Three Things

Hudson Valley road trips, charm cakes, and so many ideas for easy dinners TONIGHT

Greetings eaters and readers! We finally had a spring weekend here in New York, and made the most of it with some road trips around the Hudson Valley. On Saturday we walked around Beacon, had lunch at Kitchen and Coffee*, and picked up a box of everybody’s favorite doughnuts (above) at the perpetually long-lined Peaceful Provisions. Sunday we headed back up north and over the Hudson to All One One All Farm in Goshen and enjoyed egg salad sandwiches at picnic benches outside the cafe, while hanging with the farm dogs and a super friendly goose. In completely unrelated news, I’m loving this new YouTube show No Borders Just Flavors, where contestants face off against each other by cooking their immigrant family recipes, all while sharing stories from their lives and communities. Such a great idea for a show. (Plus: There’s a dance party button you can strategically deploy to make your opponent stop what they’re doing and boogie. So funny.) Lastly, I wrote about the #1 Thing I’d Tell New Parents About Family Dinner in case you are one of those new parents! (LUCKY!) And now, your Three Things…

*Thanks for the rec, GoLove!

1. Dinner This Week

What’s on the line-up this week? Well, it’s been way too long since we sat outside and had fish sandwiches, so I think that’s going to have to happen sooner rather than later. Also in the running for the al fresco dinner table: Susan Spungen’s Tamarind Glazed Chicken and…

…Andy’s grilled flatbread with ramps. (Below. How good would that be alongside the chilled asparagus soup from The Weekday Vegetarians?) Also for your consideration: My One-Pot Chicken with Orzo, Spinach & Artichoke, Kenji López-Alt’s definitive Vegetable Fried Rice, and the perfect-before-a-late-night-practice Brown Rice & Teriyaki Brussels Bowl. Why are there still more than six hours left until dinnertime?

2. In the Supermarket Shortcut Category

Alternate headline: In the So Stupid it’s Smart Category??? Do you have a little antipasto bar at your local supermarket? Like not a super gourmet antipasto bar, but just your standard selection of olives and spicy peppedews and bocconcini and various marinated items? Well, lately, I’ve been very into scooping up a pint of marinated artichokes along with a few glugs of the marinade itself. That way, when I’m home, I just combine the whole thing with some lettuce or a steamed vegetable (plus maybe crumbled cheese) and call it a salad. No dressing required. Above, I tossed the artichokes with green beans and feta. A few days later, I combined the marinated artichokes with a can of white beans, then added a little more red wine vinegar and oregano, let it sit all day in the refrigerator, then tossed with some arugula for an easy no-cook warm-night dinner. Just add bread…or pasta? (It’s too bad I’m so lazy about reels and Tiktok because I feel certain that dinner would go viral.) If you can’t find the artichokes, just use the Giardiniera — it’s the dressing cheat that is so oddly satisfying here, even though I am fully aware that there is, in fact, an entire aisle devoted to the concept of bottled pre-made salad dressings.

3. Charm cakes OR what to do with extra egg whites!

Last month, I was thrilled to speak with my old friend Elizabeth Mayhew, aka The Dutchy, for a Q&A assignment. We worked together at Real Simple and she is the one behind the banana bread that gets more ink on Dinner: A Love Story than either of my children do. Well, Elizabeth is still baking (as she told me in the interview: “That’s what I do. If you invite me to a dinner, you do not ask me to bring wine or cheese. You say, please bring a dessert. Everybody just knows that.”), but you might say she’s leveled up a bit since the one-pan banana bread days. She now runs a bakery in Millbrook, NY, specializing in what she calls Charm Cakes — think charm bracelets, but crafted with flour, sugar, icing and French buttercream. I love these cakes because the details are so incredibly personal and random (see above: McDonalds fries, Advil, Saratoga?!) so naturally I find myself wondering about the person being feted…and also daydreaming about which of my random enthusiams would define me…if one can be defined in French buttercream.

And speaking of that French buttercream — it is famously temperamental and calls for a large amount of egg yolks (so the bakers tell me!) which means at all times Elizabeth has a surplus of egg whites in her Millbrook refrigerator. That, she told me, is how she ended up perfecting her egg white frittata. Here's her recipe. P.S. Thanks for the assignment, Tom!

P.S. Mother’s Day!

I know that you love your Weekday Vegetarians, she says shamelessly, so maybe the mother-figure in your life will, too? (Or maybe you need to strategically forward this email to someone who loves you with the note: “Hint!”)

Pick up a copy anywhere books are sold. Thanks, as always, for your support. This operation would be impossible with you.

xo

Jenny