Three Things

Main-event salads, Easter planning, strawberry desserts

Greetings eaters and readers! I’m not sure how this happened, but we managed to swing dinner invitations three days in a row this past weekend, roughy three more than average, which makes me think that maybe we are all ready to climb out of hibernation and start to really cook for each other? At one of those dinners, my friend Sonya, entertainer extraordinaire, made Susan Spungen’s Lemon Curd Meringues (above) and you don’t need me to tell you how gorgeous (and gorgeously make-ahead) they’d be for an Easter or Passover spread. Speaking of which! The most exciting news! If all goes according to plan, a very special guest star will be contributing to my Dinner Party Game Plan series this week, focusing on the perfect Easter menu, which means if you haven’t given any thought to what you’re serving on Sunday, you can just go ahead and check that off the to-do list. As with all my Game Plans, I’ll give you a printable PDF with shopping list, recipes, and a what-to-do-when schedule. It will be arriving in subscriber inboxes on Thursday, April 6.

Lastly, happy publishing day to Romantic Comedy, by one of my all-time most favorite writers, Curtis Sittenfeld. I know I can be a little over-enthusiastic sometimes — how many exclamation points are there already in this newsletter!!!? — but I’m telling you, Romantic Comedy, about a SNL-type sketch writer and a celebrity she falls in love with during the pandemic, is my pick for page-turn-iest book of 2023. (Read Sittenfeld’s short story “A Regular Couple” in the collection You Think It, I’ll Say It, next. It’s famous in my house.) And now, your Three Things…

1. In the Department of Salad

When you’re dreaming up dinner ideas, how often do you come up with a center-of-the-plate kind of thing (whether it’s chicken, tofu, beans, etc) first and then say to yourself “and I’ll just round it out with a salad?” I do this constantly. Although I do a lot less of it ever since subscribing to Emily Nunn’s The Department of Salad newsletter. She is such an entertaining writer, with a rich archive of “chef’s salads” (salads from well-known chefs), and I love how she switches that formula on me — getting me all hype about eating some amazing greens or shaved vegetable recipe which become the main event, therefore rendering protein (or a traditionally center-of-the-plate food) the afterthought. For instance, last week I made the Desi Salad (above) a recipe Emily procured from Atlanta’s Indian street food spot Chai Pani, and it was everything she said it would be — mind-blowing, spicy, quick, addictive. The simple pan-fried fish we served it with was fine, but in retrospect, almost unnecessary, because the meal was all about that salad and its spicy cashews and drinkable cilantro-cumin dressing. (Though Emily did make a point to tell me it’s delicious topped with grilled paneer if that’s your thing.) The Desi Salad is for paid subscribers, but you should absolutely skim the free DOS archives for other options: Fret-Free Shaved Asparagus, Crunchy Rainbow Dance Party Salad, and Summer Roll Salad. There’s also this from Emily’s About page: “We at the DOS do not by any means consider salad a ‘diet’ food, so get that out of your head this instant.”

P.S. Ten (More) Quick Spring Dinner Ideas.

2. Free Advice: Sumo Orange Edition

I had lunch at the amazing Spare Foods headquarters last week, and as usual came away with so much more than just a satisfied belly. The company, headed by Blue Hill alum Adam Kaye and his brother Jeremy Kaye, has a simple but extraordinary mission: To address the food waste situation in this country by making use of unused co-product or by-product from growers and manufacturers. Perhaps you’ve already picked up a can of their probiotic sparkling tonic, which is a go-to in my house for mocktail nights. (The newest flavor Yuzu-Passion Fruit over ice hits.) Adam and his crew made a veggie kofta for lunch and served it with homemade flatbread, tzatziki, and a sesame slaw and we finished with these pretty little sculptured Sumo orange cups above. How cool are they? So unnecessarily joyful, which makes them more so, of course. The how-to: Using your fingers, pull and tear off the top half of the peel (the peel comes of easily because it’s so loose to begin with, but you don’t want to be too rough with it) then wedge your thumb inside and gently circle it all around the base to release the fruit. Using scissors, snip around the exposed edge of the base to fashion a little cup, then place the sections back inside. P.S. Sumos, the holy grail of citrus fruits in my opinion, are only in season for like another 17 minutes, so act fast on this one.

3. Desserts that Beg For Fresh Strawberry Sauce

Reminder that if you are in one of the lucky corners of the country that has started to see deep red strawberries popping up at the market, you will never regret making a simple strawberry sauce to drizzle atop your Angel Food Cake (above) or No-Bake Ricotta Cheesecake or buttermilk pancakes. The how-to: Find the freshest strawberries possible, remove their stems, then halve and quarter about a cup and half of them. Add to a saucepan with 2 tablespoons of sugar, the juice from half a lemon, and a little water. Turn heat to low and cook until the berries break down and you have a syrupy sauce, about 20 minutes.

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Thanks for reading, have a great week!
Jenny