a crusty loaf of warm peasant bread, with some fresh sweet butter and a nice cold, crisp, cheap white wine. It is a perfect, light summer meal. We can use some leftover corn salad tossed with elbow macaroni and oil and vinegar for lunch the next day. Two meals, one prep — equals perfection. Yumsters!

“A light wind swept over the corn, and all nature laughed in the sunshine.”
— Anne Brontë

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Food Friday: We Say Tomatoes

July 25, 2025 by Jean Sanders Leave a Comment

While I know I tend to whine about the summer heat and humidity, I am keenly aware that it is the peak of the growing season for some of our favorite foods. Soon we will be able to hunt and gather our locally grown tomatoes and corn. And then it will be time for all the wretched pumpkin-spice-flavored everything. Right now I am preparing to indulge it a glut of tomato goodness.

Last weekend we made a delightfully spicy tomato pasta dish with local cherry tomatoes. Come fall I am hoping it will taste as good, and feel as warming as the scorching days of July. Later, in December, all we have to choose from will be hot house tomatoes, or those trucked in from California for a king’s ransom, and a guilt-inducing carbon footprint. Maybe this recipe will improve those sad, grocery store-bought tomatoes. Mr. Sanders said that he preferred it to Martha’s One-Dish Pasta, which is in our regular summer rotation for Monday night pasta dinners. This is good dish to add to that rotation, albeit one with a more autumnal vibe. Plus you get to use four cloves of garlic. Yumsters!

Pasta with Simple Cherry Tomato Sauce

Our friends at Food52 find a million ways to make a very simple tomato sandwich. Here, in the Spy Test Kitchens, we use Pepperidge Farm white bread, Hellmann’s Mayonnaise, a pinch of black pepper, a shake of Maldon salt and a couple of big, fat locally sourced slicing tomatoes, with a generous handful of potato chips as an elegant side dish. Follow your heart: Tomato Sandwich

The Spy Test Kitchen’s Caprese Salad – a suggestion

2 large ripe tomatoes — and this week you can go nuts with all the colorful heirloom tomatoes that abound
2 small balls fresh mozzarella — or you can just revel in as much cheese as you can lay your hands on
Sea salt and black pepper— we like Maldon, great fistsful of it
Olive oil — splash it on with abandon
Balsamic vinegar — not my fave, but Mr. Sanders loves lashings of it
A pile of basil — whatever you have on the windowsill, or from the container garden — it’s the sweet pungent smell of summer

Slice the tomatoes and mozzarella into thick slices. Arrange picturesquely on a platter or large plate, alternating tomato slices and mozzarella. Add salt and pepper, drizzle with beauteous chartreuse green olive oil, and delicate Pollock-esque drips of balsamic vinegar, scatter torn basil across the surface. Add fresh crusty bread and cool glasses of Vinho Verde, some candles, and Pink Martini on the Sonos. It’s not the Amalfi coast, but for a stinking hot summer’s night here in the States, it’s as close as we can get.

Once again our home-grown tomatoes are proving to be a disappointment. Could it be neglect? I haven’t gone out to weed much this summer. Between the mosquitoes in the back yard and all the heat, I could rationalize endlessly, and I can also state firmly and with great conviction that we are not anticipating much of a harvest. So far, our yield has been four tiny, anemic, grainy, bitsy, Tom’s Big Boys. The squirrels have been paying more attention to the raised bed garden this summer than I have. I admit defeat now, and I wish them the very best. I and hope that they will enjoy their own squirrelly-boy tomato feasts. I’m heading downtown to the farmers’ market this weekend to stock up on heirloom tomatoes and peaches. Luckily we can celebrate buying local: Buy Local Challenge Maybe I will get another basil plant for the kitchen windowsill, too. There will be lotsa tomato meals in our immediate future. August yawns ahead.

Stay cool! Hydrate! Read books! Buy local!

“Danger is to adventure what garlic is to spaghetti sauce. Without it, you just end up with stewed tomatoes.”
—Tom Robbins

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

Food Friday: Zucchini Time 2025!

July 18, 2025 by Jean Sanders Leave a Comment

It has been the hottest summer on record – but we are saying that every year now, aren’t we? As we try to walk our 10,000 steps every day, lingering under the shady trees as much as possible, Luke the wonder dog and I long to be home, in the coolth. Luke 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.
It’s that time of year. Again. Neighbors furtively slipping their excess zucchini harvest onto your front porch, before dashing back home. These are the times that try cooks’ souls: what to do with all the excess zucchini baggage.

Luckily it’s been a great tomato season, and they provide excellent camouflage for zucchini:
Zucchini Tomato Gratin

What are we to do with all the zucchini? It doesn’t look very nice on the windowsill – summer tomatoes in varying stages of turning from green to red are much more attractive. An elegant galette is a good way to start your purge. The crust is easy and forgiving, and it is soothing to lay out all the zucchini rings in ever widening circles. You will look very competent and trustworthy. And then you can start to spring these other surprises on the unsuspecting. If you have a garden, you have been harvesting tomatoes with a greedy heart, thinking about the jars of spaghetti sauce you will enjoy this winter. But what about that ever-rising green mountain of zucchini? You need to put on your thinking cap, and find some creative culinary solutions.
Zucchini Ricotta Galette

Zucchini boat recipes are popular. 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. Zucchini Ginger Muffins Yummy icing is always welcomed.

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. We are very excited about this Chocolate Zucchini Bread.

“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.

Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil and ink.

The Spy Newspapers may periodically employ the assistance of artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance the clarity and accuracy of our content.

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