Three Things

Protein-loaded vegetarian pastas, cheerful napkins, the cure for dread

Greetings eaters and readers! Hope you had a great weekend. We decided it had been way too long (like over a month) since we’d been to Superiority Burger, so headed down to the East Village for dinner there on Friday night, followed by a visit to Veniero’s, the 130-year-old Italian bakery on East 11th, for some eclairs and gelato. I realize how old this makes me sound, but since I moved back to New York a year ago, I find I have a whole new appreciation for these institutions, the places I can count on being exactly the same no matter how many years go by — The Oyster Bar, Keen’s, Cafe Luxembourg, Joe’s Pizza. If you’re visiting New York, make sure you’re adding these to your list along with the Tatianas and Sailors of the world, especially since you’re more likely to get a reservation. ✨ Reminder: You are cordially invited to attend a Weekday Vegetarians: Get Simple virtual event this Thursday, September 26, at 6:30pm ET, where I’ll be in conversation with the great Emily Nunn of The Department of Salad. (Register here, I’ll send out your Zoom link in the next day or two.) 🎉 Lastly, Happy Sally Rooney Day to all who celebrate! Her new novel, Intermezzo, according to the Times, is “a mature, sophisticated weeper” and, (how much do I love this?) “makes a lot of feelings begin to slide around in you.” You’ve been warned. And now, Three Things I’d like you to know about today…

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credit: Christine Han

1. How to Add Protein to Vegetarian Pasta Dishes

If I am to believe my email inbox and the comment section of this newsletter, one of the main obstacles to vegetarian eating seems to be the protein issue. As in, I just can’t get enough of it when I’m not eating meat and fish. I went deep on this topic a few weeks ago, but today I want to talk about how to sneak protein into vegetarian pasta dinners. To begin with, you can rethink the noodle itself — an example of this is my recipe for Mac & Cheese with Chopped Tomatoes, which swaps regular pasta with protein-packed chickpea pasta — I like Banza brand. (Plus, chickpea pasta is gluten-free, if that’s your thing.) You can also tinker with the sauce, like in my recipe for Orecchiette with Tomato-Bean Summer Sauce (Weekday Vegetarians: Get Simple, page 161), when I whirled white beans with the tomatoes for the extra protein hit. Or, you can do what Lukas Volger did last week when he made Get Simple’s Creamy Artichoke Pasta with Capers (above). In Family Friend, a must-read newsletter for the plant-forward squad, he wrote: “I immediately thought that because of the artichoke sauce’s creamy, silky texture, that silken tofu would blend in beautifully, helping to give the dish a small protein boost, too. It does.” Head over there for the tweaked recipe. I’m definitely trying that move soon. P.S. I loved that Lukas called my crispy capers “vegetarian bacon bits.” Accurate!

2. My New Napkins

I was impressed by how quickly you all noticed my new napkins — or maybe you were just really tired of the blue gingham ones appearing in 99% of my newsletter photos? Either way! How cheerful are these madras linen numbers that I picked up in a small home goods store in the Berkshires about a month ago? The good news is that you don’t have to head to New England to secure them — they’re made by the Abbott Collection, which has all the where-to-find info. And as long as we’re talking table settings, The Strategist interviewed me about my ubiquitous rattan placemats, which was fun, but now I am coveting the other 19 they rounded up. (P.S. Regarding that dinner, yes! I’m squeezing every last panzanella out of what’s left of tomato season, even adding green beans to the mix. I can’t remember how I made the salmon, but you can bet it’s as simple as this one appears to be.)

3. The Cure for Dread (“It’s not complicated”)

My friend Rory sent me Sarah Miller’s “A Cure for Dread?” yesterday, Part 1000 of our seemingly years-long conversation about the dread I feel before I go running. Miller is hard to put in a box — she’s written some YA novels but is known mostly as an essayist — dare I say humorist, though I feel like she might hate that label — and always has a smart, wildcard take on a random topic. Here she is on, naturally, cold swimming and dread:

Outside of sounding like/being a fascist the worst way a writer can sound is annoying.  Cold water swimming articles are annoying and I regret contributing to the genre. They are too full of virtue and mental health. If you like swimming in cold water you should keep it to yourself.

But here I am breaking my rule, again. In truth I don’t understand why everyone isn’t swimming in cold water all the time. That’s all I’ll say.

I mentioned dread. It is hard to gear up to go into cold water and it’s not even that cold yet. I will be complaining more in the future, in the near future, but the good thing is the dread that you feel getting into the water goes away after you have completed the swim, and it takes all the other dread that you have inside of you with it. Not all of it, but a lot. Then it accumulates again and you swim again. It’s not necessarily easy, but it’s not complicated.

Heading out for my run now, have a great week! (Click here to subscribe to “The Real Sarah Miller.”)

xo,
Jenny

P.S. Notice anything different around here?

Fifteen years after launching Dinner: A Love Story with a scratchy “homespun” chalk-drawn logo, I’ve redesigned! See those dots and squiggles and that handsome new logo at the top of my newsletter? How fun is that? I wanted everything to stay homespun, but also feel a little more fresh and cohesive across my newsletter, books, website and social.

I wanted to express my gratitude to the amazing designer Diana Moss who oversaw the project, here and on the flagship website. I’ll most likely share a bit more about the process in a behind-the-scenes post down the road, including some details from Diana’s proposal, and those few seconds where I thought about making Bean the official logo of the operation (above). In the meantime, thank you, Diana! I hope everyone loves the new look as much as I do.

Order The Weekday Vegetarians: Get Simple

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🚨SIGNED BOOKS ALERT🚨 I’m using my daughter’s soccer schedule as an excuse to randomly drop into bookstores across New England to sign copies of TWV: Get Simple. As of today, September 24, there are a handful available at The Vermont Book Shop in Middlebury, VT and at The Odyssey Bookshop in South Hadley, MA (above). Tell them I sent you! 💚