Three Things

Pretzel chicken, apple pound cake, a cocktail for fall

Greetings eaters and readers! What’s for dinner? We squeezed out one last batch of gazpacho yesterday and tonight I’m thinking an ole reliable cabbage and onion tart or maybe the spicy cauliflower fritters from my book (page 129). Speaking of my book! The Weekday Vegetarians is now in its SIXTH printing!! Woo hoo! I am thrilled that this whole “reducetarian” thing is really catching on. For those of you who are new here, and still on the fence about dialing back meat (without giving it up completely), here’s a little run-down of how my family did it.

In other news, last week, I went on a whirlwind visit to Chicago to hang out with college friends. (We are all some derivation of Jennifer, so we laughed when the barista asked what name he should write on our joint pour-over order — “I think we’ll go with Jenny.”) And while we had not one but two great dinners (including this excellent spot) the highlight of our 36 hours was jumping into Lake Michigan while on a hot, long morning walk. Naturally, Jennie, who actually lives in Chicago wouldn’t think to do this, but my Seattle friend Jenn, who makes it a point to swim wherever she travels, convinced me to strip down to my sports bra to join her. It got us talking about one day plotting a cross-country trip based on jumping into famous bodies of water. Basically, a way more feminist, way less dark version of the famous John Cheever short story. (Best line: “He had a simple contempt for men who did not hurl themselves into pools.”) This is a long way of introducing your non-food-related reading assignment for the week. Let me know what you think! And now, your Three Things…

1. Pretzel Chicken with Mustard Sauce

One of my more favorite mini NYC itineraries when the girls were little was a walk on the High Line, a stop at the magical Books of Wonder on 17th Street, then, of course, a hot chocolate (or the iconic “cold hot chocolate”) and pretzel croissant at City Bakery, just off NYC’s Union Square. For decades before it closed in 2019, City Bakery helmed by chef Ilene Rosen, seemed to a place I always just ended up — for outings with the kids, for business lunches and breakfasts, for their salad bar that was so legendary that it became a book, for coffee dates, for afternoon writing sessions when I started working for myself, and all I needed to fuel myself was a plate of their famous pretzel-crusted mustard chicken, a giant chocolate chunk cookie, and a table in the loft-like upstairs so I could have the best angle to people-watch. I was thinking of this at dinnertime recently because my mom’s golden fried chicken cutlets were on the menu for Sunday Dinner, and as I was setting up my dredging stations I realized that I had just a few dusty bread crumbs left in the panko can. I know I could’ve whirled just about any kind of bread in the food processor to make homemade breadcrumbs, but a bag of Trader Joe’s honey pretzels entered my line of vision and then, all I could see was City Bakery’s famous dish. The result, I texted my daughter at college, was maybe the best thing I’ve made all year. “It’s like the bougiest kids menu item!” she replied, and then, “I’m getting on the next train home.”

Here’s the recipe for Pretzel Chicken and Greens with Creamy Honey-Mustard Sauce

2. A Batched Cocktail for Fall

It’s always a great day when my friends Sonya and Pierre — of crab feast fame — invite us over for dinner, as was the case this past Saturday. When I asked Sonya what I should bring, the text came back quickly. “You’re so good at the cool weather cocktails” which made me laugh. For better or worse: It’s true! After a huddle with the real cocktail expert in the house, Andy, we decided on Paper Planes, a bourbon-based drink that has a bright sourness to it thanks to the generous amount of fresh lemon juice. A fall variation on The Last Word, the ingredient ratio warms my math-fearing heart, i.e. 1:1:1:1.

Paper Plane
This recipe makes enough to fit into a classic flip-top glass bottle and serve 6. If you’re making just one drink, each part should be 3/4 ounces, then shake in a cocktail mixer with ice, then strain into a coupe.

1 cup bourbon
1 cup amaro
1 cup Aperol
1 cup fresh lemon juice

Mix all ingredients together in a giant pitcher and stir. If you plan to give or serve in the stopper-topped bottle, keep in mind that its throat is very thin, so best to pour your mixed cocktail into it using a funnel or a pitcher with a very thin-lipped spout. Chill until you are ready to drink. Serve in a coupe. (Or if you don’t do in advance, shake in a cocktail mixer with ice when you’re ready to drink, then strain into a coupe.)

P.S. Soon, I will share the chicken-and-leek pie Sonya made for us — a dramatic, golden-crusted center-of-the-table showstopper from the book Pie — using leeks from her garden, along with a simple green salad, and a rich, homemade chocolate pudding for dessert. What could be better?

3. Apples Apples, Everywhere

Lastly, I made not one but two apple confections this past week — a Dorie Greenspan fruit-jammed rum cake for Rosh Hashanah, and this tender, buttery apple pound cake above from Aleksandra Crapanzano’s wonderful new book, Gateau: The Surprising Simplicity of French Cakes. The recipe is in my Cup of Jo column today. Happy baking.

P.S. Housekeeping

Whether you are a veteran reader or a newbie, please take a second to click here so you can see that every post and every recipe I write about in this newsletter lives permanently on my substack website. I hear from so many of you — including close friends who read the newsletter religiously — that my recipes get buried and lost in inboxes. People! They are never lost! They are there to be searched for (yes, there’s a search function) and browsed and loved and cooked. As always, if you can’t find something, please reach out to me: Jenny at dinneralovestory dot com and I will point you in the right direction. xo