This time of year, I go to the farmers market with a collapsible wagon, containers piled in one of its corners, waiting to be filled. Both help to transport the delicate produce: berries, peaches, tomatoes, and so on. I want to bring everything home intact, so we can enjoy it throughout the week. As one farmer said to me last week, “You’re really serious about it.”

I am. Partly because I love the embarrassment of riches summer farmers markets offer, partly because the stuff is not inexpensive, and partly because I have deep respect for the growers as farming is hard, back-breaking work. I don’t want the literal fruits of their labor to not get the respect they deserve.

Peaches and tomatoes are what I buy the most of. I simply can’t get enough of them. The former usually get eaten out of hand, standing over a sink, with juices dribbling down my arm. The latter finds its way into Caprese salads, BLTs, or tomato sandwiches. Often, we make gazpacho or this remarkable pasta.

But my all-time favorite way to eat tomatoes is to make pan con tomate, a simple Spanish tapa featuring olive-oil-fried bread that’s rubbed with garlic and topped with grated tomato. I prefer it to the traditional tomato sandwich or to its Italian cousin, bruschetta. A dish so simple and straightforward hardly needs a recipe. Ideally you’d be using tomatoes that are on the brink of being too ripe, thus saving them from an undignified demise, but any good ripe tomato will do.

As August reaches its halfway point and I’m approaching some freelance work deadlines, this style of cooking—i.e. barely any—is the only kind that isn’t getting on my nerves. The finish line is in sight, but it’s a mixed bag, and I at once long for the projects’ completion and dread it.

With these are buttoned up, I’m hoping to take a brief pause. Focus on this newsletter more, share more recipes, which is what I truly love, and play around with a bunch of cookbooks. A break from freelance work is a double-edged sword: an opportunity to give my brain the space and time to become creative again, but, also, it’s a break in income, which feeds into the anxiety loop, which stands in the way of creativity.

On the rare days I work from home and I’m alone, this is lunch. It comes together quickly enough to feel like I’m doing something nice for myself but not losing momentum of the day. And it’s my favorite way to dispatch my tomato bounty.

Read more

Hello, and apologies for radio silence.

July surprised me with how intensely busy it got, with three freelance projects that have all but consumed me entirely. Mid-month we went on family trip—not a vacation!—that included a black-tie wedding, plus time with my parents and in-laws, and a tête-à-tête with my laptop wasn’t …

Read more

Well, friends, I have a brand-new grill. She’s basically a refashioned version of the grill I had before—with a more compact footprint. RIP, old grill, and welcome to the family, new grill. Should she have a name? Our refrigerator is named Elsa—get it?—and every time Avi hears it, he rolls his eyes, tween-style. In true GrillMom-style, I’d like him to have a similar reaction to this new appliance.

Here are some options for you to vote on—they are intentionally somewhat cringe—and if you think you’ve got something better, by all means, drop it in the comments.

Ironically, the new grill arrived just in time for it to get extremely hot in the DMV and in much of eastern US. As I write this, the thermostat tells me it’s 99°! but feels like 108°F. The last thing I want to be doing is standing in front of a 500°F grill outside. Which is ironic, considering this upcoming weekend is one of the most popular to cook over live fire.

🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

It’s weather like this that makes me want to eat ice pops, cubed watermelon straight from the fridge, cold silken tofu, cooling soba noodles, and chilled, crisp salads. I’d eat this delightful grilled corn with miso butter—another fabulous recipe from my friend Noah Galuten’s new cookbook “Grill Time!”—but someone will have to make it for me. (Can you tell I love corn with all my heart?)

I had mentioned last week that I was about to get really busy, and it’s been a whirlwind. On Monday, I’ve returned to the Post for a couple of months to backfill a role, and I get to work with some of my old team again. I’m delighted to see them, and it’s bittersweet to see former (current?) colleagues again. I’ve missed the team and I’ve missed my department writ large. But my happy feelings aren’t uncomplicated, and as I sift through them, I keep wondering if the layoffs had to happen the way they did and if they will help the organization on the whole. For my colleagues who are still there, I hope the answer is a resounding yes. I want them to succeed.

In any case, between that, two other recipe freelance projects, and this newsletter, it’s fair to say I’m slammed. Happily so, because I get to do what I love. But it’s exhausting and overwhelming to constantly have 4 running to-do lists. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that wanting something more permanent and secure would make me feel more at ease. It’s been hard to plan life these days, because I just never know what the future may hold.

Back to this corn, though. If you’re somewhere not affected by the heat dome, or are willing to scorching temps, please make this delightful corn that’s as easy to make as it’s delicious to eat.

Our little household of three fought over the extra cobs, so I recommend making a double batch. You don’t use all of the miso butter, so a smart move would be to portion it out into generous pats, wrap them tightly in plastic wrap, and freeze for up to 2 months. This way, next time you make this dish—and I guarantee you there will be a next time—all you’ll need to do is just prep the corn and you’re off to the races.

Wherever you are, I hope you have a very happy July 4!

Read more

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman in possession of a grill is likely to experience said grill’s death just when she needs it the most. Like testing recipes for a freelance project. Or wanting to highlight her friend’s new cookbook dedicated to gri…

Read more

[With apologies to all the 90s kids, this ear worm will haunt you all day, if not longer.]

Friends, it’s officially summer, both meteorologically and otherwise, and chances are it’s pretty hot out where you live. My platonic ideal of living my best summer life includes eating a lot of corn on the cob and watermelon, tomato sandwiches and salads, and peaches standing over a sink while their juices dribble down my arm.

I also take aperitivo hour very seriously this time of year. I want low-ABV, bubbles, an elegant garnish, and something to simple to put together, I’m guaranteed to have it stocked in my bar. Nothing more than 3 ingredients, please.

Enter, spritzes. The Washington Post Spirits columnist M. Carrie Allan, wrote on them last year…

“According to ‘Spritz: Italy’s Most Iconic Aperitivo Cocktail, With Recipes,’ by Talia Baiocchi and Leslie Pariseau, the spritz may have originated in northern Italy in the 19th century, where occupying Austrians from the Habsburg empire ‘spritzed’ (German for ‘spray’) the local wines with water to dilute them or cover their perceived lower quality. But, the authors argue, the spritz didn’t really become a spritz until that water got bubbly. Soda water, they write, was available in Italy by the end of the 19th century, with siphons appearing in drink ads in the early 20th, but ‘it only started to become a widespread fixture in bars about a decade and a half into the twentieth century.’”

Of the many spritzes that exist, Aperol Spritz might be the most well known, and thus popular. But to be honest, I’ve never much cared for it. Sure, I’ve consumed plenty of them if I’m offered one on a sweltering day, I’m not going to refuse. But it’s not a drink I crave or make or even order. Instead, I reach for its two paler cousins: the Hugo Spritz and the Lillet Spritz. (Clearly, I’m not the only one, as the New York Times just wrote about the former.)

Read more

In another life, I could see myself as a nerdy beauty journalist. I can spend hours at a Sephora floating from gondola to gondola, trying on products and checking out new releases. I love to geek out over ingredients, production processes, chemistry fun-facts—and I revel in the artistry of it all. And yet given the opportunity, I can’t even be bothered to apply eye shadow. In my everyday routine, I am incredibly lazy.

But because I also like to appear as if I regularly drink 8 glasses of water a day and get a solid 8 hours of shuteye each night, I rely on a little make-up to work its magic. I know that the trendy so-called “clean girl aesthetic” is all about skin-forward looks, but it’s been my default approach since my early 20s, more out of laziness than anything else. Now, comfortably in my late 40s, I can’t just splash water on my face and call it a day, like I did when I was a young adult. I like (and need) a little bit of the beautification ritual, if only because it makes me feel better.

Here are my go-to 5 daily products—one at just $5!—which take 2 minutes to throw on. (Yes, I’ve timed myself.) This is, of course, post moisturizer and sunscreen.

• L’Oreal Lummi Glotion — This stuff is magical and very decently priced. I’ve heard it described as filter in a bottle, and I’d say it’s pretty accurate. It’s very subtly glowy and makes you look healthy and awake. I wear shade medium. ($17.99 but it’s often on sale)

• Kosas Air Brow in Taupe — Tames my wild eyebrows and gives them a little thickness and very subtle color, which fills in the gaps in between the eyebrow hairs. I prefer it to Boy Brow and other brands. ($26.00)

  ---

  [3 more products are behind the paywall. subscribe, above, to see them or try this newsletter FREE for 7 days.]

Read more

I know what you’re thinking: Corn Milk Iced Coffee? Has she completely lost her mind?!? But wait, come back! Don’t go just yet! At least hear me out and let me plead my case.

As I write this, the temperature outside is 93°F, but my trusty CNN Weather app1 tells me that it feels like 102°F, with humidity at 96%…

Read more

We’re in the home stretch for the school year, and as my brain increasingly thinks about camps, drop-off and pick-up logistics, and whatnot, I’ve become forgetful about Avi’s school lunch essentials. He prefers a from-home lunch, and sometimes leftovers don’t quite translate into a desirable lunch the following day. On such days, we tend to rely on sandwiches—usually turkey or ham—with crisp lettuce, juicy (or as juicy as the season allows) tomato, and a slick of mayo.

For the umpteenth day in this Maycember stretch, I’ve forgotten to get the aforementioned sandwich accoutrements, so I resorted to the next best thing—baffling Avi with bullshit. Or, in this case, hyping up an option that was easily accessible to me—chicken salad.

Yesterday, for a freelance project I’m working on, I got to test a recipe that used a rotisserie chicken. There was some leftover meat, and I tucked it in the fridge, hoping to sell my son on the “wonder”—those air quotes are doing a lot of heavy lifting here—that is my chicken salad.

Mystifyingly, chicken salad tends to be forgettable and bland. It’s a good idea in theory, and one that sounds nutritionally sound: a meal that’s protein-rich and relatively healthy, and one that uses up leftover chicken meat, seems terrific on paper. But then you take a bit of said salad, and you regret at least that one decision of the day… Maybe it’s just me, but I think that chicken salad can be so much more than… meh. Also, when was the last time you were all, “I had the most incredible chicken salad that one time…”?

Exactly.

I started making a version of this when I was still working in finance and living a carefree life as a single adult in New York. I’d get home after a long day at the office—and a seemingly longer session at the gym—ravenous and without any desire to spend much effort in the kitchen. But I’d often have leftover chicken from a rotisserie bird or one I had cooked the night before. So I started making a salad with what I had on hand, and liked it so much, I codified the ingredients.

My requirements were simple: I wanted this dish to be light, bright, crunchy, and flavorful. And I wanted the chicken to share the stage with complementary ingredients, such as apple, onion, pickle, celery, maybe some nuts thrown in for good measure (and added protein). I wanted the dressing to be delicious enough to want to eat with a spoon, so I made a slurry of Greek yogurt, a little mayo and olive oil, some Dijon mustard, and salt and pepper. Sometimes, I added a squeeze of lemon.

Best of all, it always took me no more than 10 minutes to throw together. Most of the time, I eyeballed everything, but after friends started asking me for a recipe I decided to write it all down. However, a formal recipe doesn’t mean you have to stick to the script: Use the ingredients you have on hand, and play with the proportions. Everyone’s tastebuds are different, and your fridge essentials aren’t necessarily the same as mine. I provide a few flavor options/directions in which you can take it…

I’d love to know what you do with this, should you make it, so please drop me a line in the comments, and let me know what chicken salad adventure you decided to undertake.

Read more

As someone who struggles with anxiety and takes medication for it, I’ve tried to be open about it in hopes that it helps move the mental health conversation forward. My dream is that one day, talking about anxiety and depression can be as normalized as mentioning having a cold or a toothache. We’ve made so much progress over the years, but we’re not quite there yet. (I feel this way about postpartum depression, miscarriage, and menopause—talking about it breaks down walls and makes people feel less alone.)

In our household of 3, we’ve been open about discussion mental health for as long as I can remember. We’ve given words to certain feelings, so that when our kid is feeling sad or anxious or unsettled, he can describe the feeling and we can talk about it. (And yes, of course, we’re huge proponents of therapy, too.)

Having precise language to attach to feelings—and talking about these feelings—is empowering. But right around bedtime, when Avi’s anxiety becomes a bit too unruly for him to manage on his own, we’ve started doing this kind of funny thing, and it’s totally helped him relax and even has made him laugh.

We sing. But there’s a twist.

Read more

We spent this Memorial Day weekend hiding out at home, eating unseasonably cozy meals: soups, stews, hearty pasta dishes, giant mugs of hot tea. The unofficial start to summer—usually filled with cookouts, get-togethers, and pool parties—had a decidedly autumnal feel thanks to almost a week of heavy rain, chilly temperatures, and heavy, overcast skies. Even Latke refused her regular walks, venturing outside only when desperate. She’d return a few minutes later with a look of resolute disappointment, patiently standing in the doorway while I dried her off.

Being cooped up indoors made us irritable and sluggish. And while exercise always makes me feel better, I couldn’t compel myself to do it until Monday afternoon. Its effects were near-instant: I felt so much better in my head and body. Endorphins! They really work!

What I most definitely didn’t do this past weekend—and what I really wanted to do—is grill.1 And because all the cookouts got postponed, I also didn’t do the kind of cooking that goes with feeding a crowd. The rhubarb galette below, which I made a couple of weeks ago for our friends’ Shabbat dinner, would’ve been perfect. In fact, bringing this galette to anyone’s home—save, maybe for vegans or those observing Passover—will elicit nothing but awe and gratitude. It’s an instant crowd-please and an immensely easy way to make new friends.

My “Hot Sheet” partner-in-crime, Sanaë, and I developed this recipe for the book, and it’s one I make again and again. It never fails to please, and its looks are at once rustic and elevated. It also gives rhubarb a moment in the spotlight, without having to share it with strawberries. I’m not knocking the beloved combination of strawberries and rhubarb—it’s a classic for a reason—but rhubarb is delicious enough to play a leading role, without having to be upstaged by another ingredient. Here, the nutty sweetness of frangipane balances out—and maybe even highlights—the rhubarb’s tart notes.

I always keep pâte brisée in my freezer. I make a large batch from time to time, divide into individual disks, wrap them well, and freeze them until I need them. They take about a full day to defrost in the fridge, which makes pie- and galette-making a very straightforward process: All you have to do is prep the fruit/filling, and you’re ready to bake.

The beauty of galettes over pies, is their rustic appearance is a great way to try your hand with this kind of dough. If you roll out an amoeba instead of a perfect circle, arrange your fruit in a haphazard way, and crimp or fold the pastry edges like a 5-year-old let loose at a Play-Doh station, a galette will hide those imperfections and, in fact, look that much more appealing in the end.

Also, because the rhubarb season is fleeting, I like to buy a lot of it, trim the stalks and cut them into 2-inch pieces, then freeze in individual zip-top bags. If you choose to do this, don’t defrost the rhubarb first: It will exude quite a bit of liquid and turn mushy in the refrigerator. Best to use it frozen and add a few more minutes to the bake time.

Read more

Consider this your annual reminder to not overthink meals in general but especially this time of year, a period that’s known to those of us with school-aged children as “Maycember”1 when the overwhelm of afterschool activities—sports, theatre, and other extra-curricular events—is in overdrive. Dinner prep needs to be…

Read more

Greetings from my kid’s bed, where I’m currently typing this newsletter while he’s is being felled by the spring virus that’s going around his school. (And I suspect elsewhere, too.) We are separated by a canyon of stuffies, squishy dumplings and Needohs, and rumpled up blankets.

At the moment, Avi is watching YouTube shorts, and I’m trying to write about these soba noodles, which is what I’m craving at the moment, amidst this heatwave. “Trying” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here: Ever attempted writing with a nonstop stream of short video voiceovers?1

Yesterday, the DMV area hit 95 degrees, and these noodles would’ve made an ideal meal for dinner. Instead, however, per the patient request, I made chicken soup. Hot. Chicken. Soup. Talk about dinner counter-programming.

Any decent soup that’s broth-forward needs a quality broth. So homemade broth—using several pounds of chicken wings, a few backs and necks I had stashed in the freezer, and aromatics (carrots, celery, onion, unpeeled garlic cloves, parsley, peppercorns and a bay leaf)—was step one. After several hours of simmering, the broth—clear, golden, and glistening with small flecks of chicken fat—was ready. To give the broth deeper flavor, I stirred in a little bit of Knorr bouillon powder, and boy did it deliver! Loads of umami and savoriness—like I simmered that broth for a whole day instead of just a few hours. And while my heart yearned for the cool crunch of a soba noodle salad, the soup managed to hit the spot for all of us.

Anyway, it’s just as hot out today (and tomorrow) where we are—as well as for a good chunk of the country—and these noodles would be perfect for dinner. The recipe is from a cookbook I reach for a lot, “Make It Japanese”, by content creator Rie McClenny and my friend and “Hot Sheet” co-author, Sanaë Lemoine. I plan to make a version of these noodles on repeat all summer long, especially during the particularly hot and humid stretches.

The recipe is simple and straightforward: You make the dressing and chop the vegetables while you wait for a pot of water to come to a boil. Then, you cook and chill the noodles, and toss them with the dressing. The noodles are then topped with baby spring greens, cucumbers and radishes, and cilantro and sesame seeds. That’s it. That’s the dish. It’s that simple.

And if you don’t have all the exact ingredients, or want a slightly different flavor profile, there’s plenty of room for improvisation. If you feel the need to bulk up the dish, you can add some cooked edamame or peas, or toss in leftover rotisserie chicken or tofu. You can add a handful of cilantro to the dressing to give it that green-goddess sex appeal. You can swap out tahini for a nut or seed butter of your choosing (cashew would be excellent here), or blend in a hot chile into the dressing for a touch of heat.

And with that, I’m going to return to playing mom/nurse/personal chef. Stay cool and hydrated out there, everyone!

Need a recommendation? Check out my ShopMy page for my favorite things: kitchen tools, ingredients, office supplies, and even skincare and clothing items. These are things I use and genuinely love.

Read more

I could’ve sworn I’ve written about my daily morning smoothie I’ve been making for a few years now, but I can’t find the post anywhere, so forgive me if this is repetitive.

This smoothie is the result of a morning conundrum: I’m not—and I’ve never been—a breakfast person. While many of my friends wake up craving a big breakfast, I just make a beeline for my coffee maker for a latte. In fact, I don’t get hungry until about 10:30 a.m., but when I do, I’m so famished I wind up eating lunch around 11. Then, for the rest of the day, no matter what or how much I eat, I don’t feel fully satiated.

Maybe breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

But while that morning repast may never hold much appeal, eat it I must, and a filling meal-replacement smoothie has been the ideal answer.

Not all smoothies are created equal, and it’s taken me a couple decades to understand why most of the ones I’d had in the past were not especially filling despite their healthful bona-fides. In addition to taste, a filling smoothie must have ample protein and fiber for delicious, satisfying, and nourishing results. The ones I was used to were mostly sugar, albeit in the form of fruit. Tasty, yes, but not winning any blue ribbons on the nutrition front.

There’s been ample research on aging women and protein and lifting, and for a number of years now, I’ve been trying to get about ~115g of protein daily. It helps me to lift heavier and recover faster. I like to feel better in my body, as it’s the only one I’ve got! And a morning meal—in my case, a smoothie—that can show up strong on the nutrition front is a way to set myself up for success for the rest of the day.

What originally started out as an Ellie Krieger smoothie, has become my own supercharged version, with nearly 50g of protein and 12g of fiber. (FWIW, women are advised to get at least 25g fiber daily, and most don’t come close.) But lest you think it tastes like chalk, I’ve got news for you: It’s absolutely bonkers delicious.

Don’t believe me? Here are the ingredients: protein-rich Greek yogurt, cashews, and protein powder; a blend of chia seeds, ground flax seeds, and hulled hemp seeds (aka hemp hearts) for protein, fiber, and omegas; and frozen berries for more fiber. And despite having one daily for years now, I still look forward to having it every morning—it’s that good.

Note: The smoothie is rather large—about 30 fluid ounces—and I sip throughout the morning out of an insulated tumbler so that everything stays nicely frosty and delicious. And for because weekday mornings in my house are especially rushed, I prep individual portions of the dry ingredients—protein powder, cashews, and the fiber-omega mix—on Sundays, so all I have to do Monday-Friday is dump those into the blender, along with a few refrigerated/frozen ingredients.

I may never become a breakfast person, and with this smoothie, I don’t have to.

Read more

I hope this Monday is treating you well, and the week is off to a decent start. It’s cool and rainy here in the DMV area—a stark contrast from the weekend weather. I’m continuing to dream of soup and sweaters, two things that don’t usually trend in May for me. Once again, I’ve accumulated a few things that have brought me joy, and I hope that they might do the same for you as well. Most of these are great budget finds, while a couple are a bit more splurgy. Depending on how often I am finding worthwhile links, this may become a regular feature.

• Trader Joe’s Morning Buns — I’ve been shouting about these from the rooftops for about 2 months now. These buns have absolutely zero business being as good as they are for a store-bought pastry—and yet, here we are. Pro tip: After baking off the buns, let them cool completely before eating, so the sugary layer that pools at the bottom has a chance to harden into a caramelized crust.

• Spring & Mulberry Sea Salt Date-Sweetened Chocolate — This new-to-me brand reached out with an offer to sample these, and I was intrigued with this no-refined-sugar-used chocolate. I regularly use dates to add subtle, healthful sweetness to various dishes, but I wasn’t sure how it’d play out with chocolate bars. I’m pleased to report that not only is the chocolate delicious, it also won over my husband and a persnickety 11-year-old who said it’s as good—if not better—than most bars he’s had. Will absolutely use my own money to purchase this brand and try other flavors.

• Anyone else excited for this? Kate Blanchett will play Martha Stewart in a biopic!

• Poplin striped pajamas — My sweet MIL got me a set of these striped pj’s with piping and a monogram (!) as a thank-you for a family project Ihelped out with, and I’ve been wearing them nonstop. I may be collapsing into bed each night, but at least I’m doing so while looking super cute.

• A $5 dress I plan to live in all summer long.

Read more

As parents of an anxious kiddo who’s in his head a lot, my husband and I are constantly learning about things that can trigger his anxiety. We no longer immediately ask him any questions when he walks through the door. Instead, we let him tell us about his day when he’s ready—because he does. We also ha…

Read more

I turned 48 on Friday. It was, largely, a nonevent as I had been helping a good friend who is going through a difficult time. I told my family that we’d celebrate my birthday later when it was more appropriate. I still got lovely texts and emails from family and friends, plus flowers from my husband and a few others, and Avi wrote me what might be the birthday card to end all birthday cards. “Congratulations on being 48% on your way to 100,” he wrote cheekily, asking me in the post script if my back was hurting yet.

Thanks, kid. Just put me in my place.

So the weekend came and went: laundry, a trip to Costco, Avi’s improv class and Hebrew school, meals prepped and eaten, dog walks, and play dates. It wasn’t anything extraordinary, but it was enough. I had what I wanted and needed, and if there’s one thing I am more cognizant of as I get older it’s that what makes us truly happy is much more within us than we may realize. I have been—and remain— grateful for yet another trip around the sun. As my favorite fitness instructor likes to say, “Getting older is a privilege.”

It is, indeed. And I truly am grateful that I get to age! We love an aged wine or cheese or single-malt Scotch, so why not aging humans? I may not be an antique just yet, but I certainly have reached vintage status. And just as we value things that have seen the passing of time—have you seen the prices on mid-century modern credenzas as of late—shouldn’t we do so with ourselves? And what of the recipes that we’ve made over and over through the years? They, too, are treasures.

Over the weekend, sandwiched between all the to-do’s, I made a banana bread. Overripe bananas are a constant at our house: A few bananas always ripen faster than we can eat in time, and my solution has been to use them up in baking.

I’ve been making basically the same recipe for almost 30 years, based on one I originally dog-eared in my beloved copy of “The Martha Stewart Cookbook: Collected Recipes for Every Day”, one of the first cookbooks I bought for myself after I graduated from college. I still have the book, though not the original copy, which got lost years ago in one of my moves.

You might notice right away that my recipe is a bit different. For starters, there’s no chocolate or nuts in it. Instead, I like to offset the sweetness of bananas with tart cranberries, which can be found frozen year round or fresh when in season. Their perky pop lends brightness to an otherwise quiet loaf.

I also use a cup of whole-wheat flour in addition a cup of all-purpose, and while I’m not doing it for the nutritional aspect—I just like the heartiness and flavor of the bread with whole-wheat flour in it—that certainly doesn’t hurt.

I’m also a sucker for a nice, crackly crust, so a sprinkle of demerara sugar inside the pan and on top of the loaf is non-negotiable. If you feel it’s way too much added sugar, by all means skip it, but it does add a pleasant textural variety.

Since the first time I’ve made the original recipe, I’ve made so many changes that it’s become my own. It should go without saying, but a nearly-30-year-old recipe is one that’s worth making. I’ve lost count of how often friends and family have asked me for to share it. And today, to celebrate my very anticlimactic age of 48, I’m sharing the recipe with paying subscribers. (If you really want it and aren’t a paying subscriber and can’t afford the monthly or annual rate, I believe Substack lets you join for free for 7 days.)

So go ahead and make the recipe exactly as written. Then change anything and everything you want. Make it your own. Give it a personal spin.

Or change nothing. Whatever version you end up with—whether it’s identical to the one below, or something completely different—I hope it’s one you keep for many years, maybe as long as 30, or maybe for even longer.

Read more

I’ve started this newsletter half a dozen times, deleted what I’ve written, and started again while trying to find a sexy hook to get you to read about bran muffins.

But here’s the truth: You can’t make a bran muffin sexy. It’s, as Harry Burns says, “the name”. Not even if you shout at the top of your lungs, “BUT IT’S DELICIOUS!” because at the the end of the day, a bran muffin just sounds boring. It’s the baking equivalent of an obedient child who always does their homework ahead of its due date, keeps their room fastidiously tidy, and is never up past bedtime. You see what I mean, right?

I’ve always wanted to love the idea of a bran muffin, but my prior experiences with it—and I’ve had many—ended in disappointment. A bran muffin sounds like it’s good for you, but either tastes disappointing but with good nutritional numbers, or it tastes decent and is loaded with added sugar, which render it it anything but healthy. For what it’s worth, I don’t think that all foods should be packed with nutrition, nor are foods good or bad. But I’ve long wanted to crack the code on a muffin that stakes its entire reputation on healthfulness.

And because I’m officially in my insufferable middle-age era—starting my mornings with creatine and essential EAs, prioritizing sleep, passing on a glass of wine at dinner because I have a 5 a.m. wake-up to strength train, and tracking protein and fiber—I figured if not now, then when? If you had told me 20 years ago, that this, on the cusp of turning 48, would be my life, I would’ve laughed. But because I’m a menopausal woman with recently-diagnosed osteopenia1, I have to think about these things now. Like, a lot.

Anyway, there’s been a flurry of bran muffin content recently—both Sohla and NYT (🎁 link) wrote about them—and so I played around with both recipes, borrowing elements from both, but settling on my own preferred formula. I wanted to boost fiber and protein as much as possible without sacrificing taste or including protein powder. I also wanted to avoid refined sugar but offer a gentle sweetness that didn’t make the muffin taste like a health food; and end up with a texture that was a pleasure to eat. I wanted a muffin that tasted like it was good for you, but was also truly delicious!

Several tests after—some of which went straight into the compost bin—I’ve arrived at my desired formula, and I hope you love them as much as I do. My sister-in-law texted me about the version I settled on, “Muffin 3.0 is ITTTT.” (She got to taste the three versions I deemed suitable for human consumption.)

What’s in them, you might wonder? Well, there’s whole-wheat flour, wheat bran, chia seeds, dates, and shredded apple, which contribute fiber; Greek yogurt and egg to add protein to the bran and chia; a touch of maple syrup, dates and applesauce to bring gentle sweetness and moisture; and heart-healthy fats from olive oil. They use just two bowls, and come together quickly— and even faster, if you skip measuring spoons/cups and use a scale. And while I don’t think of them as breakfast—I try to get at least 30 grams of protein with every meal—they make for a delightful afternoon snack with a cup of buckwheat tea. (For those of you who want the nutritional breakout, it’s at the bottom of the recipe.)

If you make them, I want to hear what you think!

Read more

In today’s lessons in humility, I owe mayonnaise an apology.

When I was much younger—I’m old enough when I can add “much” and not be disingenuous about it—no ingredient evoked as much derision from me as mayonnaise. In the Soviet cooking of my childhood and teens, it appeared in many dishes—and in absolutely obscene amounts.

Mayonnaise is an emulsion, a mixture of two types of liquid that typically don’t mix, a water-based liquid (egg yolk and lemon juice/vinegar)—and an oil. Like two distinct high-school groups that don’t mix, say, jocks and nerds, each liquid clings to its own kind until an emulsifier—in this case lecithin from the egg yolk—forces them to co-mingle and thicken.

Mayonnaise was introduced to imperialist Russian cuisine at the turn of the 20th century, and became an indispensable food staple during the Soviet times. In the 1970s, when food shortages became commonplace, widely-available mayonnaise assumed many roles, including a salad dressing, as a coating for roasted proteins, such as myaso po franzuszki (meat, French-style)—masking lower-quality ingredients, and more.

For most of my culinary life, I avoided cooking with mayonnaise. But, the joke’s on me: As I now realize, I’ve been missing out on this underrated ingredient. An emulsion of oil, egg yolks, and an acid, such as lemon juice, mayonnaise, as my former colleague Becky Krystal wrote a few years ago, can do many things, including helping to carry flavorings without them burning. It’s key to making an exceptional grilled cheese sandwich, in the skillet or the air fryer; or as a coating for chicken, carrying flavor and helping the chicken brown but not burn.

Last year, Bold Fork Books, a wonderful cookbook store in D.C. invited me to chat with food writer Polina Chesnakova about her latest cookbook, “Chesnok”. The book’s title—which means “garlic” in Russian and is a play on Chesnakova’s last name—is a soulful ode to the dishes of her childhood, as well as her cultural and ethnic heritage: Russian, Armenian, Georgian, Uzbek, and Azerbaijani, to name a few. Polina’s wealth and depth of cross-cultural Soviet and now post-Soviet experience address complex issues of Soviet cultural appropriation with sensitivity and honesty, and the result is a cookbook that goes far beyond recipes. Though it was our first time meeting, it felt as if I was chatting with an old friend, linked by a sense of place and shared experiences.

Of the many recipes I marked, the one I wound up making first was a spatchcocked chicken, roasted in a marinade of mayonnaise, adjika1, and other aromatics. (Of course, the lady who always looked down upon mayonnaise had fallen for a recipe where this ingredient played an starring role.)

“This is my family’s go-to roasted chicken recipe,” Polina told me last week. “The mayo doesn’t just keep the chicken tender, it helps flavor the meat.” She’s been making this version, which she learned from her mom, for years now, but with a small but impactful addition: honey. “I like how it adds depth to the marinade and rounds out the savory flavors,” she said.

I agree: The honey, subtle but meaningful, is non-negotiable. Not only does it provide a balancing sweetness, but it also aids with caramelization, and results in a chicken that’s a breathtaking shade of mahogany.

I made versions of this recipe in rapid succession: with a spatchcocked chicken, with chicken parts, using adjika as well as a mild harissa as a sub, and seeing how a longer marinating time affects the result. (Try to marinate the bird for at least 4 hours for the ultimate oomph.) Recently, I served one of these versions to friends who came over for dinner, and they couldn’t stop raving about how good the it was. Up next, trying this chicken on the grill whenever the weather finally warms reliably.2 I bet it’ll be just terrific.

Read more

Last Friday afternoon, I found myself jittery and distracted. I couldn’t focus and I was staring at the computer screen without much to show for it. My head felt foggy, as if the words I typically use in a day were marbles in a jar, and someone shook it and spilled these marbles everywhere. Perhaps because the Post SI…

Read more

I don’t have a whole lot for you today. I’ve been cooking a lot, but nothing worth writing about. I need to test a few recipes in the near future, and I hope that they’ll pass the bar and make a delicious addition to your cooking repertoire. In the meantime, the news cycle is relentless and we all deserve something n…

Read more