Three Things

Plant-forward dinners, easy fish chowder, gift-giving wisdom from Suleika Jaouad

Good morning eaters and readers! What’s for dinner tonight? I’m thinking Pretzel Chicken Salad or Beans and Buttered Leeks or that ole reliable Potato-Cheddar pizza. (Don't worry, we’re getting to that museum-worthy lunch up there!) Also: Big news! No, I haven’t moved yet —that happens in about a month, if all goes well. Even better: I’ve handed in the first draft of my follow-up to The Weekday Vegetarians, tentatively titled The Weekday Vegetarians Get Simple. Sound the trumpets!!! I am thrilled with what I have so far, and can say with confidence that it will be every bit as beautiful as the first volume because Christine Han is on board again as photographer. It’s hard to overstate how good it feels to have someone like Christine in my corner — even though we are shooting at my house, where my entire life is being packed up and Facebook-marketplace’d in preparation for the move, just knowing she’s leading the charge makes me feel calm and organized about everything. Anyway, I’m sure you’ll be hearing a lot more about this soon. (And subscribers will be getting a behind-the-scenes peek from the shoot.) For now, here are Three Things I’d like to tell you about this week…

---

---

1. Dinner Starts with the Vegetables

Last week, I drove up to visit Abby in Vermont and somehow managed to sit down to the best lunch I think I’ve had all year: A plate of whipped Ricotta topped with pickled beets, turnips, radishes, soft-boiled eggs, then sprinkled with poppy seeds and basil oil. Our lunch was at the Minifactory in Bristol, a restaurant we’ve patronized many times for their excellent coffee and baked goods, but this dish was remarkable to me for the way they managed to transform the most basic ingredients (turnips and radishes?!!) into something so delicious and, frankly, gorgeous. Look at those colors! I hate to even write about a dish that most of you won’t be able to experience yourself, but I’d like the takeaway here to be a reminder that we’re heading into the best time of year at the market — from now through October — when we should be prioritizing all vegetables. Not just the tomatoes and corn and the usual VIPs, but the more ordinary ones, too. You know the deal now: When you put your creative energy into vegetables, you can be pretty simple with whatever else is rounding out the plate. Whether that’s a basic grilled chicken, roasted tofu, pan-fried white fish or salmon, a cold noodle salad, or a grilled smash burger if you must…

Inspired by my Bristol awakening, I went to our local farmer’s market on Saturday and picked up a couple things I normally wouldn’t — a bunch of sprouted cauliflower (the kind with the pale green stems and smaller, more tender florets) and white Japanese cucumbers, which are approximately 50% more crunchy than regular cucumbers. I tossed the cauliflower with olive oil, salt, and pepper, roasted it at 425°F for about a half hour (as soon as the florets look crispy brown, but not black), then dolloped a little plain yogurt top, along with a drizzle of Swad-brand tamarind chutney, and cilantro. Andy smashed the cucumber, Thai-style, and tossed with a dressing made with sugar, lime juice, fish sauce, and chile flakes.

P.S. Now seems like the right time to re-up Susan Spungen’s show-stealing Grilled Cabbage with Spicy Thai-ish Dressing.

2. Simple Fish Chowder

When we were in Maine a few weeks ago, we road-tripped to Damariscotta, a picture-perfect town on the Damariscotta River famous for its pristine, hearty oysters. It’s one of those small towns that seemed to have every business necessary to live the good life as a food lover — a butcher-gourmet shop, a seafood market, a robust used bookstore, an old pub, an oyster house, etc — and the best version of each one to boot. After downing a few dozen Pemaquid oysters at popular Schooner Landing, we wandered into the charming Kingfisher & The Queen, a shop that specialized in the coolest vintage housewares and gifts, and low and behold, what did I see perched on a little bookstand, next to a jar of antique clothespins and a few bags of Swedish candies, but my first book, Dinner: A Love Story. Poking out of its pages was one of those handwritten recommendation cards (Andy tells me they're called "shelf talkers") mentioning that someone named Prudence loved the book, and also that someone named Roger loved the Swedish Meatballs recipe. Maybe it’s just that the older I get, the more I appreciate how writing books has allowed me to expand my community and connect with people, but I can tell you with certainty that these moments will never get old, in fact they are extremely heartwarming every single time. I found Roger working the register (Prudence, his wife, had just taken off for the day), and then it became an exchange of mutual praise (“I love your recipes!” “I love your store!”) and of books — I signed that Dinner: A Love Story for him and he handed me a vintage copy of the iconic Cooking Down East: Favorite Maine Recipes, by Marjorie Standish. I had no idea it was iconic until Roger told me it was, and I didn’t realize how much I was craving the collection until it was in my hands. It was packed with all the classics: Fish Chowder, Clam Chowder, Corn Chowder, Rolled Haddock Fillets, Loaves and Casseroles and Fricassees, as well as recipes that I will mostly likely only ever appreciate for their amazing names, like Fish Spencer and Gillie Whoopers. The chowder, though. The chowder! So simple and summery. You can head over to Dinner: A Love Story to get the recipe.

3. Gift-Giving for Someone in Need

You probably know Suleika Jaouad from her bestselling memoir Between Two Kingdoms. And I’ve written a lot about her Isolation Journals, the project she began during the pandemic as a way to transform our isolation into connection, inviting favorite writers and community leaders to share weekly journaling prompts, so we were all able to write together. Three years later, she’s still going strong, and I still look forward to her Sunday dispatch. It’s appropriate that it arrives on Sunday morning, because even when I don’t sit down to write based on the prompt, she always gives me something to think deeply about, like how to define home, and why we lose our capacity to wonder, and, in this week’s dispatch, about the concept gift giving. It was technically Suleika’s 35th birthday, but she declared it her 34th, demanding a redo from the universe after her leukemia returned last November, effectively stealing the year from her. She writes often about “how living means learning to hold the beautiful and the terrible in one palm” and this essay is a moving example of that. Her friends and family rallied to celebrate her in the most beautiful way, and she finished with this perfect piece of wisdom: “People often ask me for advice about how to support someone when the ceiling caves in, and my answer is always the same. You don’t have to become superhuman, stepping in to do anything and everything. Just do the thing you already love to do. If you love dogs, offer to walk someone’s pup. If you love to mow, show up and give someone’s lawn a trim. If you love to cook, become the casserole queen.”

Thanks, Sulieka. You can sign up for her newsletter here.

P.S. It’s Maine Week

This week’s bonus post for subscribers will be a vacation highlight reel from our week in Maine. As with my past Vacation Highlight Reels for London, Vermont, and Sicily, I’ll give you the full lowdown on where we stayed, what we did, and of course, what we ate. (Not surprisingly, we did pretty well on that front!) If you’re not a subscriber and don’t want to miss out on it, you can take care of that now. Just click this fun little orange button.

As always, thanks so much for the support!