Three Things

Some book news, a vegetarian feast you'll want to copy, and a glorious, summer-in-the-city New York weekend

Greetings eaters and readers! Hope you enjoyed your weekends. I think I walked about eight thousand miles more than I usually do in order to finish listening to Colm Tóibín’s Long Island on audio, the sequel to Brooklyn which I mentioned a few newsletters back. I can’t stop thinking about the ending — no spoilers here, don’t worry — but I’ll just say that, as always with Tóibín, the characters and family dynamics are so perfectly drawn, and Jessie Buckley’s narration was brilliant. I had to double check that it wasn’t multiple actors reading multiple roles. I truly could not turn it off. In other book news, my morning routine this week includes signing a few hundred bookplates for The Weekday Vegetarians: Get Simple, all of which will be shipped to independent bookstores around the country, then affixed to inside covers and sold as signed copies when the book is published in August. As of today, you can pre-order signed copies at two favorite shops: Omnivore in San Francisco, and Now Serving in L.A. Woo hoo!

And as long as we’re on the topic, here’s a sneak peak of Get Simple’s table of contents, which is organized by “issue.” I noticed that when I talked to people about cooking in a more vegetarian direction, I heard the same issues over and over: But I have meat-and-potatoes kids or But vegetarian food is so complicated or But vegetarian food is so not filling or But I’d just fall back on pasta every night. As you can see, the chapters attempt to address all of the “buts.” Deliciously, I might add. Laura Palese, who designed the first Weekday Vegetarians, returned to loan the project her beautiful hand-drawn script. How freaking cool does that look? Now, your weekly Three Things…

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1. Mud Cake Gets a Tune-Up

I realized something recently: Even though I’ve been writing about Rosa’s Mud Cake for over a decade now, it had been a very long time since I actually baked one in my own kitchen. For the longest time, the cake was our go-to for many special occasions, specifically for my chocolate-loving daughter’s birthday, but since she left for college, most of my mud cake enjoyment has been vicarious, through the steady stream of photos people have texted me (or tagged me on) through the years. That changed last week, when I decided to bake it for Rosa’s daughter herself — it was Jeni’s birthday, and I thought: What better excuse? Plus, since the recipe makes two nine-inch rounds, I could drop off one of those rounds with her, then save the second for a group of Abby’s friends, who were coming over the following night. (More on that below.) I also decided it was time to give the recipe a little tune-up — I had been hearing from readers that the cake can sometimes be difficult to remove from the pan, so I wanted to work on that — and in the meantime, maybe even give it a little boost in the form of salted chocolate frosting. I did all that and more, and I know I am at risk of boring you to tears with this old story, but I swear I almost cried when I tasted the result, I had forgotten how effing amazing it was, simultaneously rich and chocolatey but with a decidedly springy texture. Abby and her friends had gone up to the roof deck after dinner but before cake, so I was asleep by the time they came back. I’m not kidding when I say that whole night I was dreaming of the cake and waiting to hear her reviews of it in the morning. You’ll be shocked to hear it received very high marks.

The new-and-improved recipe, plus a little Mud Cake Through the Years Montage, is on DALS today.

2. A Vegetarian Feast for the Interns

As mentioned, last week I made dinner for a table of Abby’s friends, all in New York for their various internships this summer, and not to call my own number or anything, but the menu was pretty perfect. This was the line-up:

Starters: Chips & Guac, Chili-Roasted Pistachios
Dinner: Veggie Burgers, Double Mustard Potato Salad, Strawberry-Beet-Feta Salad
Dessert: Mud Cake with Salted Chocolate Frosting

Longtime readers will recognize these recipes, none of them fancy, but all of them made so many times in my house (especially since embarking on our weekday vegetarian life) that they feel like members of the family. In all the years, though, I don’t think I’ve ever thought to serve them together. I already told you about the Mud Cake, but the veggie burgers and the Strawberry-Beet-Feta Salad are both from 2021’s The Weekday Vegetarians (volume 1, also here) and the Double Mustard Potato Salad is the kind of side dish that goes with everything all summer long. If you searched “double mustard” in the DALS archive, I’m guessing it would yield over a hundred results.

Anyway, I recommend cutting and pasting the exact menu next time you’re having people over, with one caveat that I learned the hard way: Plan ahead. These were multi-step recipes with a lot of ingredients — I wasn’t in my usual Low-Key Meal for Friends M.O. the way I have been lately as an empty nester — and I even baked my own dessert, something I almost always pick up in a bakery or ask my guests to bring. Make the burger mixture a day or two ahead of time, so all you have to do is fry them a few minutes you eat. (They can go right from the freezer to the skillet and still cook through quickly.) Everything else can be made up to 24 hours in advance.

3. New York Report

We’ll be traveling for the next few weekends (to houses with grills, hallelujah!) so I was determined to devote this past weekend to summer-in-the-city activities, and even though we still ended up on the couch eating nachos and watching the Euros for a decent chunk of it, we managed to check a few things off the proverbial list. There were two nights out: Friday was dinner at Market Table in the West Village — we had booked one of their charming outdoor tables (nothing better in the summer!) but a massive storm derailed that plan and, woe is me, forced us to eat our fresh spring gnocchi with favas and peas inside. On Saturday, we walked across Central Park at golden hour, destination: Early evening cocktails at Cafe Sabarsky. Most people think of Sabarsky, the uber-elegant Viennese cafe inside the Neue Galerie, for its famous pastries and desserts at breakfast and lunch, but in her Ideal New York Day, Natasha Pickowicz’s reminded me that the room, with its plush banquettes, marble tables, and intricately patterned wood-paneled high walls festooned with gilded mirrors, is much less chaotic for drinks or dinner, and yet every bit as romantic. (If you are recreating this day, I suggest bundling it with the Jenny Holzer exhibit at the Guggenheim down the street, which we did a few weeks ago.) After our respective Negroni and martini, we headed home to recreate the Market Table spring pasta in our own kitchen — recipe coming soon to a newsletter near you.

The highlight of the weekend was Saturday morning, when we unlocked a few Citibikes at 72nd Street and Riverside, then cycled up the Greenway to Washington Heights, parked the at the 181st Street dock, then walked to La Cabaña Salvadoreña on Broadway and 187th Street. The mission was straightforward: To try an authentic pupusa, the Salvadorian griddled masa cakes usually stuffed with beans, cheese, meat or some combination of the three. (And usually served with a mild salsa and curtido, a bright fermented slaw that helps cut the richness.) Our daughter’s college friend, Ron, sent us to this particular spot — his family is from El Salvador and I’m not kidding, whenever he comes over for dinner, we end up talking about pupusas, he loves them that much. And now I think I understand why. He told us the best way to eat them is hot, like right off the griddle, so the outside has a subtle crispiness while the inside is all soft and gooey with cheese. So that’s what we did, and that’s what we will be doing again very soon. What’s on your summer-in-the-city checklist? Besides eating your way through New York’s 57 Definitive Sandwiches, of course.

Thanks so much for reading,

Jenny

P.S. Hibiscus Ginger Sweet Tea for Juneteenth

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