Three Things

Easy summer dinners, how to upgrade a green salad, a new-to-me novel I inhaled

Jul 21, 2026

Greetings friends, I hope you enjoyed your weekends. I don’t know about you, but I’m having a hard time facing my first week in 39 days that doesn’t include a World Cup game. For the past six weeks, the first thing I’d do every morning was take a look at the day’s schedule and plan my day around the matches I needed to watch. I can’t believe how many times we were watching some intense double-overtime battle and ended up screaming at an only-in-the-World-Cup underdog goal, terrifying my poor dog in the process. (Pretty sure she’s still traumatized by our reaction to the Sidny Lopes Cabral equalizer in the Argentina-Cape Verde match. I am still asking myself if that actually happened.) The best part, though — I’ll bet you know what’s coming! — was how everyone in the world was watching the same thing at the same time, something that rarely happens outside of sports, and that it gave me and my soccer fan friends an excuse to connect and text with each other a thousand times in 90 minutes. I think I’ll miss that part the most…or, well, that and Jude Bellingham.

Here are Three Things I’m excited to tell you about this week…

1. A Week of Summer Dinners

We’ve been cooking a slew of old favorites lately, things we’ve made dozens of times before, but is it just me or do meals taste different (i.e. better) when enjoyed outside at a backyard picnic table, washed down a crisp electrolyte-packed Emergen-C that is doing its best imitation of a hazy IPA? Above was last Friday’s dinner, Fish Tacos with Avocado-Mango Salsa, made with steelhead trout instead of the usual flounder, alongside rice and black beans. (Btw, you know what’s good? Hard-shell tacos!) Other meals on the “Lately” lineup: grilled Turkey Smash Burgers with Special Sauce, never not a good idea, especially when made with good quality dark meat; no-cook Chilled Cucumber-Avocado Soup to take advantage of the cucumber bounty right now, especially wonderful alongside olive-oil toasted crusty bread (add shrimp if you’re missing the protein); Bucatini with Pea Pesto, Ricotta, and Asparagus, a classic Susan Spungen recipe, which is to say fresh, flavorful, beautiful…

…And lastly, I’ve added a new, unbelievably addictive recipe to my list of “Sides That Can Also Be Mains,” which is always a good thing to have in your pocket if you’re feeding carnivores and vegetarians at the same time. That recipe will land in subscribers’ boxes this Friday.

Reminder! Subscribers also have access to my complete Recipe Index, hundreds of recipes organized by protein, vegetable, dish-type (main/salad/soup/cocktails/etc), entertaining, quick-cook, vegetarian, gluten-free, vegan, and more. I’m obsessive about updating it weekly to include every recipe that ever appears in this newsletter.

2. 🚨 BREAKING 🚨 A New Salad Sparkle ✨

For those of you who are new around here, allow me to explain what I mean by a Salad Sparkle. From a November 2023 newsletter:

You know those women who say things like “I feel naked without that last spray of perfume?” Well, two thoughts about this: 1) I am not that kind of woman and 2) I think of this every time I finish assembling a salad, and reach for that final spritz of flavor on the greens to make it feel not-so-naked. Things like toasted sesame seeds, dukkah, furikake, nutritional yeast, crushed pistachios, peanuts, or pecans. And in the slightly more ambitious category: Giant Parmesan Crisps or Pickled Onions or Toasted Buckwheat or Anchovy Breadcrumbs. I think of all of these umami-loaded, flaky, crunchy boosters as my “salad sparkles,” and might I humbly suggest training yourself to think about them this way, too?

Well, as of a few weeks ago, I’m pleased to announce I’ve added a new sparkle to the rotation: Seed Crackers and/or Norwegian Crispbreads. I love how they add texture, a nutty flavor, and even protein to the most basic green salad, like the one I made last week with avocados, scallions, edamame, and a very simple rice wine and olive oil vinaigrette.

This is one I found at a local Hudson Valley market, but I’ve also been using Trader Joe’s Gluten-Free Norwegian Crispbreads.

3. A New-to-Me Oldddd Read

I devoured A Town Like Alice, which was recommended to me by my sister-in-law’s sister, Caroline, who has always been a voracious reader. It was only a week or so after my surgery and she got a dreamy look in her eyes describing it to me as a sort of escapist adventure, adding “I think it might be the best book I ever read.” (!) An escapist adventure sounded just about right to this housebound girl, so I ordered it on the spot, and when I ran it by three of my trusted book whisperers, Rory, Liz, and Anna, they all said the same thing: “My mother loved that book!” (Anna added, “I didn’t read it, but my mom and I absolutely watched the miniseries together in the 80s!”) It was written in 1950, and follows an English woman named Jean Paget, who along with seventeen other women and children, is sent on a harrowing seven-month march through Malaya (now part of Malaysia) as prisoners of war by the Japanese during World War II. She returns to England haunted by the atrocities she witnessed, and eventually finds herself drawn back to Malaya and Australia and beyond in search of both closure and a meaningful way to use a surprise inheritance. Jean is spirited and gutsy, and I really loved spending time with her and learning about a part of the world and a part of history I knew nothing about. (A big warning, though: It was written in 1950, which means the language can occasionally be dated — read: offensive.) Have you read it? Or has your mom 😊 ? Curious to know what you thought if so.

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