Three Things

Greetings from Parma (!), Colu Henry's "Better at Home," a lasagna potluck

Buongustai e lettori! I don’t know if the novelty of writing this next sentence will ever wear off but here we go: Today’s newsletter is coming at you from Italy, where I am on day three of hosting my third Via Rosa food tour. This time I’m in Emilia-Romagna in the north, home to all the foods that need no introduction: Parmigiano Reggiano, Prosciutto di Parma, Balsamico di Modena. A dozen Dinner: A Love Story readers and I have spent our days ogling Correggio frescoes on cathedral ceilings and meeting the all-important cows who give us our Parm, and (cover your ears Weekday Vegetarians*) gone deep on culatello, the creamy cured ham made only by a handful of producers along the Po river, and clocked thousands of steps in historic, walkable Parma, where we are based for the week. Also….

…Spring has sprung over here, at least at the markets, so I managed to score some first-of-the-season goodies: peas, artichokes, a few handfuls of technicolor chicory leaves. This probably won’t come as too much of a surprise, but when I’m traveling in Italy I enjoy shopping at the markets — and cooking what I find — as much as eating in restaurants or anything else. (I’m picturing so many of you shouting at your screens right now But the whole point of vacation is NOT COOKING DINNER!) Subscribers can expect to hear a lot more about this in a bonus post about Parma cooking and eating, so sign up now if you don’t want to miss it. (🚨Reminder: Subscription SALE happening NOW🚨) Allora! Your weekly Three Things…

*I apologize for the extremely meat-forward content today. Back to regularly scheduled (weekday vegetarian) programming next week.

Maybe you have a new sheet-pan dinner in your rotation thanks to this newsletter? Maybe you picked up a mind-expanding novel I recommended? Maybe you started a lasagna ritual with your neighbors, or sprinkled a little toasted buckwheat on your salad and discovered that small move elevated dinner in exactly the way I promised it would? If Dinner: A Love Story makes your everyday life even the tiniest bit better, I hope you’ll consider becoming a paid subscriber.

1. Better at Home

One person I feel certain would share my enthusiasm for Cooking While Traveling is my friend Colu Henry, whose wonderful cookbook Better at Home is out today. Among other things, I love the title and how it tells you everything you need to know: It’s an ode to cooking for people at home — no matter where you are or who is at the table, and the recipes are signature Colu: Elegant, comforting, completely un-fussy.

I first met Colu over a decade ago when we both worked at Condé Nast in New York. She had come from the high-intensity world of fashion and restaurant chef PR, and life in the city was exciting and full-throttle with events and dinners out every night. But — spoiler alert — she got older, left the city for the country, and things slowed down in the best possible way. “My life is beautiful and full and busy,” she writes, “but it also doesn’t look the same way it once did. The truth is, I don’t want to be out every night of the week anymore. I much prefer the comfort of my own home (or someone else’s) to cook or be cooked for. I want to be in charge of the guest list, the menu, the music and the overall vibe.” If you own any of Colu’s previous cookbooks or read her newsletter, you are probably wondering right now: How exactly do I get on that guest list? (Me too!)

The other night I assembled this Harissa and Brown-Sugar Glazed Salmon from Better at Home in a few quick minutes, and couldn’t believe how bold and flavorful the end result was. (I am pretty sure this is what the business folks call getting a high return on investment.) You just have to make a marinade, pour it over the fish, then bake it. That’s it. And I love that it’s one of those dishes everyone can just dig into in the center of the table. As Colu says in the recipe intro “I like serving it family-style as it encourages conversation, especially if not everyone knows each other well…it’s like a built-in icebreaker.” She suggests having it alongside Roasted Potato Salad with Za’atar, Feta, and Mint and a Little Gems Salad with Avocado, Pistachios, and Miso-Honey Dressing. (Those recipes are in her book.) How good does that sound? And also: How pretty does that look? Here’s the recipe. And here’s more on Colu’s book.

Harissa and Brown Sugar-Glazed Salmon

We served it alongside tahdig and a green salad with avocados. Excerpted with permission from Better at Home, by Colu Henry.
Serves 6 to 8

2 salmon fillets (1 pound/ 455 g each)
Kosher salt
1⁄3 cup (90 g) harissa paste
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon light brown sugar
2 cloves garlic, grated
2 tablespoons good-quality white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Flaky salt, for serving
1⁄4 cup (12 g) roughly torn herbs, such as, dill, parsley, or sage, for serving

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Line a sheet pan with parchment paper. Set the salmon on the sheet pan and season well all over with salt. In a medium bowl, stir together the harissa paste, brown sugar, garlic, vinegar, and olive oil. Season with salt. Taste and adjust seasonings with more salt and vinegar as needed. Pour over the salmon and with your hands or use a small spatula, coat the fish well with the marinade. Bake until the salmon is cooked through and reaches an internal temperature of 145°F (63°C), 15 to 20 minutes. Finish with a few pinches of flaky salt and the herbs and serve family-style at the table.

2. A Lasagna Potluck

If you want to see “Better at Home” in action, look no further than my friend Lori, who the other week invited a dozen friends over for dinner anchored around a show-stopping Lasagna Bolognese that was as good as anything I could’ve ordered in a restaurant. (In fact, I think the only better version of it I’ve tasted was just yesterday at a family-run trattoria in Emilia-Romagna, the region where the dish was literally invented.) Lori’s dinner was on a Friday night, and because she works full-time, she had to prepare the lasagna (without baking it) on the Sunday before, then froze it until Thursday, when she transferred it to the fridge for overnight thawing. She had also baked and frozen cookies and brownies, plus picked up some bread. But that was the extent of it. Her guests brought along any menu items that remained: cocktails, wine, NA drinks, salads, sides, even a snack board complete with “salami river.” It was such a smart way to minimize the stress of having a large group for dinner. And PS: Real Ones might remember Lori from my first book — she was the mom I had lunch with at a Midtown diner who felt so guilty about not knowing how to cook for her kids that she nearly wept into her matzoh brei. She asked for my help, I became her “Dinner Doula,” and needless to say, everyone turned out better than fine.

3. Negroni, But Make it Refreshing

To continue this theme, my assignment for Lori’s evening was to bring her a copy of Elizabeth Strout’s almost-published novel (I know a guy who knows a guy!) and some kind of cocktail. Naturally I landed on a batched Negroni, specifically a batched Blood Orange Negroni, my cocktail crush of 2025. (I wish I could take complete credit for how pretty that gift bottle looks, but it was Brooks Reitz who taught me how to batch a cocktail with a personal and proper touch in last year’s Food Lover’s Gift Guide.)

I’ve written manymanymany hundreds of words on how much I love a classic Negroni — bold, bittersweet and easy-on-the-brain ingredient ratio (1:1:1, gin: Campari: sweet vermouth, garnished with an orange peel or slice), but I have a few more things to add to the conversation. First of all, the addition of blood orange juice turns up the volume on the citrus and the sweetness without transforming it into the kind of drink that you might be tempted to stick a parasol into, if you know what I mean. But also, lately I find myself topping off my Negroni — any Negroni — with a splash of tonic or club soda, which makes it lighter and more refreshing. This started happening after Andy discovered Mortonis, a twist on the Negroni invented by restaurateur extraordinaire Danny Meyer (Union Square Café, Ci Siamo, SHAKE SHACK!) back in the early 2010s. Meyer disliked vermouth so replaced it with tonic (he also swapped in vodka for gin) and the result is a more refreshing, soda-like experience. Here’s the how-to on that one:

Mortoni

Shake one part vodka, one part Campari, and a generous squeeze of orange and lime with ice, then pour that into a glass with ice. Top that with one part tonic water and some citrus garnishes.

Andy can’t stop making them for everyone who comes over. Which reminds me: Who will you invite for lasagna or harissa-glazed salmon or Negronis or Mortonis or ALL OF IT this weekend?

Thanks for reading,
Jenny

P.P.S. Of course, the best Negroni is one sipped while admiring a 12th century Romanesque duomo.

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When you buy my New York Times bestselling books The Weekday Vegetarians and the follow-up: The Weekday Vegetarians: Get Simple you’re not just getting recipes, you’re getting a whole new way to think about eating. Finger-wagging is not included. Ever.