Three Things
Book recs, a bold, beautiful grilled chicken salad, and no-recipe recipes: the college edition
Greetings eaters and readers! Before we get to your Three Things, I’m wondering: Does anyone have any advice for getting through the emotional work of packing up the house where I’ve lived, raised my kids, built a community, started a business, cooked a thing or two…for 20 years? As much as I’ve tried, the Does-it-Spark-Joy strategy of weeding out the clutter does not seem to work because every single drawer seems to be a joy-sparking nightmare. (See above: Hundreds of customized paper dolls ca. 2009, whose names the girls still remember.) Or the complete opposite. Last weekend, when we tackled thousands of boxed-up old photos, it was like watching the “We did it!” Bing Bong scene from Inside Out on a loop for five straight hours. I am not linking to that one because I have a rule on this newsletter that I’m not allowed to make you cry in the first paragraph, but iykyk. Let’s get to some grilled chicken, shall we? The first of Your Three Things…
1. This Week in Grilled Chicken
I confess this was actually last week in grilled chicken, and also that it will most likely be next week in grilled chicken and possibly the week after that, too, because this Grilled Chicken with Pineapple and Spicy Peanut Sauce is that good — so fresh and flavorful and just plain beautiful, look at the colors! — and I should probably try to control myself before I overdo it. (Longtime readers may recognize the dinner as a version of one DALS excerpted from Jeanne Kelley’s gem-of-a-book Salad for Dinner.) Also, I know it’s popular to hate on grilled chicken breasts these days, but my feeling is that when chicken breasts are marinated properly, pounded to even thickness, not over-grilled (i.e, dried out), then tossed with greens and a good dressing, it’s the best kind of summer eating. Here’s the recipe on DALS, and also (new feature alert!), here is a downloadable, printable PDF of the recipe:
2. No-Recipe Recipes, College Edition
I’m not going to say I don’t miss my daughters, who are both living and working on their respective college campuses for the summer, but I will say that the whole arrangement has made for some seriously excellent content on the family group chat. I sometimes feel like I should cut and paste the whole thread into this newsletter and just be done with it. Between the Bo Burnham and Bill Hader clips (we’re obsessed with Barry right now), the truly baller Nike ads leading up to the Women’s World Cup (USA’s first game is THIS FRIDAY, 9:00 ET), movie reviews (Spider-Verse: big thumbs up; Air: Eh? Mid; Asteroid City: 😴😴😴) and, of course, all of their home-cooking adventures. Both of them are living in houses with kitchens, not dorms, which means they are shopping on a budget and cooking for themselves in a real way for the first time in their lives. And I am absolutely loving it, not only because it is one more excuse for them to call me (they still need me, they really do!), but because I get ideas for my own dinners when they do. The recipes they make, by necessity, are uniformly vegetarian, fresh, and no-frills to the point where you barely need a recipe. The whole thing has inspired a chapter in my next book, but that’s not coming out for a little while, so I wanted to show you a few highlights (above) from the chat. Top row, left to right: Crispy Chickpeas with Greens; Tomato Sandwich; Green Salad with Strawberries, Feta, and Beans (page 70, The Weekday Vegetarians); Bottom row, left to right: Rigatoni with Parmesan and Chickpeas; Cacio e Pepe Orzo with honey-roasted Brussels Sprouts; Tomato Sandwich, again. And yes, It’s only right that tomato sandwiches are on repeat if the tomatoes are good enough. We’re not quite there yet here in New York.
Also a reliable feature of the group chat: Prolific updates from phoebecomix. (Is this good? Do you get it? Hello? Is anyone there?) Love you, sweetie! It’ll all work out, I promise.
3. What are you reading now?
You’ve already read multiple times on this newsletter about how everyone in my house is all bananas for Daniel Mason’s upcoming novel North Woods. (Beyond our family, actually, hello, starred review in Kirkus!) I mention this again not because I enjoy writing about books you can’t actually read yet, but because my book editor husband kept hearing from colleagues that if he liked North Woods, he should read Marianne Wiggins’s Evidence of Things Unseen published back in 2003. And so he did. The book is about the intertwining lives of two lovers against a backdrop of the Great Depression and the development of atomic science in 1930s America, and, from Andy: “It has a kinship with Daniel Mason in its really beautifully drawn characters, across a long time span, with a cosmic philosophical element to it that I always appreciate.” So there you have it. But I’d love to know: What are you reading right now?* Please share.
*Speaking of which: A Favorite Tote
One Last Thing: Help for Vermont Farmers
I write a lot about beautiful Vermont on this newsletter, so in the wake of last week’s floods which devastated farms across the state, I wanted to be sure to call attention to the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont. Among their many missions, NOFA-VT runs an emergency fund that supports farmers after disasters like this one — please consider donating if you are able to. Thank you to newsletter reader and Vermont resident Jennifer R for the tip.
Thank you for reading, thank you for the support. xoxo
Jenny
Those paper dolls are BEGGING to be framed in one long cool frame. For the girls some day, or their girls some day.
Also this poem helped us get through it:
Give-Away Song
This is my give-away—
not because I don’t want
it anymore,
not because it’s out of
style or
broken or
useless since it lost
its lid or one of its buttons,
not because I don’t understand
the “value” of things.
This is my give-away—
because I have enough
to share with you
because I have been given
so much
health love happiness
pain sorrow fear
to share from the heart
in a world where words can be
meaningless when they come
only from the head.
This is my give-way—
to touch what is good in you
with words your heart can hear
like ripples from a pebble
dropped in water
moving outward growing
wider touching others.
You are strong.
You are kind.
You are beautiful.
This is my give-away.
Wopida ye.
Wopida ye.
Wopida ye.
Gwen Westerman