Three Things
Three Things
10 rules for happy, healthy days, easy corn-and-tomato dinners, Andy endorses an obscure play called Hamlet
Greetings eaters and readers! I am up to my ears in news for you today, but I’ll lead with the best headline of all: Everyone is Home — all four of us under one roof. Only for one week, and a very busy week at that, but the excellent kind of busy that I’d be crazy to complain about. We hit Union Square’s Greenmarket on Saturday to hunt and gather corn, tomatoes, green beans, purple potatoes, cucumbers, blackberries, and peaches for the girls’ number one requested summer feast — Salmon Salad and cobbler for dessert — and the next day we ate our weight in tomato sandwiches because: August. In other news, for readers with younger kids, I need you to know about two books being published today: The wildly family-friendly What to Cook When You Don’t Feel Like Cooking, by Substack phenom Caroline Chambers; And Mousetown, the sweetest storybook that follows Mouse as he goes about his day in his home town. The book, which weaves in more than 30 craft projects to recreate scenes using everyday objects, was written by the coolest and most creative person I know, Jodi Levine, and her gifted partner Margaret McCartney. More on both of these books very soon, but in the meantime here are Three (more) Things I’m excited to tell you about this week…
1. A GIFT FOR YOU!!!!
10 Rules I Live By For Happier, Healthier Days*
*except for when I don’t
Whether you’ve been reading Dinner: A Love Story for a decade or a week, you probably know my number one rule by now: Finish the day with good meal, and whenever possible, share it with someone you love. This may or may not beg the question: What about your other rules? I’m so glad you asked! In honor of my upcoming cookbook, The Weekday Vegetarians: Get Simple (out in two short weeks) I’ve put together a little manifesto called 10 Rules I Live By For Happier, Healthier Days (Except for When I Don’t). It’s a little day-in-the-life mini book and FREE for anyone who has pre-ordered my book. You’ll find tips on everything from healthy snacking to plant-based protein-packing to a hot take on reading the newspaper, plus a list of every single book that’s been mentioned in this newsletter in 2024. (Rule 10: Read Yourself to Sleep.) You can click here to redeem the Bonus Book, and yes, if you pre-ordered the book months ago, a) thank you, you’re a real one! And b) just dig up your purchase number and enter the information where prompted. Thank you so much for the support.
2. Corn and Tomatoes, Tomatoes and Corn
FYI: For the next few weeks, I am rebranding this newsletter “Corn and Tomatoes: A Love Story” and my goal is to eat both market MVPs every night until someone complains. (But really, who in their right mind ever would?) To that end, I have a few classics on the radar: Sausage and Corn-Tomato Hash (or any of the recipes shown below that one), Tagliatelle with Corn, Tomatoes, and Onion “Bacon;” Glazed Maitake Mushrooms with Sweet Corn Polenta and Tomatoes from volume 1 of The Weekday Vegetarians; and Salmon with Miso-Scallion Corn Hash & Sliced Tomato Salad. I also have a new recipe for you, an Esquites-inspired Dinner Salad (top photo) which I made for the first time last night. I’ve been meaning to recreate esquites (creamy corn salad with cotija) in my own kitchen ever since I ordered an amazing version at Tobalá earlier this summer — needless to say, that one, which included chicatanas (aka ants), was an authentic take on the iconic Mexican street food. My version? Uh, by definition, not so much! But I did I start off with the esquites recipe in Sandra Gutierrez’s Latinísimo, a cookbook devoted to home cooking from 21 Latin American countries that has become a go-to for me in the short time it’s been around. (More about the book in this round-up.) Last night, I decided to turn the salad into a capital D- Dinner, which presented a bit of a challenge — we love corn this time of year because it’s so sweet, but it’s one thing to have that sweetness as a side dish, and quite another to have it as the dominating base of a salad. So to cut the sugariness a bit, I increased the lime, tossed in some peppery arugula (this was controversial at my table — most said gem lettuce would’ve done the job), then added tofu for protein and, of course, tomatoes. Here’s the recipe…
3. The Endorsement: Hamlet, by Andy
Those of you who have been here from the beginning (2010!) probably remember a time when Andy, my book editor husband was contributing quite a bit to Dinner: A Love Story. Well, I’m pleased to say that he’s emerged from retirement just long enough to weigh in on a very trendy topic: Shakespeare. I’ll let him take it from here…
Our daughter, Abby spent her spring semester abroad, at Oxford, studying – what else? – William Shakespeare. One of the great pleasures of parenting, and one that abides, thank god, even when your kids are no longer kids anymore, is watching them encounter something in the world that lights them up, something that ignites their Inner Enthusiast, and sends them down rabbit holes that jaded old people like me can barely access anymore. For Abby, this happened with Hamlet. She read it in class, and was soon texting me screen shots of soliloquies, and iconic, eternal lines that she didn’t even know were iconic or eternal. As a parent, of course, I loved seeing her this deeply engaged. The problem was that she started demanding that I read it immediately, too, so we could talk about it. Abby, it is worth noting, can be very persistent. And persuasive. And… persistent. In June, tired of my inaction, she bought me a used copy – with some college kid’s notes in the margins, written in blue pen, and (nightmare of all nightmares) dog-eared pages -- and put in my backpack. When she saw it still there a month later, unread, she took it out and put it under my pillow. For the past seven months, not a week has gone by when she hasn’t asked me why I still haven’t read Hamlet. That probably doesn’t sound believable, so here’s proof (I have so much more):
I wasn’t trying to be difficult by not reading it. I wanted to support her passions. The sad truth is that, as a book editor, I do very little pleasure reading. I am extremely fortunate to read endless amounts of wonderful stuff from writers I love and admire, but I don’t have a ton of time to read outside of the things I’m working on. As a result, I pick my pleasure reading carefully, and it can take me a year or two to get to the thing that seemingly everyone else on earth is reading right now. (I’ll get to Demon Copperhead one of these days, I swear! People seem to like that one!) Anyway, this weekend, Abby finally broke me. I’ll spare you the details, but it was clear that I could no longer put this off. So I sat down on the couch and read Hamlet. (When she saw me, she declared, “I won.”) And I am here to say: Hamlet is good. Jesus, is it good. And yes, I realize how ridiculous that sounds but sometimes it’s such a pleasure to be reminded. It’s like a factory reset on the Quality Meter. Lines so beautiful, they make you want to weep. Explorations of grief and reckonings with mortality that land a little differently when you’re 52, instead of 19, and been through some stuff. There’s something so satisfying, too, in that moment where your brain snaps to attention, when it stops its endless monkeying around, stops resisting ye olde language, and just settles in. I’m doing Lear next. And then The Tempest. I’m not asking questions, just going to ride this out for as long as I can. Am I actually endorsing Hamlet as your end of summer read? I guess I am.
Thanks, Andy! Have a great week, everyone.
Jenny
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In my high school, you either got the teacher who taught Macbeth or the one who taught Hamlet! I’m soooo glad I got Hamlet! I’ve seen it three times & read it once. Maybe it’s time to read it again!
I also love the painting of Ophelia by Sir John Everett Millais, at the Tate. She’s pictured singing in the river before she drowns, I know, so tragic. A beautiful, haunting painting and the story about its painting, the model he used and afterwards is fascinating too.