Three Things

Heat wave dinners, a potato salad beauty contest, overnight French toast

Good morning eaters and readers! Hope you had a nice weekend filled with seconds and thirds of overnight French toast. We took a day trip to beautiful Fire Island — our first time ever, even though it’s only a little over an hour (+ ferry) from the city — and we’re already plotting our return. In book news: I’m listening to Being Mortal on Audible and reading the new George Saunders story collection, Liberation Day, coming out in the fall. If you’re a writer (or an aspiring writer), his newsletter, Story Club, is like being enrolled in the world’s greatest MFA program…for free. Take this one minuscule example, about what the point of a short story is:

So, with a good story, we feel, in the boldness of its selectivity, that it is not beholden to “what really happened” at all.  It is on a different hunt.  It is about, say: “that which is always happening, but which we might not normally notice.”

OK, who’s hungry? Let’s get to your Three Things…

1. Heat Wave Dinners

Here in New York, it’s going to be a scorcher today and all week, which means dinners will fall under the umbrella of Operation Zero Dark Oven. I just hard-boiled a bunch of eggs and plan to toss them into a Nicoise-ish type salad if I think I can handle cooking potatoes later in the day. I was also eyeballing the black bean-avocado salad in Dinner: A Love Story this morning: 2 cans of black beans (drained) tossed with tomatoes, avocado, scallions, jalapeño, cilantro, and a lime-forward dressing. (It’s on page 143 for those of you who own the book, but you don’t really need a recipe; my advice its to combine everything a few hours ahead of time so the beans soak up the dressing and lose that hint o’ tin-can) There’s always the smooth, Seville-style Gazpacho if you think your tomatoes are ready for prime time; and for those of you who are brave enough to light up a grill, respect (!) and how about taking this five-ingredient chicken tapenade number outside? Lastly, there’s this simply summery salad I made last week, which only calls for your stovetop burner to be on for 5 or 6 minutes, just to fire up the halloumi. The dressing is something you’ll want to have on hand for the rest of the summer.

Summer Salad with Halloumi and Avocado-Basil Dressing
To make it dinner: Serve with crusty bread and a bean salad or both.

12 ounces halloumi, sliced into 1/2-inch thick batons as shown
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 bunch Bibb or gem lettuce
tomatoes (any kind) enough to yield about 2 cups chopped
kernels from 2 ears corn (no need to cook)
3 tablespoons minced red onion or scallions
handful chopped fresh herbs (basil, cilantro, dill, chives, parsley)
Avocado-Basil Dressing (below)

In a cast-iron or nonstick skillet, fry halloumi slices in olive oil over medium heat, flipping until it’s golden brown as shown, 5 or 6 minutes total. Set aside to cool. In a large salad bowl, toss lettuce, tomatoes, corn, onions, herbs, and most of the dressing. Place the halloumi on top and drizzle remaining dressing all over.

Avocado-Basil Dressing (from The Weekday Vegetarians)
In a small food processor or blender, combine 8 to 10 basil leaves, 1 small avocado (peeled and pitted), 2 tablespoons white wine vinegar, 1/3 cup olive oil, salt, pepper, and 2 tablespoons water. Blend until creamy and smooth, about 30 seconds. If it’s too thick, add more water, a teaspoon at a time, until the dressing reaches drizzling consistency.

2. File under “Things I am Embarrassed to Say I Learned Way Too Late in Life”

If you want to quickly chill a room temperature bottle of wine (or Pellegrino or champagne or beer or seltzer or whatever!), it’s much more efficient to plunge the bottle into a bowl of ice water instead of just plain ice. That goes for coolers too. You’re welcome!

[Speaking of cold drinks on hot nights: I’m not really a beer drinker, but I’ve been into this local Juicier Bomb Double IPA. It’s fruity and tangy and hazy and light — but not so light that I drink it too fast. Also, those beer-can shaped glasses are still my favorite thing! I’m drinking my iced coffee from one as I type.]

3. A Potato Salad Beauty Contest!

Sometimes I think it’s a miracle that I’ve kept the whole cookbook and blog thing going for this long, because honestly it can feel like I’m making the same dishes every single night. This is especially true in the summer in the potato salad department. I suspect many readers out there will be rolling their eyes at what will now be my thirteen hundredth mention of Double Mustard Potato Salad, but what can I say: A keeper is a keeper. In any event, as I plan a menu for friends coming over this weekend (and to make sure I’m not boring you all to death) I went in search of other options, scanning my cookbooks and polling friends on instagram. Here’s the narrowed-down list of contenders: Kenji’s grilled potato salad from Serious Eats; Monifa Dayo’s Best Ever Potato Salad from Black Food; Alison Roman’s Brown Butter Potato Salad (above) showered in dill and studded with crispy capers; Catherine Newman suggested her go-to Potato Salad with Chipotle-Lime Vinaigrette from “one of the Greens cookbooks;” My Sliced Potato Salad with Mint and Fava Beans (you’ll have to scroll down for recipe); And finally, a Bengali take: Aloo Posto for poppy seed lovers. What do you think? Which one would you try first?

Stay cool, everyone and see you in a few days.

Jenny

P.S. Summer Travel Resource

Attn: Subscribers! In case you missed it, last week, Yolanda Edwards joined us for such a fun Summer Travel Hotline. Yolanda, who writes Yolo Intel, the #1 travel newsletter on Substack, gave her trademark thoughtful answers (in real time) to reader questions such as: Where are the best destination hotels in the Northeast? What’s the best way to find a fun affordable hotel at the last minute? Where do I even begin when planning a trip to Greece? Do you recommend all-inclusive resorts with kids? Do you have a favorite flea market in Rome? (She did!) Read all the questions and answers here.

Reminder that hotlines — where experts answer your questions in real time — are a recurring feature for paying subscribers. If you don’t want to miss the next one (or you want to catch up on the old ones), you can subscribe here:

Thanks as always for the support!

FYI for new readers: Every recipe you read about in this newsletter lives permanently in my searchable archive. Give it a scan and see what you find for dinner tonight.