The older I get, the more I love the Fourth of July. (This might be because, as a kid, I cared about only the promised pyrotechnics: fireworks, sparklers, kissing my seventh-grade crush on the Ferris wheel at the county fair.) When the calendar flips from June to July, it activates some sort of happy Pavlovian…
In the dimly lit dining room of Caesar’s, just south of the U.S.-Mexico border, Efraín Montoya stood beside a table draped in white cloth, tossing whole romaine lettuce leaves in an intensely pungent, creamy dressing, before topping them with garlicky, golden croutons. Above the checkered floors of the dining room hung a large portrait of…
I usually start these newsletters with a personal anecdote or some deeply insightful cooking observation (just go with me here), but all I can say about Hetty Lui McKinnon’s dumpling tomato salad with chile crisp vinaigrette is this: If you haven’t made it yet, make it tonight. And if you’ve made it already, make it…
To the person who first wrote H.A.G.S. in my yearbook a lifetime ago: Thanks a lot. I’ve taken that mandate to heart ever since, dedicating myself year after year to having the greatest summer I can imagine. And with that comes a bit of anxiety: Have I crossed a single activity off my summer bucket…
This week brings the official start of summer, and with it comes the kickoff, in my house at least, of salad-for-dinner season. Our family eats salad with dinner year round. While I cook, our 15-year-old salad captain seasons a bowl of greens with a squeeze of lemon juice, a drizzle of olive oil and a…
If my colleague Tanya Sichynsky has chickpea anxiety, then I live with cucumber dependency. I need at least one, ideally two, seedless cucumbers in my fridge at all times, ready for snacking, smashing or slicing up to be the green thing in my grain bowl. If I “accidentally” buy too many cucumbers, that just means…
Tell me honestly: Are you ever excited to have a green salad for dinner? Generally speaking, I’m not, though there was a recent exception. It was an iron-hot afternoon and I was planning for dinner. I had all the ingredients to make one of my favorite salad dressings, green goddess. I could easily stop by…
Summer cooking should be a breeze, more pleasure than chore. So keep it simple. Have a simple salad, something for the grill, a homey fruit dessert. If you can find someone to help with the preparation, so much the better. This menu, relying on fresh summer produce, is easy to accomplish and yields a refreshingly…
The unofficial kickoff of cookout season — Memorial Day weekend — hurtles toward us like an errant Frisbee in an overcrowded park. Will you meet it with rec-league reflexes and roll up to the party with a parade of complementary pasta salads, or will you let it ding you in the temple? I’m admittedly about…
The unofficial kickoff of cookout season — Memorial Day weekend — hurtles toward us like an errant Frisbee in an overcrowded park. Will you meet it with rec-league reflexes and roll up to the party with a parade of complementary pasta salads, or will you let it ding you in the temple? I’m admittedly about…
