Three Things

A brown butter apple cake, four condiments that upgrade everything, a peripatetic week in New York

Good morning, everyone. Needless to say, it’s been a really hard week and I hope you’re all finding ways to take care of yourself. For those of you who find comfort in baking, above is a brown butter apple cake I wrote about last week, and here is a pretty beautiful looking baked apple crisp from my friend Leah Koenig of The Jewish Table. It precedes a list of helpful resources and an essay called “Seeking Humanity Over Hot Takes” that I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read. In the meantime, my heart is with Israel. Here are this week’s Three Things.

1. Four condiments you need in your vegetarian pantry

This is the time of year when I start eating roasted vegetables for lunch. Sometimes on a bed of steamed spinach and drizzled with maple-tahini dressing (above), sometimes as just part of a green salad. I don’t ever really know what direction I’m headed, but if I’m working from home, 9 days out of 10 I’ll toss whatever vegetable I’ve got (mushrooms, Brussels, eggplant, butternut squash, delicata squash) in olive oil, s & p, then roast in a 400°F oven until I see some crispiness taking over. Sometimes I do this at 10 in the morning, and my vegetables will sit on the stovetop, cooling and loyally waiting lunch deployment. If this sounds very boring to you, allow me to introduce you to the four condiments I heavily rely on to bring my roasted vegetable lunches to life:

Chili Crisp
Works drizzled on almost any roasted vegetable — delicata and butternut squash, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, and its upgrading powers extend way beyond produce to noodles, eggs, stir-fries, and soups.
Rec: Fly By Jing

Furikake
The Japanese blend of sesame seeds, nori, sugar and salt, that I shake onto roasted cabbage, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and mushrooms, but also steamed spinach, avocado slices, mushrooms, and rice.
Rec: Nori Fume Furikake,

Chutney
Just a spoonful or two of the traditional Indian relish transforms roasted vegetables like butternut squash and eggplant (and also classic roasted potatoes, but that’s more of a dinnertime move for me). Often I’ll swirl the chutney with plain yogurt before dolloping on my vegetables.
Rec: Bombay Chutney (I love the Pomegranate Flavor)

Dukkah
Every time I add this Middle Eastern spiced-nut-sesame blend to my vegetables I think of a quote from a friend who once told me she feels naked if she’s not wearing perfume. That’s how I feel when I have to eat my delicata squash or eggplant or avocado toasts without dukkah. Or well, that’s how I imagine my vegetables feel.
Rec: My normal pick (West-Bourne pistachio) is sold out right now, but a close second is Villa Jerada.

Bonus: Maple-Tahini Dressing
And in the homemade department: Drizzle this on your roasted vegetables (shown above, eggplant, onions), before sprinkling on your dukkah. To make: In a small bowl, thoroughly whisk together 2 tablespoons tahini, 1 teaspoon lemon juice, 1 teaspoon maple syrup, dash of Sriracha and 3 tablespoons water. It might seize and get stiff, but keep whisking, adding a little more water if necessary to loosen. It will eventually become smooth and drizzle-able.

2. New Substack Alert!

I’m a huge fan of I Dream of Dinner author and recipe developer Ali Slagle, so imagine my delight upon seeing that she’s started her own newsletter, called 40 Ingredients Forever, devoted to, you guessed it, making meals from her 40 go-to ingredients. As she says, “Using fewer ingredients in more ways isn’t boring—it’s something to strive for. We can do more with less. It means less food waste, a smaller grocery bill, fewer trips to the store, and no more lingering bottles of ‘what am I gonna do with that?’” Love that. (And P.S. her Tomato-Parmesan Soup makes regular appearances on the dinner table, especially during soup season, i.e. now.)

Speaking of soup, here’s a new recipe for Gingery Chicken Soup, part of a story I wrote for Cup of Jo called “Five Ways to Turn Rotisserie Chicken into Dinner.”

3. New York Diary

I’ve been in our new apartment for almost six weeks now, and I’m still waiting for the selfie urge to pass when I’m just walking down a street in my neighborhood. I assume it will eventually register that I live here and that there’s no train to catch at Grand Central to take me back to the suburbs — but until then, I’ve been living a pathologically social, absurdly peripatetic existence, as if it’s a contest (against who I’m not sure) to see how much I can fit into a week or a day. Here’s the lightning-round run down from the past two weeks: On a cloudless 70-degree day, I rode my first Citi Bike down the Hudson River to the heart of the Flower District, so I could find a fig tree for the new apartment. (Success! Holiday Flower & Plant was where I ended up for anyone overwhelmed by the options down there.) Uptown, I met my friend Lucinda for lunch at Dagon, where, among other things, I ordered the chicken liver mousse as part of a mezze sampler, and I think it’s the best thing I’ve eaten since I’ve been here. My friend Pilar and I met with a plan for martinis and onion rings (how good does that sound?) at Porter House Bar & Grill in Columbus Circle, which had crazy Lost in Translation vibes, but ended up with only the martinis, a “sensible” decision I regret now! I spent a rainy Saturday afternoon perusing the gorgeous wax pastries and other novelties at John Derian in the East Village; It was our anniversary last week, and Andy and I headed downtown for dinner at Little Owl in the Village, famous for their meatball sliders and movie-set charming vibe. It’s not all eating and drinking! The next night, as part of an anniversary gift for Andy, we took a history-architecture tour of our neighborhood with a guide I booked through Guides Association of New York City (rec from Annie, one of my Sicily friends, who was once a NYC tour guide herself — thank you Annie!) I hit the Village Vanguard with my friend Sonya to watch an episode of Open to Debate (to be aired on NPR) and later this week I’m seeing the Edward Ruscha show at MoMA with my friend Robin, which I heard was fantastic. Lastly, my friend Adam Roberts over at The Amateur Gourmet (who just moved to Brooklyn from L.A.) reminded me to sign up for TDF, a theater support fund which which offers members last-minute discount tickets for performances (opera, ballet, plays, musicals) all over town. So stay tuned for some legit culture of the non-edible variety. What should I try to see first?

See you soon,
Jenny