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

We’ve got lots of outdoor chores to do suddenly – painting the back porch, clearing out corners of the backyard that have been overrun with ivy, watering the window boxes, weeding the tomato farm, coaxing grass to grow in the back yard and admiring the best hydrangea display we’ve ever had. The spring rain has worked its magic on the hydrangeas. And on the neighbor’s encroaching ivy. So I am cheating this week. I am not cooking because it is spring, and I have better things to do. Here are lots of rotisserie chicken ideas from lots of clever sources.

Oddly enough, June 2 is National Rotisserie Chicken Day. You read it here. Proof: https://www.holidaycalendar.io/holiday/national-rotisserie-chicken-day Normally I am a frugal shopper, and believe that I will save money if I do it all myself. This week, however, the garden beckons, and I would rather be outside than hanging in the kitchen, waiting for a chicken to roast. I will be throwing caution to the winds, and will give in to the convenience of picking up a pre-cooked rotisserie chicken, which not only will be dinner tonight, but lunch tomorrow. And maybe the day after that. Practical, if not rationalizing, as ever.

A relatively inexpensive rotisserie chicken is considered a loss leader for grocery stores and big box club stores, like Costco. They buy the chicken in bulk, cook dozens at a time, and have convenient (though environmentally dodgy) packages of chicken ready as the harried customer stumbles through the door. Stores probably factor into their pricing that if you are buying prepared chicken, you might also spring for prepared salads, side dishes, breads, and desserts. Resist that temptation! Pull some leftover rice out of the freezer. Tear your own lettuce! Peel your own garlic. This is why we freeze chocolate chip cookie dough – for nights when we want a treat, but don’t want to spend another dime.

This is a crazy example of extreme diets, and the ultimate exercise in the consumption of convenience food: as a student the actor Adam Driver is alleged to have once eaten a rotisserie chicken a day, to help him lose weight. Just one rotisserie chicken. Nuts. Chicken is high in protein and low in fat – though it is probably loaded with sodium and preservatives. Adam Driver’s Rotisserie Chicken Diet:
https://nypost.com/2022/11/10/adam-drivers-rotisserie-chicken-a-day-diet-is-put-to-the-test/ This seems obsessive to me, but I shudder to think of my diet during my student days. It ran more toward Doritos, pizza, cheap beer and Tab. Rotisserie chicken is probably healthier.

There are many ways to serve a store-bought rotisserie chicken. I love warming it, and serving it with a side dish of hot, buttered rice, with a vegetable and a salad. I keep rice in the freezer for these culinary moments. You might prefer mashed potatoes, or green beans, or sweet spring peas.

Rotisserie chicken leftovers become the fun. How can you use up every little bit? Rip all the extra meat off the bones and shred it, and use it in dozens of ways. You can use that pie shell that has been lurking in the freezer and make a chicken pot pie. https://spicysouthernkitchen.com/easy-chicken-pot-pie/

Martha-approved chicken club sandwiches, with crispy iceberg lettuce, tomato slice and a bit of bacon, on fresh toast. https://www.marthastewart.com/1090538/roasted-chicken-club-sandwich

This is perfect for a quick lunch, or an impromptu road trip: https://www.keepingitsimpleblog.com/food/rotisserie-chicken-sandwiches/

Chicken soup: https://themodernproper.com/quick-and-easy-chicken-noodle-soup

Tacos! https://30minutesmeals.com/rotisserie-chicken-tacos-recipe/

Soup! https://www.southernliving.com/recipes/rotisserie-chicken-noodle-soup

Chicken carbonara! https://chewingthefat.us.com/2020/11/chicken-carbonara-adapted-from-giada-de-laurentiis.html

Here is a chicken salad worthy of a trip to the beach from our friends at Food52: https://food52.com/recipes/77588-beach-friendly-roast-chicken-salad They also have leftover-rotisserie chicken thoughts: https://food52.com/blog/25147-rotisserie-chicken-recipes

And finally, to completely empty out the fridge, you can add the last of the chicken to a chef’s salad – replete with tomatoes, hard boiled eggs, cucumbers, bacon, bits of leftover ham, Swiss cheese, croutons, grated cheese. Go into all the nooks and crannies in the fridge, and really clean them out. Then you can trot back to the store, get another chicken, and start all over again. The front porch is going to need a coat of paint now, too. https://www.delish.com/cooking/recipe-ideas/a36753739/chef-salad-recipe/

“Everyone should know how to roast a chicken. It’s a life skill that should be taught to small children at school.”
–Anthony Bourdain

For your further reading:
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/23207301/costco-rotisserie-chicken-poultry-farming-inflation

https://www.dadcooksdinner.com/rotisserie-chicken-with-chinese-oyster-sauce-glaze/

https://chewingthefat.us.com/2021/10/ten-costco-rotisserie-chicken-recipes.html

Here we are- on the cusp of summer, on the eve of grilling season, keeping a look-out for fireflies, swatting early mosquitoes, and planning a post-COVID cookout. I’m looking forward to familiar and comfortable: a little gathering of old friends on the back porch, with songs from college playing in the background as we laugh and scarf bowls of chips like it was still the good old days of few consequences. We are panning for the gold.

As we catch up with our merry band, hearing about new babies, new homes, lives in big cities, I wonder, as one does, if I made the right choices. Maybe we would have been happier with an urban life. And then I read the newspaper, and chortle, and feel pretty smug. I was never destined to be a New Yorker, someone who might stroll into the Mischa restaurant this Memorial Day Weekend, and plunk down $29 for a hot dog. Nope. I think I plunked down about $29 for our entire cookout. The Mischa hot dog isn’t even on the lunch menu – it’s a dinner entree. For that kind of money, I’d rather learn to love caviar. Mischa: https://mischa-nyc.com

We aren’t going to serve anything that extravagant this weekend, just the old reliable favorites: hamburgers, hot dogs, corn-on-the-cob, potato salad, green salad, and strawberry short cake. Also, chips and classic French onion dip, and little bowls of radishes, cucumber spears, celery and carrots for karmic balance. There will be beer. (Nothing like that Hoboken Brewing beer at Mischa for $14 a serving…) Welcome to summer. Welcome to ordinary America. No fancy pants here! Mischa Hot Dog on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CrJs0WgPE45/

This is the best sort of holiday meal, one that doesn’t require numerous trips to the grocery store, ordering fancy cuts of meat, or perusing cookbooks. Jacques Pepin and Alice Waters can sit sullenly on the bookshelf – these are tried and true dishes that vary little from year to year, or really from family to family. I sometimes miss the crunchy, charred, hockey-puck-hamburgers of my childhood, but I must say that Mr. Sanders can flip a mean burger. And I still make my mother’s potato salad. Maybe you’ll grill sausage, or have a watermelon. Maybe your family always grills chicken. Be sure to enjoy yourself! COVID seems to be behind us, after all.

We will be putting a personal touch on the corn, to tide us over until our first crab feast:

Old Bay Corn on the Cob on the Grill

Heat the grill to 350° F.

Wrap each ear of corn in aluminum foil.

Generously butter the corn and sprinkle with Old Bay seasoning.

Roll the corn in the foil and twist the ends tight.

Grill for 5-8 minutes on each side.

Carefully unwrap the corn and place back on the grill for a quick 1-2 minute char on each side, if desired. The grilled ears will be Instagram-able.

For added flavor, sprinkle with more Old Bay after serving.

For your oh, so, reliable pre-dinner snack’ums:
Onion Soup Dip

We never make this dip when it is just the two of us, so I welcome major religious holidays and group events when we can indulge in a nice, big, retro bowl of dip. With Ruffles. I do a slight spin on the traditional Lipton’s sour cream and French onion soup back-of-the-box dip recipe – I add a generous shakes of red pepper flakes, garlic powder and onion powder. Sometimes I splurge and get Knorr French onion soup mix, so there are attractive bits greenery in the dip, but mostly I buy the store brand. I read that this dip, a staple of the 1960s, is hot again in New York City. Just so you know, too.

Silly folks at Food52 think you might like to make the dip from scratch, but I have the Succession finale to watch this weekend, and I do not want to waste any time standing over a hot stove. May the best Roy win!

Food52’s Homemade French Onion Soup Dip: https://food52.com/blog/27921-absolute-best-onion-dip

“The first ear of corn, eaten like a typewriter, means summer to me— intense, but fleeting.”
― Michael Anthony

Strawberry pie. Strawberry shortcake. Strawberry salad. Strawberry lemonade. Rhubarb strawberry compote. This is just the beginning of strawberry season, and all I can greedily think of are the the crazy delicious strawberry dishes coming our way.

It almost feels as if it was worth the winter wait to enjoy fresh, sweet strawberries. I mean, we could visit Japan in mid-winter to have a taste of their specially-ripened Bijin-Hime (“Beautiful Princess”) strawberries – if we wanted to spend crazy amounts of money for strawberries. Those strawberries can cost $500 each. They can be quite large – almost the size of a baseball. A Japanese strawberry farmer, Mikio Okuda grows these strawberries: https://strawberryplants.org/japanese-strawberry-growing-secrets/

In Japan, enormous wintertime strawberries are grown in kerosene-heated greenhouses, and sold for $5 and $6 a piece. And while it would be nice to enjoy such a treat, I think I’d rather crawl around the local You-Pick-It farm, and scramble with the eager kids for a bucket of my own sweet, just-picked May strawberries.

I never do anything fancy with strawberries. How can you improve upon perfection? Last weekend I baked some back-of-the-Bisquick-box strawberry shortcakes, and whipped up a bowl of diaphanous cream. Added a little sugar. Voilà. Who could ask for anything more? I think for this weekend I am going to try Martha’s Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes – they will be prettier than my dropped (yet so amoeba-like) shortcakes.

Martha’s cupcakes: https://food52.com/recipes/21857-strawberry-shortcake-cupcakes

We’ve been experimenting with different kinds bruschetta – sweet and savory. Initially we made bruschetta when we had casual dinners with friends, and needed finger food that was easily transportable. And yet I consistently brought bruschetta, which would tip over in the car, or end disastrously in someone’s lap; chopped tomatoes and fragments of feta cheese ruining a Lilly Pulitzer. Now we are wise, and spread the garlic-rubbed toasted baguette with thick schmears of creamy burrata, topped with soft, roasted cherry tomatoes.

Garlic-y bruschetta: https://dishingouthealth.com/burrata-bruschetta/

Except when we make Strawberry Bruschetta: https://www.tastingtable.com/765660/strawberry-bruschetta-recipe/

Strawberries are sweet enough on their own, but they are always enhanced with a little cream and a pinch of sugar. A handful of sliced strawberries scattered over your morning bowl of muesli is the easiest treat; sticks and bark never tasted better. I like strawberries, homemade granola and some vanilla yogurt as a morning pick-me-up. After dinner, sitting on the back porch, neglecting the evening news, is perfect time for strawberries on a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Although it is not finger food, a strawberry pie is a nice dish to bring to a gathering: https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-cooking/recipes/a35917337/easy-strawberry-pie/

If you’ve gone overboard with You-Pick-It strawberries, here is a catalogue of recipes to make sure you use up every sweet, gem-like strawberry: https://www.foodandwine.com/fruits/berries/strawberry/30-days-strawberry-recipes

And don’t forget the cocktail hour! Pretend you are on an expense account getaway, sitting by a pool, lathered in sunscreen: https://www.thespruceeats.com/strawberry-daiquiri-recipes-759821

Here is a list of Maryland strawberry festivals – check it carefully as some of the events may have been discontinued: https://www.pickyourown.org/strawberryfestivals-Maryland.php

“She has a laugh so hearty it knocks the whipped cream off an order of strawberry shortcake on a table fifty feet away.”
– Damon Runyon

I am jumping the garden gun. A few weeks ago we planted a dozen slender tomato seedlings in the 8 foot by 4 foot raised garden bed in the back yard. They are now slope-shouldered adolescents and about a foot tall, with a few of the more mature plants sprouting little yellow flowers. These are burgeoning tomatoes, our future summer meals; these are Big Boy tomatoes.

I can see a sunny summer ahead, with lotsa tomato sandwiches, and BLTs and cool Caprese salads with garden-warm tomatoes and cool creamy buffalo mozzarella, with exquisitely scented home-grown basil leaves gently wafting down onto the artfully poured olive oil and balsamic vinegar puddles. I will give David Lebovitz’s massively popular Tomato Tart a try, and maybe it will become part of our summertime roster of meals. I saw the first fireflies in the back yard a few nights ago. Can cocktail hour on the back porch be far off?

Tomato Tart: https://www.davidlebovitz.com/french-tomato-tart-recipe/

I love having lots of nibbles for the cocktail hour, when we might have a fancy French 75 or a non-alcoholic beer as the shadows lengthen and Luke the wonder dog has calmed down enough to rest his head on the top step of the stairs, watching the Marx Brother squirrel team tearing through the trees, way up high, too far away for Luke to reach. The birds are coming home, and singing their jubilant three-part harmonies, and we watch the golden light moving lower on the trees, as the sun goes down.

I have improvised a salsa, usually based on what is left over from Taco Tuesday night’s dinner: some jalepeno pepper, a chunk of Vidalia onion, the leftover ear of corn, half a red pepper, and this summer we will add our own garden fresh Big Boy tomato or two. First I slice the corn from cob, then I chop everything up roughly, throw it on a baking sheet and drizzle with oil. The gas grill scares me, so I stick the sheet under the broiler, stirring and shaking it every few minutes with what what I hope looks like a practiced eye, until there is a nice amount of black char, just before everything self-immolates. Then I whirr it up in a food processor for a couple of seconds.

Sometimes I have let it process too long, and everything blends together and starts to look like gazpacho, or baby food: chunks are more attractive, because we are going to dip warm, crisp and salty corn chips into the salsa and try to balance them while we juggle a wet glass and a napkin, too. Try to remember to get some fresh cilantro. The scent of a scattering of chartreuse cilantro leaves is an invitation to dig in to the bowl of fresh salsa. (Don’t forget to heat up some chips in the oven after you have turned off the broiler. Warm chips, which get gobbled faster, are so much more delicious than cold chips. Show you care!) If you are not afraid of the gas grill, here is a recipe with measurements:

Grilled Salsa: https://minimalistbaker.com/perfect-grilled-corn-salsa/

Are there tomatoes in your garden this summer? Let the Spy Test Kitchens know how your garden grows, and what you are planning on making with your future harvest. I have to get some bamboo stakes this weekend; those plants of ours are enjoying the rain and have been growing by leaps and bounds.

Other tomato ideas: https://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/the-best-ways-to-use-cherry-tomatoes-gallery

“I let Annabel show me how to do it, and together we planted the tomatoes. Once I’d done one or two, I discovered that I liked it, and that furthermore tomato plants smelled good. Not a pretty smell, but an interesting one, peppery and green. I could smell it on my hands, and in the sunny air.”
― Abbi Waxman