Three Things

Easy summer eats, an MVP potato salad, a Maryland crab feast

Good morning readers and eaters and I hope you enjoyed the long weekend. We’ve been watching and loving “We Own This City,” the David Simon-George Pelecanos series about corrupt cops in Baltimore that’s based on the book by Sun reporter Justin Fenton. (“Wire” fans in particular will love seeing some familiar faces all grown up. Dukie and Marlo just for starters.) And in dinner news, Abby has been making the most of the non-college-dining-hall ingredients at her disposal, cheffing up the above poke bowls for a Saturday night treat. She combined rice, scallions, quick-pickled cucumbers, avocado, and sushi-grade tuna mixed with a little mirin, soy sauce, sesame seeds, and crumbled nori. It is a very simplified version of this way more authentic recipe by Aloha Kitchen author Alana Kysar. (PS: Abby’s T-shirt is from cookbook author and always-on-the-mark Molly Baz.) Enough throat-clearing! Here are your weekly Three Things…

1. An MVP Potato Salad

As I was rounding up recipes for your Memorial Day cookout last week, I was shocked to learn that while I’ve prepared and referenced it approximately 100 times over the years, I did not have a dedicated post about our MVP Double Mustard Potato Salad. We first found a version of the recipe in a Mark Bittman cookbook — I’m talking like late 90s here, that is how strong its staying power is — and the beauty of the recipe is that you can swap in any mustard, any vinegar, any herb depending on what you have on hand. Here is the way we make it the most often. (PS: The dish was vegan, gluten-free, and dairy-free long before it was cool to be.)

2. Try This at Home: A Maryland Crab Feast

My friends Sonya and Pierre are such great entertainers — I love eating at their house because they do not dream up a summer menu the way most of us do, i.e. let’s grill some sort of protein and surround it with market-fresh salads! Instead, there’s always some sort of adventure built into the program, and I never leave their house without making a mental list of ideas I want to steal for my next gathering…and this newsletter! Among the many things Sonya and Pierre have taught me over the years: How to make a French Gimlet, the importance of a show-stopping dessert, and the singular way sabering a bottle of champagne turns a dinner into a party. So it should come as no surprise to me that this past weekend, to celebrate Sonya’s birthday, and to honor her Maryland roots, they ordered a boatload of steamed blue crabs and we all sat in their backyard with our bibs and picks and crackers, Old Bay seasoning staining our fingernails, and went off. How fun is that? If you decide to follow their lead, you might consider serving the crabs with old-fashioned mayo-y potato salad and slaw, and decorate the table with wet wipes and multiple rolls of paper towels. (“Definitely not first date food,” one guest said.) I will say that there are worse ways to kick off the summer.

3. It’s Getting Dark and Stormy Out There

Speaking of summer cooking, once we are on the other side of Memorial Day, the second thing I think to break out after my white jeans* are all the ingredients for a Dark and Stormy, the Bermuda-born cocktail favored by Nantucket-reds-wearing nautical types who un-ironically ask things like Is the sun over the yardarm? Here’s how Andy, my longtime dark-and-stormy-loving husband, described the drink more than a decade ago:

Having not grown up with a yacht or a compound on the Vineyard, I had no idea this drink even existed for the first thirty-three years of my life. And can I tell you how I now mourn for those years? The Dark and Stormy is everything a cocktail should be: damned tasty, of course, but also fizzy, cold, summery, citrusy, and very, very easy to make. Here's how: Get a decent-size highball glass and pack it full of ice. Now fill that glass halfway with some good dark rum. (We use El Dorado from Guyana or the equally good Zaya from Guatemala. And there is always Gosling's.) Then—and this part is crucial—top it off with real ginger beer, as opposed to standard-issue ginger ale, which tends to be wan and sugary and overly carbonated. (We used to use Reed's Extra Ginger Brew, but we’ve recently switched to Regatta, which is a little less sweet and even more gingery and hails from Bermuda, where they seem to know from cocktails.) Finally, the lime. Don’t skimp on the lime! We love the way it balances the sweetness and spice of the rum and the ginger beer. Squeeze two wedges into the glass and discard. Take your third wedge, squeeze it, run the fleshy part once around the rim of the glass, and drop it in. Give it a quick stir. Now partake of the Dark and Stormy. Summer is upon us.

Cheers!

Jenny

*who am I kidding, I did this weeks ago

P.S. A Kid’s Guide to Social Skills

One more thing: Catherine Newman fans rejoice! What Can I Say?, the second book in her life skills series for kids, has just been published and not surprisingly, it is packed with all the kinds of advice you’d expect from the writer who passes on brilliantly ridiculous gems of wisdom, like this one, to parents of teenagers: “Pretend you’re just tying your shoe so they won’t notice you leaning in to sniff the still-intoxicating smell of their scalp.” What Can I Say is about the kinds of social skills that, frankly, most adults should’ve but haven’t mastered by now, me included: How to say no, how to comfort someone, how to be wrong, how to ask for help, how to listen, how to be an ally, and (above) how to be grateful, i.e. we could all do better to focus on the cheeseburger and not the peas.

PPS: Book owners: Have you made the Artichoke Dip pizza yet? (Page 37)