What a stinker of a week! The heat dome has been pressing down on us all this week, with temperatures in the high 90s. Sometimes I miss our old house in Florida, which had a pool. It was nice to slip into it to cool down – although though much of the summer it was about as refreshing as a vast steaming tub of chicken soup with rice. Forget about frying an egg on the sidewalk, you could coddle an egg in our pool. This week I bet it is has been about as refreshing as a sous vide. As I do not want to perform self-immolation, I am staying inside and am continuing my dogged pursuit of preparing meals that I do not need to cook.

Mr. Sanders and I have four humble tomato plants that are thriving in this semi-tropical heat wave. They are growing in the small raised bed in our side yard, happily sharing the limited space with a generous side salad of weeds and self-sown cosmos, the remnants of last year’s wild flower experiment. The tomato plants currently are bedecked with half a dozen dangling rosy, adolescent slicing tomatoes, and several more yellow blossoms. I look forward to their harvest. I brought one tiny tomato victim inside to ripen on the kitchen windowsill, after I inadvertently knocked it to the ground while wrangling the reluctant branches of one plant into a tomato cage. Like a New Yorker cartoon, it ripened slowly, had one day of peak perfection when I should have gobbled it up, because the next day there was a sodden goopy mess of seeds and pulp on the sill. There are so many tragedies born from a garden. Take heed!

This summer lasagna does require the bare minimum of cooking time – but no baking – so you can serve its colorful deliciousness without self-immolating or assuming the mantle of cooking martyr: No-Bake Lasagne And it will also serve to blunt the myriad zuccini later this summer.

This recipe does require an oven, but barely, just barely. I suggest sitting at the far end of the table, away from the oven, and have a nice cool tumbler of cheap white wine at the ready. Tomato Pie

This tomato pie requires an oven, my apologies, but it also brings Laurie Colwin into your kitchen, and that is a wonderful thing: Laurie Colwin’s Tomato Pie

I had a good chuckle over the descriptive headline in the New York Times Wednesday: No Cook Chicken and Cucumber Salad. Ick. They were not thinking, clearly. The proper name for the recipe is Smashed Cucumber and Chicken Salad. And you will have to venture out in the heat to buy a rotisserie chicken, and your cheap white wine. So I apologize for your exposure to the heat as you dash across the melting parking lot to COSTCO or the grocery store. Stock up so you don’t have to venture out again for a few days, maybe the weather will change. I see rain in the forecast for next week – just in time for the Fourth. Naturally.
Smashed Cucumber and Chicken Salad

Here is another New York Times freebie for your cool summer dining pleasure: Pasta Salad There is nothing like a big pasta salad sitting, marinating, percolating in your fridge. It is money in the bank, and a relief for everyone: fresh herbs, spices, oodles of olive oil, pasta, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, cukes, olives, onion and basil. Add some fresh bread, cool butter, and summer tunes. There is lunch, dinner, something to bring to your Fourth of July potluck; something for everyone.

The Spy Test Kitchens and Luke the wonder dog are taking the Fourth off. I hope we are not all still hiding inside, avoiding nature and the heat, and we wish you a very happy holiday! Stay cool! Don’t waste any tomatoes! Eat Popsicles!

“A world without tomatoes is like a string quartet without violins.”
—Laurie Colwin

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Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil, and ink.

The past week has been alarmingly hot — there have been a few days where it felt like a 3-alarm furnace already, and summer has just begun today. We’ve had Florida-grade afternoon rainstorms, too, with enormous thunderheads and chiaroscuro drama in the sky. What are August and full-bore hurricane season going to feel like? The hydrangeas love the rain, but wilt again the minute the sun comes out. It has been a trial to walk with Luke the wonder dog. The heat of the afternoons has slowed down his pace and we don’t cover the distances we usually trot during cooler months. It’s time for us to change our routine, which means less time in front of the stove, and more time peeling grapes, pitting peaches, slicing watermelon, cubing cantaloupes, and eating popsicles.

Nothing perfectly symbolizes summer like a watermelon. The best ones are cool and sweet, dripping with juices, seeds, and dreams of summer vacations. I still cling to the memories of sitting on the back porch steps, spitting watermelon seeds back at my brother. Those are high quality memories of an un-air-conditioned house, where we were outside, waiting for the fireflies start twinkling on and off near the forsythia bushes. It was summer, and we were amusing each other. Finally I could get my brother back for for being taller, older and more sophisticated. He could sink a basketball, shoot rubber bands, flip baseball cards and catch pop balls much better than I ever could. But I could aim and deliver a watermelon seed with deadly accuracy. At short range, at least. And sitting on the back steps, keeping the sticky, dripping watermelon juice outside, away from parental oversight, was the perfect spot for getting even. Tempus does indeed fugit. My brother and I are not likely to try to even up the score with watermelon seeds these days. Now we tend to be very kind to one another. Whoever came upon the devilish idea of creating seedless watermelons was never a child. I must remember to thank my brother for patiently teaching me to attach baseball cards to my bike spokes, though. Another excellent summer activity.

This is a fabulous idea for some cool self-care; a summertime watermelon treat: Frozen Watermelon https://www.instagram.com/p/DKzxkQOJS1e/ I’m not sure that you need the honey – watermelon is sweetness perfected. Here are some other gratinas

This is my kind of recipe:


Watermelon Gazpacho Salad
4 cups cubed, seeded watermelon
1/4 cup minced fresh cilantro
1 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered
1 small yellow bell pepper, chopped
1 jalapeno, seeded and minced
1/2 medium cucumber, peeled, seeded, and sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 cup crumbled queso fresco cheese, optional

Combine watermelon, cilantro, cherry tomatoes, cucumber, bell pepper, and jalapeno in a large bowl. Whisk together olive oil, vinegar, salt, and cumin; drizzle over watermelon mixture and toss gently. Cover and refrigerate 1 hour. Sprinkle with cheese before serving, if using. Makes 4.

It never occurred to me that watermelon could be grilled, let alone paired with tomatoes. What have I been thinking? It is summer, and the watermelons and tomatoes are ripe. At least I have the homegrown tomatoes and basil to contribute to the recipe, along with my basic, farm stand watermelon. It’s not fancy, just delicious. Let the summer games begin!

Matthew Raiford’s Watermelon Steak Salad with Heirloom Tomatoes and Sangria Vinaigrette

If you don’t want to grill your watermelon, here is another recipe for tomato and watermelon salad

Here is a handy dandy list list of summer fruits. Treat yourself! Do it for Luke.

Summer Fruits:
Blueberries
Strawberries
Raspberries
Blackberries
Cantaloupe
Honeydew melon
Nectarines
Peaches
Sour cherries
Watermelon
Apricots
Plums

“Taste every fruit of every tree in the garden at least once. It is an insult to creation not to experience it fully. Temperance is wickedness.”
—Stephen Fry

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Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil, and ink.

Anthony Bourdain said: “Everyone should know how to roast a chicken. It’s a life skill that should be taught to small children at school.” Roasted chicken is just the beginning.

I love chicken. It’s not fancy. It does not need to be complex. It is steady and reliable. It is a blank canvas, ready to take on your vision. It is ready to nurture your fragile soul. It is adaptable, versatile and eager to please. We are rather fond of roasted chicken, grilled chicken, chicken Schnitzel, fried chicken, stir-fried chicken and barbecued chicken. Not to mention chicken Marsala, chicken piccata, chicken kabobs, chicken salad, chicken tacos, chicken and waffles, and chicken pot pie.

Growing up my favorite birthday dinner was baked chicken and rice, which was reliably crisp, juicy and delicious. I knew the dangers of the summertime grilled chicken legs, that my father always nearly incinerated on the back yard hibachi grill, that were blackened and juicy and scalding hot, but I happily gnawed away at them anyway, gingerly, with newly seared fingertips. On family summer vacations I would eat all the Howard Johnson’s crunchy fried chicken I could get. In college I was a reliably cheap date, because I would always order the chicken.

During the summer months, which are rapidly approaching, I like to delegate as much of the cooking as I can, as you well know, to the back yard grill and Mr. Sanders. I contribute cold drinks, basting brushes and unsolicited advice. The least I can do is help with thoughtful meal suggestions and some of the prep work. Naturally chicken tends to be the first protein that springs to mind. And what can be more fun than food on a stick?

It’s the perfect time for kabobs! Kabobs have something for everybody. Vegetables! Meat! Dangerous pointy sticks! Charred summer food is just the best. You can thread chicken and veggies on a skewer, or you could try beef or pork. Or even tofu: Tofu Kabobs Chicken Kabobs It is al fresco dining at its zenith; redolent with flavor, and hints of danger.

Preparing kabobs is a grand way to empty out some of the crisper drawer, and reduce your sad collection of tired peppers, onions, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms, zucchini, and even Brussels sprouts. There might even be cruciferous vegetables aficionados among us who will insist on including clumps of broccolini. Be that way. Don’t take my word for it, but you can trust our clever friends at Food52: Veggie kabobs

You can prepare delightful all-vegetable kabobs for your vegetarians, and cook them side-by-side with the meat-laced skewers for the omnivores in your life. In one fell swoop you can simplify meal prep. Sometimes, with the young and opinionated, you will have to be careful about what kabob items are touching. There are plenty of variations, and you can please your pickiest eater: Grilled Kabobs

It is a week until the summer solstice. We are dancing between afternoon thunderstorms this week – next week we will be ready for summer celebrations. Bring on the sunscreen, the Off!, the frosty beer, and chicken on a stick. Yumsters.

“There was shish-kabob for lunch, huge, savory hunks of spitted meat sizzling like the devil over charcoal after marinating seventy-two hours in a secret mixture Milo had stolen from a crooked trader in the Levant, served with Iranian rice and asparagus tips Parmesan, followed by cherries jubilee for dessert and then steaming cups of fresh coffee with Benedictine and brandy.”
― Joseph Heller

 

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Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil and ink.

Happy June! Summer has kicked off already in our neighborhood. Last weekend Eleanor, who is ten-and-a-half and lives across the street from us, opened her famous lemonade stand. We like to support youthful endeavors, so we gamely trotted over in the morning for our annual Solo cups of Wyler’s lemonade and Eleanor’s hand-crafted beaded friendship bracelets. The summer games have begun!

What will your summer drink be? We are entering the glorious time of the year when the sun sets late, the fireflies abound, and the sun is warm, but not yet baking us into gooey sweaty messes. It’s time for sitting on the back porch, talking about summer, and admiring Eleanor’s handiwork.

Summer means vacations, trips to the beach, sand in the car, trashy romance novels, blockbuster Tom Cruise movies, and cool drinks. With snacks. I suppose we can and do enjoy those things all year round, but the summer of my imagination is always viewed through those IG-perfect rosy glasses – in crisp white linen, with lightly freckled noses, always mosquito-free, with a side of lobster rolls and crispy fries. Yumsters.

Last year orange wines were popular among the younger cocktail set. And the perpetual favorite rosé wines proliferate. Everyone who is anyone has their own rosés now. For example: Château Miraval (Brad Pitt), and Invivo x SJP (Sarah Jessica Parker) have their monikers on some very pretty bottles of rosé. Celeb Rosés

A few summers ago Mr. Sanders found a tasty, inexpensive green wine at the grocery store, a Vinho Verde. It young and fresh, and so light because it has a very low alcohol content. Heavens. I didn’t care for it much, because I am true blue and loyal to my cheap, full-bodied and buzzy Chardonnay (if you know someone at the Kendall Jackson Vineyards, please let them know that I would be an excellent shill) and I found it too light. I am very comfortable in my rut. But you should poke around the wine shelves and see for yourself.

This summer I am going to make the effort to experiment with a variety of drinks. I might not appreciate all the trade war dramas playing out in Washington, but I have seen other news which can affect us, too: Maryland and Delaware have elected to opt for the same official state cocktail – the Orange Crush. And have you heard the news flash that Popeye’s has released their summer drink for 2025 – Pickle Lemonade? Whoa. Pay attention, Eleanor: Pickle lemonade is the new Wyler’s.

The official state cocktail of Maryland is the Orange Crush, as declared by Governor Moore. It’s a combination of vodka, triple sec, orange juice, and lemon-lime soda. I imagine it has a whopper of an alcohol content. Maryland wins the Orange Crush competition – of course. Maryland invented it for heaven’s sake. In Ocean City. Maryland vs. Delaware:

I always find that orange juice is a little too sweet, but then again, I might not be a good judge because I loved Tang as a child. Remember Tang? It probably had more chemicals and artificial sweeteners than all the Halloween candy I ever consumed as a tot. For the sake of professionalism, I will have to try an Orange Crush, or two.

More in the interest of science I will also be trying the Pickle Lemonade, spiked and un-spiked. Luckily we still consider pickles to be green leafy vegetables in this household, so we always have a jar or two of Vlasics in the fridge. If Maryland has an official cocktail, maybe I need one, too.

I like a slice or two of pickle on my fried chicken sandwiches, so mixing some pickle juice into a glass of lemonade might not taste as peculiar as it sounds. And it sounds a little more exotic and appetizing than chugging a glass of Gatorade to refresh and re-hydrate. Stock up on pickles. Stock up on orange juice — summer is almost here.

“Summer’s here, I’m for that
I got my rubber sandals, got my straw hat
I got my cold beer, I’m just glad that I’m here…”
— James Taylor

Here is a free article from the New York Times: Pickle Lemonade

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Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil and ink.

Suddenly they are everywhere — blueberries. June is about to be busting out all over, summer is almost here, and if you listen carefully you’ll hear the blueberries ripening. Little globules of vitamin-rich blue goodness! ’Tis the season to revel in local blueberries!

Local blueberries are ripe for the picking, as they say. We don’t have to worry about those tariffs, for the moment. Instead of waiting for imports from Mexico, Peru or Chile we can wander into a You-Pick-It blueberry farm, and spend some time in nature, plucking our own sweet breakfast jewels. Deelish.

Mr. Sanders starts each day in a healthy manner – unlike me – who still yearns for those good old days of cold pizza for breakfast. No, Mr. Sanders always sets a good example, and manfully tosses a handful of glistening blueberry goodness on top of his bowl of leaves and twigs every morning. Sometimes he just rinses them off in a wire strainer, and drops them into a bowl for easy munching. Or he mixes them with other berries and some yogurt. Sometimes he ladles a handful on top of a bowl of overnight oats and has a healthy, crunchy breakfast. Luke the omnivore wonder dog does not care for blueberries, strangely enough, so he won’t be staring up at you with a deep-throated yearning for the blueberries in your breakfast bowl. Not that you won’t feel his silent reproach for your dubious food choices. Now would be a good moment for you to fetch him a yummy dog treat. Dogs and Blueberries

I like my blueberries as a special component: in piping hot, just baked blueberry muffins, with melting Irish butter, and the Sunday papers. Or in blueberry pancakes, with warm blueberry bursts in each mouthful. Nigel Slater has a divine recipe for blueberry French toast:

Or, with a little planning, you can bake a breakfast cake. How perfect is cake for breakfast? A blueberry breakfast cake is the best way to start a day

Surely the ultimate blueberry moment is the first bite of blueberry pie. You might prefer your pie open-faced, lattice work, crumble, or with a second crust. It’s going to be a long summer, so try every permutation. Our friends at Food52 have done lots of research, and lots of baking. I rely on them to guide me through these treacherous blueberry pie waters: Food52 Blueberry Ideas

Father’s Day is in a couple of weeks (June 15th this year). You can start your celebration with warm, butter-dripping blueberry muffins at breakfast! Later on, how about a colorful salad? For a delightfully cool lunch salad, try pairing blueberries with cucumbers and some feta cheese. Blueberry Cucumber Salad

Later on we will be having cocktails, too, of course. John Derian is as stylish and clever as folks come, and this is his recipe for a Blueberry Smash. Deelightful!

Visit the farmers’ market of your choice to get lots of local blueberries and other produce:

Chestertown Farmers’ Market


St. Michaels FreshFarm Market


Centreville Farmers’ Market


Easton Farmers Market


Lockbriar Farm
10051 Worton Road, Chestertown, MD 21620

Redman Farms
8689 Bakers Lane, Chestertown, MD 21620

“Taste every fruit of every tree in the garden at least once. It is an insult to creation not to experience it fully. Temperance is wickedness.”
—Stephen Fry

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Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil and ink.

Here we are again—on the cusp of summer, on the eve of grilling season, keeping watch for fireflies, swatting early mosquitoes, and planning the Memorial Day cookout. I’m looking forward to a gathering of old friends on the back porch, with songs from college playing in the background as we laugh and scarf bowls of chips like it was still the good old days of few consequences.

As we catch up with our merry band, hearing about new babies, new homes, young lives in big cities, I wonder, as one does, if we made the right choices along the way. Maybe we would have been happier with an urban life. And then I read magazine articles and feel smug about our life decisions. I was never destined to be a West Village Girl – looking for frozen espresso martinis while posting influencer content to TikTok. I was never going to be someone who worked in finance, and I never would have strolled into the short-lived Brooklyn Mischa restaurant this Memorial Day Weekend, and plunked down $29 for a hot dog. Nope. I think I plunked down about $29 for our entire cookout. For that kind of money, I’d rather learn to love caviar.

Instead meeting at an au courant bistro in the West Village in NYC, we will gather on the back porch, where we have a few Adirondack chairs (which are never as comfortable as they look). I love these al fresco nights, as we elude those pesky mosquitoes and enjoy fluttering candles and swaying strings of white lights. We can watch the last of the sun’s rays gilding the tops of the pecan trees, and the bellies of the robins as they squabble in the back yard. There is time to slow down and the enjoy the lengthening navy shadows. There is no television news in the background. It is a pleasantly warm and humid summer evening. Far away you might hear a hint of distant thunder growling.

We aren’t going to serve anything extravagant this weekend, just our old reliable favorites: hamburgers, hot dogs, corn-on-the-cob, potato salad, green salad, and strawberry short cake. Also, chips and classic 1950s French onion dip, with WASPy bowls of radishes, cucumber spears, celery and carrots for karmic balance. There will be beer. No Aperol spritzes or frozen espresso martinis. Welcome to summer. Welcome to ordinary America— no fancy pants West Village girls here!

This is the best sort of holiday meal, one that doesn’t require numerous trips to the grocery store for elusive exotic ingredients, or perusing cookbooks. Jacques Pepin and Alice Waters can sit sullenly on the bookshelf – these are tried and true dishes that vary little from year to year, or really from family to family. I sometimes miss the dry, charred, hockey-puck-hamburgers of my childhood, but I must say that Mr. Sanders can flip a mean burger. And I still make my mother’s potato salad. Maybe you’ll grill brats, or have a watermelon or lemon meringue pie. Maybe your family always grills chicken. Be sure to enjoy yourselves!
We will be trying one new dish as Mr. Sanders does love a challenge: grilled artichokes. In preparation, he has even cleaned the grill for the new season. Bring on summer! We’ll see you at the farmers’ market!

Food52 Grilled Artichokes

Food and Wine Grilled Artichokes

The Schmidty Wife Artichokes

We will be sticking close to home this weekend – we are painting a bathroom for a well-intentioned family project – so we will be flipping our burgers and watching the fireflies dance here. Heat up your charcoal briquets, enjoy your crab feast, fry up a batch of chicken, spike a cold watermelon, melt a batch of s’mores, enjoy the Chestertown Tea Party, wave your flags at the parades, and remember the brave souls who gave their all.

“Summertime is always the best of what might be.”
― Charles Bowden

Hints from the New York Times for effective grill cleaning.

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Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil and ink.

Ah, late spring. It is a beautiful time of the year. The fireflies are beginning to sparkle in the blue twilight of the back yard. A bunny is enjoying chowing down on the new grass in the front yard. There are even more wondrous smells these days for Luke the wonder dog on our daily tours of the neighborhood’s hedges and flower beds. The long days stretch slowly toward the last day of school. There are too many awards nights, school field trips, graduation parties and political protests to attend – who has time for normal, sit-down family dinners? For that matter, who has time to plan those meals? Maybe Martha, but don’t forget, she has staff on hand. The rest of us, running our own tiny on-a-shoestring-enterprises, need to plan on the fly. Which is why I am suggesting deelish Sammies for every occasion. They can be made ahead, they are portable, they are economical, and they are filling. And they are easy to accessorize.

In this complicated, overly-scheduled, anxiety-fraught, spread sheet-specific life, don’t be a Stanley Tucci. I know, Stanley Tucci is sweet and winsome. He has sparkling eyes, and tasteful scarves, and the jovial air of bonhomie. He is a foodie. He got us through COVID with his videos of nice, stiff homemade Negronis. We loved him in Julie and Julia. He helped us understand the mysterious ways of the Vatican in the timely film Conclave. If I see him passionately swallow one more obscure regional Italian delicacy on yet another travel show, I will surely puke. I have maxed out on the ubiquity of Stanley. He was quoted in a recent Food and Drink Magazine about the most delicious sandwich he has ever eaten. He didn’t wax poetical or nostalgic about his mother’s homemade tuna salad sandwiches, or the prosaic turkey sandwich he could have had at his local London pub. He didn’t mention even the legendarily expensive burger from Balthazar in New York City. No. Stanley Tucci’s best sandwich was street food in Rome. It was a smoked cow tongue, with Romaine lettuce, and homemade mayonnaise, on local bread. Surely, without a doubt, it was the best he has ever tasted. We cannot top that. We cannot possible compare our own boring, drab, suburban life with his glittering world.

But we can try. Luke, Mr. Sanders, and I are not going to Italy any time soon. In fact, cooking has been a challenge this week, because we have been painting the kitchen cabinets, and the long pine table is crammed with boxes of silverware, plates, bowls, cookie sheets, wooden spoons, measuring cups and boxes of foil, Saran Wrap, and parchment paper. It’s hard to find anything. But there is a cutting board around here, someplace, and a good bread knife. We don’t need homemade mayo. Bring on the tomatoes and the fresh mozzarella, Stanley.

When you are driving home from a graduation, or get stuck in traffic going to the beach, you can pull over along the way, and reach inside your souvenir Trader Joe’s insulated bag, and pull out a homemade burrata caprese sandwich. You won’t need homemade mayo. In fact, some Utz Sour Cream & Onion chips and a Diet Coke can only enhance your foodie experience. Go ahead – you can be an Eastern Shore original, and have Utz Crab Chip seasoned chips. (Stanley will probably opt for Italian chips: San Carlo – PiùGusto Porchetta. Ewwww. )

The Spy Test Kitchen Caprese Sandwich.

Don’t take my word for it – here are some more Deelish Italian sandwiches for your own armchair travel experience.

Here is the interview with our worldly, movie star pal, Stanley Tucci:

“There is an art to the business of making sandwiches which it is given to few ever to find the time to explore in depth. It is a simple task, but the opportunities for satisfaction are many and profound.”
― Douglas Adams

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Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil, and ink.