Three Things

Tamarind-glazed grilled chicken, a week of family dinners, a favorite host gift (plus giveaway!)

Greetings eaters and readers! It was a beautiful weekend in New York, crystalline skies and fireflies at dusk, June’s signature honeysuckle scent infusing the air on my morning walks to the coffee shop. When we weren’t outside or grilling we were watching basketball or The Staircase — I simply can’t believe how good Colin Firth is at playing Michael Peterson, the Durham novelist accused of killing his wife. (Now I really want to rewatch the documentary.) Before we get to your Three Things, I want to extend a hearty, happy Welcome to the table to all my new readers. If you want to know more about Dinner: A Love Story, you can check out the About page, and also, this is a reminder for everyone, please know that every recipe and every post lives permanently in my Archive. Even if you just signed up a minute ago, you have access to a decade’s worth of dinner inspiration. Speaking of which! Onward, to your weekly dispatch…

Photo: Susan Spungen

1. My New Favorite Grilled Chicken

I love the distinct tang that tamarind brings to a dish, but buying and cooking with it has always been a little intimidating to me. When a recipe calls for tamarind, do they mean the pods? The pulp? The concentrate? The puree? The ketchupy stuff I drizzle on dal? Well I finally conquered my fears back in March when I took on the Pad Thai recipe from Kenji López-Alt’s magnum opus The Wok. There’s a solid page in the book devoted to all things tamarind (shopping, prepping, using, etc) and overnight, my radar was cranked up to high alert for any recipe that called for the ingredient. Which is exactly how I found myself clicking through Susan Spungen’s last newsletter (Susanality, one of the most consistent sources of inspiration on Substack in my opinion) to find her tamarind-glazed grilled chicken. It’s the kind of dish when where someone takes a bite and says “What on earth am I eating…” in the best possible way, like as if they can’t place the flavor, but they just can’t believe how good it is. Here is the recipe (plus all that tamarind info) so you can find out for yourself.

2. A Week of Vegetarian Family Dinners

To raise money for a local charity that has meant very much to my community over the years, I donated a week of personal chef services as an auction item, and this is the week I get to cook for the winners. A quick FaceTime consultation revealed the family of four (with two grade-school age kids) wanted meals that were vegetarian (no fish) and low on carbs. “I don’t want to cater to the kids on this one,” the dad told me. “I’d rather make them a taco roll-up and have what they don’t eat for lunch the next day.” I like a guy who has his priorities straight! Here is what the parents chose in case you want cook along with us: Monday (shown above): Chilled Avocodo-Cucumber Soup and Wheat Berry Salad with Grapes, Arugula, Feta, Honey-Chili Glazed Tofu (page 62 of The Weekday Vegetarians); Tuesday: Matar Paneer with Rice and Shaved Sugar Snap Pea Salad; Wednesday: Lentil Salad with Jammy Tomatoes and Homemade Yogurt Flatbread (page 222, The Weekday Vegetarians); Thursday: Miso-Mushroom Tacos with Pickled Cabbage; And, on Friday, because they are very wise people: Brothy Beans with Burrata and Pesto, crusty bread, plus a salad with honey-almond-sea-salt clusters and green goddess dressing (similar). I offered them one “life raft” option for the kids, i.e. a go-to dish they can dip into if the littles don’t love those wheat berries. They went for the picnic chicken.

Photo: Mackenzie Smith Kelley

3. The Host Gift: Olive Oil is the New Wine

Not that I would complain about a nice bottle of rosé right about now, but I don’t think any host gift makes me happier than a beribboned jug of high-quality extra virgin olive oil. For all the obvious flavor-boosting reasons of course, and because it’s the kind of thing I don’t regularly splurge on for myself, but also because each bottle of oil, if it’s a good one, whether it’s fruity or grassy or bold or spicy, comes with the marching orders use it or lose it. Olive oil is perishable and begins to degrade as soon as it is exposed to oxygen, which means it doesn’t do any good to hold out or save it for some special occasion to be determined in the near future. It's my favorite kind of gift, one that rewards impatience.

On that note, one of the better gifts I’ve gotten lately is a bottle of Awake, a golden peppery oil from California-made Brightland, where they know from packaging. (Look at those labels!) Each bottle is stamped with the harvest date so you know how fresh it is, and I made quick work of the stuff, using it for everything from soups and toasts, and a final drizzle on hummus and fresh fish…

And here’s something fun: Brightland is offering a FREE Luminous Capsule (the Awake oil, plus their champagne vinegar, and orange-blossom honey) to one lucky DALS newsletter reader. (Well, “offering” after I wouldn’t shut up to anyone who would listen about how those three ingredients, plus a little s&p, whisked together became my go-to all-purpose vinaigrette this past spring.) To be eligible to win, you just have to comment on this June 7 newsletter. I will choose the winner at random, and reply to him/her/them on the comment thread before Wednesday at 5:00 ET. Please check back to see if it’s you! Good luck!

Remember these smashed pea toasts from a few weeks ago? That golden drizzle is courtesy of Brightland’s Awake. Can’t you just taste it?

Have a great week,
Jenny

P.S. Published Today…

…A new essay collection from David Sedaris, Happy-Go-Lucky. Always a great day when I can say that.