All my helpful kitchen assistants evaporate shortly after meals have finished. Even Luke the wonder dog knows that the show is over, and there won’t be any more tasty tidbits falling from the cutting board. He has taken up his sentry post by the pantry door, waiting anxiously for his postprandial rawhide chewy. No loyalty.

Everyone deserts the hapless cook and the aprés dinner dish washing. But I am learning to fool those casual diners, by using fewer cooking pans. One of our favorite chicken dishes is what we call Chicken Schnitzel. Usually we flour the flattened chicken breast, dip it in egg, then slather it with Panko bread crumbs before putting frying the chicken in a skillet of hot oil. That means we usually employ three fancy Sur la Table metal pans for the flour, egg and bread crumbs, and the skillet. With this new recipe we eliminated a step or two, a couple of pans, and some calories, I hope!

This recipe eliminates the flour, and calls for a sheet of parchment paper lining a baking sheet. We are cooking the chicken in the oven, instead of frying. So no oil to dispose of, and no greasy pan to wash up afterwards. And no grease-splattered stovetop. Genius! https://www.cookinglight.com/recipes/sheet-pan-chicken-parmesan (I would suggest tossing everything on the cookie sheet at the same time, instead of in the suggested stages. By the time our chicken was ready, the garlic had self-immolated.) This was a great way to use up the last handful of garden cherry tomatoes, too. The chicken was hot and crispy, without the looming specter of fried food hanging over the meal and our clogging heart vessels.

You can use sheet pans for more than cookies or Sunday bacon. The single sheet pan mindset allows for relaxing breathing space, instead of the wizardry called for in simultaneously cooking and coordinating separate frying pans and saucepans. You can cook chicken, asparagus and potatoes on one sheet, and laugh your way through clean up. Plus you can sit down at the counter and read another chapter of Fleishman Is in Trouble instead of standing and stirring, and timing. Why, a glass of cheap white wine is an excellent idea for the frazzled cook! Pour away!

Chicken, Asparagus and Potatoes:
https://www.simplyrecipes.com/recipes/sheet_pan_chicken_with_asparagus_and_potatoes/

Food52 always has excellent ideas for sheet pan meals: https://food52.com/blog/23683-best-sheet-pan-dinner-recipes-chicken-eggs-vegetables

You can plan a whole week of sheet pan meals thanks to Epicurious: https://www.epicurious.com/recipes-menus/weekly-meal-plan-sheet-pan-dinners-back-to-school-article

And some more! Thanks, Damn Delicious! https://damndelicious.net/2017/04/29/10-sheet-pan-dinners/

What will you do with your new-found time?

“The best time to plan a book is while you’re doing the dishes.”
–Agatha Christie

School has started and our young are out of the house, learning and thriving and growing by leaps and bounds. They are ravenous and insatiable, devouring books, videos and after-school snacks like a cloud of locust. As a matter of fact, I’m feeling a little peckish right now, too.

Michale Pollen, the great and powerful, said if you are hungry, then eat an apple. If you don’t want to eat an apple, you are probably not actually hungry. That has become my new mantra. It works fine for me, because I have decades of guilt and insecurities, but it is not a popular theory with the young folks. They can be snappy and irritable after school, and would prefer something crunchy and sweet and salty – nothing so banal and clichéd (or available – look at that bowl full of fruit sitting on your counter!) as a simple apple.

We don’t want to load up or lard up before dinner, but sometimes a little taste treat is the answer to everyone’s general crankiness. And a moment spent lingering together in the kitchen, or chatting while driving to the next practice is the only quality conversation we will have some days.

Luckily, with the miracle of the internet, there are so many expert snacking tips floating around the ether – ideas coming from folks who understand the science of nutrition, who aren’t just trying to silence the shrieks of desperation from bored and cranky children. They have answers that fill our new re-usable silicon snack bags and adorable Bento boxes. (If we shouldn’t be using single use straws or shopping bags, should we actually be using plastic baggies? We are trying to wean ourselves off the soul-crushing dependence on plastic bags. That’s why the fridge looks so tidy these days.)

Food52, always our favorite place to start food and meal research, has lots of tasty aprés school snacks. They will also feed the self-employed, who wander into the kitchen at all hours, seeking sustenance and a short diversion from one’s own dull and repetitive thoughts. Here is a no-recipe recipe for a Chex-y snack mix. It will use up a lot of half bags of pretzels, and boxes of cereal. (It is also excellent when served with beer.) https://food52.com/blog/9403-how-to-make-snack-mix-without-a-recipe-savory-or-sweet

Martha has a simple recipe for oatmeal cookies, that you can prepare with the children. Or not. I always enjoyed baking with our children. There is nothing quite so wonderful as learning how to measure flour, and then getting it all over the kitchen – life as a science fair project. https://www.marthastewart.com/315977/healthy-oatmeal-cookies

Obviously, I am a salty fatty snack person. Which is why Luke the wonder dog and I walk for an hour every day, to atone for my fatty snack sins. But I have never understood why people buy microwave popcorn. You might just as well plunk $5 down for pre-popped corn. I love cooking popcorn on the stove, with oil and generous lashings of melted butter. But that is when we are having a tear-jerk movie marathon, not trying to fill the after school furnaces that need stoking. And so I pass along a very simple, and a healthy alternative to chemical laced commercial popcorn:
DIY Microwave Popcorn:
1/3 cup popcorn kernels
1 medium brown paper lunch bag
1 staple
Melted butter and salt or other seasonings to taste

Pour the popcorn kernels into the paper bag and fold the top over, and staple once, in the middle. No more staples or the microwave will explode!
Microwave on high until the popping slows, about 90 seconds. You do not want to burn the popcorn! Never!

Pour the popped popcorn into a large bowl and season as desired. Some people add seasoning salt, ranch dressing mix, cinnamon sugar, olive oil and sea salt, or sautéd garlic butter.

Smoothies – cool and refreshing, noisy and messy. If you are alone in the kitchen you can sneak in some kale! Something to appeal to everyone: https://www.verywellfit.com/how-to-make-a-basic-smoothie-2506858

And then there is always the basic peanut butter on whole wheat bread, or if you have exhausted every possible food avenue, eat an orange.

“Knock, knock!
Who’s there?
Banana.
Banana who?
Knock knock
Who’s there?
Banana.
Banana who?
Knock knock
Who’s there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you glad I didn’t say banana?”
– Some Dad, Somewhere

We are anticipating a little squall this week, and ask your indulgence as we repeat a Food Friday from last year.

It’s time for all the kiddos to go back to school. Everyone gets back into the comforting routine of an academic year, and the frightening reality of daily lunch obligations and responsibilities. Lunch is my favorite meal to have in a restaurant; I love a good turkey sandwich and please can I have some crispy, hot French fries? But that is my fantasy life – the one where I also live in a cozy little pied-à-terre in London, and get invited to paint watercolors with Prince Charles a couple of times a year. But I digress. Lunch.

Lunch can be a wonderful treat, or the slough of despair. You can take all sorts of time and imagination stuffing little bento boxes with cleverly crafted Where the Wild Things Are broccoli-based creatures, or you can assemble lunches using the items from Columns A through F. These are practical, nutritious and will make you life easier. Because then you can spend more time reading with your own Wild Things, and less time in the kitchen. Print this list and keep it handy whenever you troll the grocery store.

This is the time-honored Spy Test Kitchens Back to School Sandwich Ingredients List. Enjoy!

It is just as timely today:

Column A
Let’s start with bread:
Ciabatta bread
Rye bread
Whole grain breads
Hard rolls
Portuguese rolls
French baguette
Italian bread
Brioche
Flour tortillas
Croissants
Bagels
Challah bread
Crostini
Cornbread
Naan bread
Focaccia bread
Pita bread
(If storing overnight, top bread with lettuce first, then the spreads, to keep sandwich from getting soggy.)

Column B
Next, the spread:
Mayo
Sriracha
Ketchup
Dijon mustard
Honey mustard
Italian dressing
Russian dressing
Cranberry sauce
Pesto sauce
Hummus
Tapenade
Sour cream
Mango chutney
Butter
Hot sauce
Salsa

Column C
Cheeses:
Swiss cheese
American cheese
Mozzarella
Blue cheese
Cream cheese
Havarti cheese
Ricotta cheese
Cheddar cheese
Provolone cheese
Brie cheese
Cottage cheese
Goat cheese

Column D
The main ingredient:
Meatloaf
Turkey
Chicken
Corned beef
Bacon
Crumbled hard boiled eggs
Scrambled eggs
Corned beef
Salami
Italian sausage
Ham
Roast beef
Egg salad
Tuna salad
Ham salad
Crab salad
Chicken salad
Turkey salad
Lobster salad
Tofu

Column E
The decorative (and tasty) elements:
Tomatoes
Lettuce
Basil
Onion
Avocado
Cucumber
Cilantro
Shredded carrots
Jalapenos
Cole slaw
Sliced apples
Sliced red peppers
Arugula
Sprouts
Radicchio
Watercress
Sliced pears
Apricots
Pickles
Spinach
Artichoke hearts
Grapes
Strawberries
Figs

Column F
Finger foods:
Cherries
Carrots
Strawberries
Green Beans
Broccoli
Celery
Edemame
Granola
Rice cakes
Apples
Bananas
Oranges
Melon balls
Raisins
Broccoli

Be sure to check with your school about peanut policies.

Nobody will ever complain about lunch again if you can remember to jazz it up a little. My son, who lived for at least an entire year on (requested) white bread, bologna and yellow mustard sandwiches, is now a strapping 6 feet 4 inches tall. Imagine how far into the clouds he would stretch if we had thought to make him fig, goat cheese and caramelized onion sandwiches.

From the people who have time to recreate literary masterpieces: https://www.chron.com/living/article/TK-amazing-lunch-box-ideas-for-back-to-school-11947764.php#photo-10833935

And don’t forget dessert!

“A party without cake is just a meeting”
― Julia Child

Ah, the mixed feelings that arrive with Labor Day: regrets for not having gone to the beach often enough; relief that the sand-strewn car no longer needs to be vacuumed with regularity. Rueful that cooking is moving indoors; cheered that this will be the last can of mosquito repellent we use this year. Hasta la vista, homemade, hand-cranked-by-kid-power-ice cream; hello, sweet treats whipped up in the kitchen.

In theory, the summer has seasonal experiences that we can’t enjoy during the rest of the year. Oh, yes, we could go to the beach every day if we didn’t have middle-class concerns, like holding down jobs to pay the mortgage. And yes, the beach is a fine place to visit in the fall, with sweaters and scarves and a feeling of adventure. But nothing is quite so delightful as sitting in a low-slung beach chair, with your toes wriggling in the sand, as the tide creeps up the beach while the afternoon sun warms your soul, and you munch happily on a tuna sandwich, and you never remember to turn the page in your paperback.

Conversely, I am still hauling the little hand-held vacuum out to the car to suck up yet another drift of sand that has suddenly appeared from some hidden car crevasse from that trip to the beach two weeks ago. Thank goodness we emptied out the cooler. Two week-old tuna sandwiches would be toxic.

I love grilling on the back porch, as you know, because I do very little of it myself. I think Mr. Friday is an amazing grill master, and I encourage him to practice his talents often. Which isn’t to say he won’t rustle up a ceremonial steak or flip the odd burger in the winter months, but it is not a given. I like certainty. I like not having to clean the cooktop every night. During grilling season I like standing on the back porch while Mr. Friday flips and times and prods our dinners. We have a little wine, and hold our breath while the hummingbirds zoom into the twilight, changing places with the fireflies, who begin to sparkle. Which signals, alas, the arrival of the mosquito cloud. Even the swooping bats have made little impact on the damn mosquitoes this year.

Summer desserts are simple delights that you really can enjoy year ‘round. But homemade ice cream is best consumed before it is really finished, while it is still soft, and the sugar granules haven’t quite dissolved. It is always sweetest when the youngsters are cranking the ice cream maker. We have an electric ice cream maker that we have used once. It seemed like a good idea at the time – but strawberries and peaches bought in February are never as sweet as they are right now, overflowing at the farmers’ markets, luscious and ripe fruits in brilliant oranges, golds and reds.

I suggest we remember summer in other ways. A sweet coconut pie in October will cast our memory nets back to sun screen and lotions from the beach or pool. A delightful profiterole, dripping in chocolate and oozing vanilla ice cream in November will harken back to home-churned vanilla ice cream. And this lemon custard is summer sunshine in a bowl. Hello, fall!

This is a recipe from The New York Times.

No-Bake Lemon Custards
By Melissa Clark

INGREDIENTS
FOR THE CUSTARDS:
2 cups heavy cream
⅔ cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest (from 1 to 2 lemons)
Pinch of fine sea salt
⅓ cup fresh lemon juice (from 2 to 3 lemons)
FOR THE STRAWBERRY TOPPING:
1 cup sliced strawberries
1 to 2 teaspoons granulated sugar
Freshly ground black pepper, for serving
PREPARATION
In a medium saucepan, combine cream, sugar, lemon zest and salt over medium-high heat. Bring to simmer, stirring frequently to dissolve sugar. Simmer vigorously until mixture thickens slightly, about 4 to 5 minutes.
Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice. Let sit until mixture has cooled slightly and a skin forms on top, about 20 minutes.
Stir mixture, then strain through fine-mesh strainer (I used a cheesecloth) into a measuring cup with a spout; discard zest. Pour mixture evenly into six 6-ounce ramekins or small bowls.
Refrigerate, uncovered, until set, at least 3 hours.
As the custards chill, prepare the strawberry topping: Toss strawberries and sugar in a small mixing bowl. Let fruit macerate at room temperature for 30 minutes to 1 hour, until the sugar is dissolved.
To serve, top each lemon custard with some strawberry topping and grind black pepper on top.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1020258-no-bake-lemon-custards-with-strawberries?

Personal note: when I made this, I do not get 6 ramekins of custard. Instead, because the liquid reduces, I got 3 small bowls of custard. So do not attempt this recipe if you are serving a crowd. But it is a heavenly and light distillation of bright sunshine. Something to file away for a gloomy day in February, when you need a little hope.

“One must maintain a little bit of summer, even in the middle of winter.”
— Henry David Thoreau

I have always loved getting ready to go back to school. There is something so wonderful about shiny, new composition books, boxes of fragrant crayons, a fistful of sharpened Number 2 pencils, and setting up a three-ring binder with fresh dividers and crisp, clean sheets of college-ruled notebook paper. But then, eventually, there is the awful adult realization that one must provide appetizing, nutritious lunches on a daily basis. The romance is gone. Evaporated. Poof.

There are always new organizational systems to learn or adopt, and this is a good time of the year to try a few. You must have noticed when Marie Kondo swept through the country, causing everyone to pause and reconsider their piles of stuff. She managed to upend the American notion of acquisitiveness is a virtue, and forced us all to decide if we loved items or if we could live without. Thrift shops all over the country are staggering under the weight of all the unloved socks, sweaters, white button-down Oxford cloth shirts, and all those old National Geographic magazines.

Recently the Wall Street Journal ran a story about Marie Koodo-ing your refrigerator. Honestly. I read the story with a degree of amusement and detachment, because I have been out of the kid lunch business for a few years. I thought that these people were just too clever for their own good. But that was also before I was mopping out the fridge for the second time this month because the ice machine froze itself into a veritable cube of ice-encased gears and mechanisms. I was dumping out all the produce that was still packaged in its original plastic bags and green berry baskets, seething at the mess and the waste. There had to be a better way. Without being smug and obnoxious, though. I needed something truly helpful and realistic. And cheap. Always cheap. My white wine principles extend to the rest of my kitchen footprint.

I did a little research into fridge organization. I will not color coordinate the contents of our fridge. Who has that sort of time, anyway, particularly in these last gasping days of August heat? I will shun plastic as much as I can. I will recycle. And on the days that Mr. Friday wants to bring his lunch to work, he can take leftovers. (Back in the day, when I was in elementary school and walked home at lunchtime, my mother would rustle up a little leftover spaghetti for one of my favorite lunches. I can still remember that almost-burnt aroma as she shoveled it out of the aluminum pan onto my plate. The stuff of happy memories!)

There are some kitchen eager beavers who believe in labeling all the compartments in the refrigerator. This might be a helpful thing to do. Mr. Friday and I still can’t agree on which is the drawer for cheese, and which is the drawer for celery. Nicely lettered labels would end those lively discussions. And a drawer for leftovers would be a constant visual reminder that a dinner solution might be much closer than taking another trip to the grocery store.

I have a friend who has always been organized, logical and rational. Don’t we all? She has always been an advocate for spending a couple of hours on Sundays getting ready for the week. It is an amazing concept. She does a weekly shop, preps for some of the meals, makes lists for lunches and dinners, and cooks a gourmet Sunday dinner. I am amazed that she stays friends with me. I like a little danger in my life. I’ll buy some chicken breasts, some hamburger, a couple of bags of salad, a 12-pack of Diet Coke and figure that I am good to go.

Now that I have been reading up, I realize that she pioneered all of this Marie Kondo-ish planning ahead. She was even ahead of Food52. Food52 says to boil up an extra big batch of rice on Sunday, and freeze the leftover rice. Not only will you have rice on Thursday night to stretch some leftover chicken into something delectable, the rice grains will be light and fluffy, because rice loves being in the freezer. Wisdom.

When you walk in the house with big stalks of celery, a bag of carrots, bunches of broccoli, a fistful of radishes, a melon and a basket of blueberries – you should wash and cut up all of the veggies and fruits, and put them in airtight containers. (If you want to color coordinate and turn everything into a Pantone Color Dream, that is your business.) I have been saving some glass jars instead of tossing them into recycling – pickle jars, marmalade, jelly and prepared spaghetti sauce. I have also invested in a few tall Ball jars for the stalky items. (I found a good stash of stackable glass containers at the dollar store, too.) Now there will be clean, washed and perfectly proportioned fruits and vegetables just waiting to be tossed into a lunch bag or into the vegetable steamer come dinner time. They do look very attractive nestled in their glass jars; much more appealing than in the printed plastic bags (leaching petrochemicals!) in their assigned drawers. One gets a heady whiff of Marie Kondo approval when surveying one’s final results.

I read along the way that you should treat soft herbs as if they were cut flowers, so put the parsley, basil and thyme in jars of water. A little bit of greenery beautifies the refrigerator view, and you won’t find a moldy plastic container (or two) like I just did cleaning up the fridge.

Here are a few links to practical refrigerator rehab: How to Marie Kondo-ize Your Refrigerator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yYhvWi6FEo

https://www.systemsbysusie.com/single-post/2018/04/18/5-Tips-to-a-Squeaky-Clean-Fridge

https://www.thekitchn.com/refrigerator-freezer-organizing-hacks-268116

https://mydearirene.com/2018/06/19/the-one-rule-that-keeps-my-refrigerator-always-organized/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/yes-you-can-kondo-your-refrigerator-11565619983? Apologies – the WSJ paywall is usually pretty restrictive.

“As a cook I generally believe that you can tell a lot about people by what they keep in their refrigerators. What comforts them, what they need to have on hand to sustain them. Bon Appétit magazine publishes an interview with a different famous person each month, and often the interviewer will ask the celebrity to name three things that can always be found in his or her refrigerator. The answers are generally too finely crafted to be believable. “A bottle of Stoli, fresh raspberries, and beluga caviar,” or, “San Pellegrino, fresh figs, and key limes.”
― Meredith Mileti

What are we to do with all the zucchini? It doesn’t look very nice on the windowsill – the many tomatoes in varying stages of ripening are much more attractive. With school starting soon it is time to say good–bye to summer, and to turn on the oven, as you rid yourself of demon zucchini.

An elegant galette is a good way to start your purge. The crust is easy and forgiving, and it is soothing to lay out all the zucchini rings in ever widening circles. You will look very competent and trustworthy. And then you can start to spring these other surprises on the unsuspecting. If you have a garden, you have been harvesting tomatoes with a greedy heart, thinking about the jars of spaghetti sauce you will enjoy this winter. But what about that ever-rising green mountain of zucchini? You need to put on your thinking cap, and find some creative culinary solutions. https://www.purewow.com/recipes/zucchini-ricotta-galette-recipe

That one packet of seeds you planted can probably take care of a family of four from now until next planting season. The prospects are daunting. But do you want to be the formerly favorite aunt who brings zucchini ginger cupcakes to the picnic at the lake? Not if you want those kids taking care of you in your old age! They never forget so-called “gourmet” baking experiments, or deliberate kid slights. http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Zucchini-Ginger-Cupcakes-1222207

Do not be this person. Do not be a vegetable sneak. Those fourth grade girls will make your life a living hell, and I will pay them to do it! Chocolate Chip Zucchini Cookies http://www.food.com/recipe/chocolate-chip-zucchini-cookies-61402

Instead, be like Nigella. Warm, earthy, sweet and flavorful. And perhaps you will develop a cute British accent. Nigella Lawson’s Chocolate Chip Cookies https://www.nigella.com/recipes/chocolate-chip-cookies

Nobody is fooled by zucchini bread. Least of all the small children into whom you are trying to stuff healthy vegetables. You might fool them once, but never twice. Here is one recipe for you to try, you shameless exploiter of small children. Lemon Zucchini Bread: http://www.lemontreedwelling.com/2017/03/lemon-zucchini-bread.html

One of the best ways to reduce your zucchini surplus is to invite unsuspecting houseguests. Breakfast is usually a good time for a surprise zucchini onslaught. The white wine from last night isn’t out of their systems yet, and the coffee hasn’t kicked in. They will need food. A hot and cheesy frittata, please. If they were raised to have minimally good manners, they will eat whatever is placed in front of them, and then they will ask for seconds, and also for a copy of your recipe. Print the recipe in advance, so you look gracious and artfully prepared. Ina Garten’s Zucchini and Gruyere Frittata Squares https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/zucchini-and-gruyere-frittata-squares-5505844

Soon you will be running low on friends and dinner invitations. But just in case your iPhone vibrates with a sudden text to come next door for an impromptu drink, consider having a quart (or two) of Sichuan Pickles on hand to bring along. Your friends won’t suspect anything, since you won’t be clutching a large brown paper bag while edging furtively into their house. This is a glorious host-y gift, particularly if you package it nicely. Think green garden twine, and Mason jars, and vintage labels. Lovely. Sichuan Pickles http://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/sichuan-pickles

It has been a record year in our neighborhood for zucchini harvests. You should have a variety of zucchini recipes lined up: breakfast, lunch and dinner. You are going to be working on a veritable squash assembly line. And you will look back fondly on these wacky summer zucchini days when you are scraping ice off your windshield come February. Really.

Breakfast: Thank you, Food52, Lemon Zucchini Pancakes
https://food52.com/recipes/17054-lemon-zucchini-pancakes-with-a-heart-of-brie

Lunch: Thanks to A Spicy Perspective, Zucchini and Green Chutney Salad
http://www.aspicyperspective.com/zucchini-and-green-chutney-salad/

Dinner: Cooking to impress, from Sur la Table – Baked Sole Roulades http://www.surlatable.com/product/REC-204/Baked+Sole+Roulades+with+Zucchini+Stuffing

Dinner: For the rest of us: No Cooking Required Zucchini-Potato Soup.
http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/zucchini-potato-soup

Get cracking!

“Vegetables cooked for salads should always be on the crisp side, like those trays of zucchini and slender green beans and cauliflowerets in every trattoria in Venice, in the days when the Italians could eat correctly.”
― M.F.K. Fisher

My personal summer philosophy, as Gentle Readers may have noticed over the years, is to avoid the menace lurking in the kitchen – the stove – as much as I can. I make exceptions for steaming ears of corn, quick-frying croutons for BLT chicken salad, and boiling pasta. In my fantasy life we would be dining out often, but the reality is not half that glamorous. We tend to be frugal homebodies, but that doesn’t mean that we are not eating well.

Last night we had a divine Caprese salad, that was rich and varied and quite unlike the cold, straight-out-of-the-fridge restaurant version that you often get served these days. I shopped local (our farmers’ market) for a couple of pretty and colorful heirloom tomatoes even though our garden is still producing a prodigious amount of fruit. It was nice to inject some color with the yellow tomatoes, and a little sweetness with some jewel-like cherry tomatoes. I snipped a couple of bunches of basil from the back porch basil farm, too. We had some leftover fresh slicing mozzarella from last Friday’s pizza, and small olive-sized pearl mozzarella. Mr. Friday likes olives more than I do, so I tossed a handful of deli Kalamata olives in his bowl. Then I enjoyed a grownup version of roasting marshmallows by roasting red, green and yellow peppers under the broiler for a few minutes. They sizzle and crackle and blacken. I suppose you can cheat and buy jarred peppers, but where is the fun? (And five minutes of broiler time will not seriously compromise your new summer philosophy.)

Easy Peasy Caprese
Suggested ingredients:
2 ripe bell peppers, 1 red and 1 yellow if possible, roasted
Salt and pepper
Extra-virgin olive oil
1 pound fresh mozzarella, at room temperature
2 pounds ripe tomatoes
½ pound cherry tomatoes
1 tablespoon capers
A scoop of good-quality olives
6 thin slices of prosciutto, more if desired (I skipped prosciutto in mine)
Handful of basil leaves

You can also add croutons, cucumber, or thin onion slices. Use your imagination, and what may be hiding, forgotten, in the vegetable bin. We want to avoid wasting food as much as we want to avoid another trip to the store.

We drizzled lots of fancy olive oil, too. Obviously two people will grind to a heart-stopping halt if they ate that much cheese every night, so eyeball the amounts you want to use, or what you have on hand. You can even make this as a side dish, and use salad dressing instead of just oil. We were trying to feel sophisticated and Tuscan. Be sure to add some good crusty bread and a glass or two of delightful wine. And candles. And then there is plenty of time to binge watch Season 2 of Derry Girls.

Here is a somewhat fancier recipe:
Ultimate Caprese Salad
https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/ultimate-caprese-salad

More stay-at-home, no-cook summer favorites:

Gazpacho – so versatile – you can make it as soup, or as a cocktail!
https://www.foodiecrush.com/classic-gazpacho-recipe/

Garden-Fresh Chef Salad – get out of the iceberg rut!
https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/garden-fresh-chef-salad/

Cucumber, Yogurt, and Horseradish Soup
https://www.marthastewart.com/904175/cucumber-yogurt-and-horseradish-soup

Here is a fiendishly easy way to rid yourself of excess zucchini!
Zucchini Carpaccio
https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/zucchini-carpaccio

This next recipe does involve turning the oven on to roast the nuts, but maybe you can assign that to someone else while you read the next chapter of Fleishman is in Trouble.

You should be enjoying the heck out of summer. Winter will be here soon enough. Indulge!

Nigella Lawson’s No-Bake Nutella Cheesecake
https://food52.com/recipes/39622-nigella-lawson-s-no-bake-nutella-cheesecake

“In the summer, the days were long, stretching into each other. Out of school, everything was on pause and yet happening at the same time, this collection of weeks when anything was possible.”
– Sarah Dessen

August is National Peach Month. I want you to be ready, and armed for every occasion. Here we are, still plodding along happily in July and already I have seen tempting, tumbling piles of local peaches. Golden mounds of them seem to roll toward me at the farmers’ market, and I offer little resistance to their allure. I bag them, and haul them home, and start devising the many ways to eat a peach.

In Baltimore they know what to do with peaches – they bake peach cakes. https://www.marthastewart.com/1162569/baltimore-peach-cake

I bet you don’t feel like driving over the bridge, do you? Try this at home:

Peach Cake With Raised Sweet Dough Base

(Makes two 9-inch round cakes)
1 cup lukewarm milk
1/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cake compressed yeast (2¼ teaspoons dry yeast)
1 egg
1/4 cup shortening
3 1/2 to 3 3/4 cups flour

Mix together milk, sugar, salt and crumble into mixture, yeast.
Stir until yeast is dissolved. Stir in egg and shortening. Mix in first with spoon, then with hands, half the flour, then the remainder of the flour.

When the dough begins to leave the sides of the bowl, turn it out onto a lightly floured board and knead. Knead dough, then place in greased bowl, turning once to bring greased side up. Cover with damp cloth and let rise in warm, draft-free spot until double in bulk, about 1½ to 2 hours. Punch down, let rise again until almost double in bulk, 30 to 45 minutes. Divide dough in half.

Pat dough into greased 9-inch round pan forming a ridge around the edge. Arrange thinly sliced peaches overlapping one another in a circle around the center. To keep peaches from darkening, sprinkle with lemon, orange or grapefruit juice. Cover and let rise until double, 25 to 35 minutes. Bake 25 to 30 minutes in 400° F oven.

Quick Apricot Glaze:
Add 1 tablespoon hot water to 1/3 cup apricot jam.
Recipes from The Baltimore Evening Sun, 1958

http://www.qcassetti.com/imported-20091230220914/2009/8/9/muhlys-bakery-baltimore-peach-cake.html

Mr. Friday sliced half a peach onto his bowl of cold twiggy cereal this morning, leaving the other half for me on the cutting board. I ate it over the sink, because the juices dripped furiously and there wasn’t anyone around who would point out that I should have been more ladylike and used a napkin. Don’t neglect any opportunity to just seize the day, and a peach, early, and eat it in your crude plebeian fashion. I understand that the young royals are not allowed to use their fingers to eat fruit – they are supposed to use a knife and fork! Shocking!

Summer is the time of melting ice cream and oozing s’mores and juicy watermelon and dripping peaches. How can you appreciate a peach unless you feel the velvet skin with your own sticky fingers? If you haven’t had peach juice run down the front of your T-shirt, you have not had a satisfactory summer experience.

By the time cocktail hour rolls around you might feel a certain longing for the decadent. I haven’t been to Harry’s Bar in Venice (although I’d like to) and sometimes I want to experience a Charles Ryder moment. Harry’s Bar has brought us the Bellini, the dry Martini, and Carpaggio. I think a Bellini or two will do this evening. It is Friday, after all. And what a thrifty and timely recipe – using some of our glut of peaches instead of the usual pears for a Bellini! http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/martini-recipes/bellini/#1iudPolf4xGeUKMo.97bellini

And if you like your peaches pure and unadulterated, now is the perfect time for you to grab a couple of them, mosey out to the hammock, pick up the latest Laura Lippman novel, and while away a summer’s afternoon.

“Life is better than death, I believe, if only because it is less boring, and because it has fresh peaches in it.”
― Alice Walker

Fun facts to know and tell:
https://wyrk.com/august-is-national-peach-month-some-facts-you-didnt-know/

https://www.farmflavor.com/us-agriculture/8-fun-facts-peaches-infographic/

https://gapeaches.org/our-recipes/