Three Things

Easy dinner ideas, cheerful host gifts, a great summer read

Greetings eaters and readers! We spent the weekend hanging out in the Berkshires where we actually had access to a grill — a gas grill, but we’ll take what we can get — and watching the Olympic trials in track and field. One of Phoebe’s old college running teammates actually qualified for Paris in the steeplechase, and it’s been amazing to watch the community come out for him. In other news, for no other reason than because I feel like it (you’re welcome!), from now until July 15, I’m offering a 20% discount to new subscribers. Reminder that paying subscribers have access to all past dinner party menu plans and Monday-to-Friday meal plans on the home page of my newsletter (in the right margin), plus SO many bonus recipes like my Big Giant Reset Salad and behind-the-scenes dispatches about cookbook-making and my new apartment. Not to mention a chance to partake in recipe contests and something super cool that you’ll read more about below. Click here to redeem your offer»

THANK YOU and a huuuge thank you to those of you who already support the operation, it means more than you know. And now, your Three Things…

1. This Week in Dinner

What’s on the line-up? I don’t feel like thinking too hard tonight, so will probably make a pot of braised beans with burrata and pesto or the zucchini frittata from Get Simple. It’s not quite corn-and-tomatoes season, but summer tagliatelle with “onion bacon” (above) is calling me anyway; I have a ton of greens from the market and I can’t stop thinking how lovely they’d be atop a crispy chicken cutlet that has been pounded flat, Milanese-style.

And here’s an important reminder for those of you who have a carton of buttermilk left over from last week’s mud cake: Buttermilk Ranch Dressing exists and is waiting to be deployed in a salad made with market greens (or Bibb), thinly sliced cucumbers, sugar snap peas, red pepper, and the crispy chickpeas from The Weekday Vegetarians. (You know I love the contrast between cool-creamy and crunchy-spicy.) Alternatively, you could just make my five-ingredient Chilled Buttermilk Pea Soup with Shrimp. Or another mud cake!

Buttermilk Ranch Dressing

2 tablespoons lemon juice
2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon garlic powder
kosher salt & freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons chopped shallot or red onion
2-3 tablespoons fresh dill, chopped
2 tablespoons fresh chives, chopped
1/4 cup olive oil
1/2 cup buttermilk

Add lemon juice, mustard, garlic powder, salt, pepper, onions and herbs to a jar. Cover and shake until ingredients come together. Add olive oil and buttermilk and shake again. Store in refrigerator for up to one week.

2. In the Department of Coveting, aka HOST GIFTS

Lucky enough to be invited to someone’s house this summer? Here are a few thoughts on host gifts: Clockwise from top left: Stripey Candles ($32) are so cheerful on a dinner table! (Full disclosure, I bought them for some proverbial person who might host me someday, but wound up keeping them for myself.); Le Sud by Rebekah Peppler ($29) is summer captured between two covers. Your host will want to crawl into it, or move to the south of France; Hay Colour Chopsticks ($45) because everyday objects should bring people joy; and this Købenstyle Water Pitcher ($95), a recently re-issued iconic piece from Dansk that doubles as a vase. How pretty is that?

3. Can we please discuss Catherine Newman’s new book?

I texted this photo to so many friends over the past week. It’s from Catherine Newman’s new, wonderful novel Sandwich that I can’t stop talking or writing about.* When I’m reviewing a book, I take notes on its pages with little codes — above, the “R” is shorthand for “relatable” and at a certain point, I just stopped with that one because it seemed like there was a moment on every page that made me laugh (or weep) with recognition. I mean, how many Snyder’s bags am I shaking in the course of a day?

The novel is about a family that has been visiting the same Cape Cod beach rental for 20 years and narrated by the lovably flawed, boundary-challenged 55-year-old mother Rachel (“Rocky”). She’s with her husband, Nick, their two twenty-something hyper-articulate children, Willa and Jamie, and Jamie’s longtime girlfriend, Maya. Rocky’s elderly parents make a cameo, too, because this is now Rocky’s life, figuring out her role sandwiched between the two generations. (There is also a lot of sandwich making!) It goes deep and dark and, as I wrote over on Cup of Jo , I can’t think of anyone who writes more honestly about the way joy and grief walk in lockstep, especially when we are taking care of kids, taking care of elderly parents, taking care of our confusing, aging bodies. Read it on the beach, read it on the hammock, read it on the subway. Just read it.

*Catherine is a friend — we went to the same college, we both write for Cup of Jo, we both got our start in food blog land — so I applaud you for questioning my objectivity here! But please know that the book is getting universally wonderful reviews; see: this one in the Times and this starred review in Kirkus.

And once you do that, come back! Because there is so much more I need to say about the book, I invited Catherine to take part in a Dinner: A Love Story book talk on Zoom, and I’d really love for you to join us. The talk is for paying subscribers only and will take place on August 7, 2024 from 7:30-8:30pm ET. There will be sandwiches! The sign-up and zoom link will be emailed to all subscribers later in the next week.

Enjoy the book, and hope to see you there!

Jenny

Pre-Order My New Book: Penguin Random House | Amazon | Bookshop | Barnes & Noble | Hudson Booksellers | Books A Million | Powell’s | Target | Walmart |

(🥬🌿Or pick up a copy of the first Weekday Vegetarians if you’re behind on your homework. Thanks for the support! 🌺🥬💚 )