Here we are- on the cusp of summer, on the eve of grilling season, keeping a look-out for fireflies, swatting early mosquitoes, and planning a post-COVID cookout. I’m looking forward to familiar and comfortable: a little 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. We are panning for the gold.

As we catch up with our merry band, hearing about new babies, new homes, lives in big cities, I wonder, as one does, if I made the right choices. Maybe we would have been happier with an urban life. And then I read the newspaper, and chortle, and feel pretty smug. I was never destined to be a New Yorker, someone who might stroll into the Mischa restaurant this Memorial Day Weekend, and plunk down $29 for a hot dog. Nope. I think I plunked down about $29 for our entire cookout. The Mischa hot dog isn’t even on the lunch menu – it’s a dinner entree. For that kind of money, I’d rather learn to love caviar. Mischa: https://mischa-nyc.com

We aren’t going to serve anything that extravagant this weekend, just the old reliable favorites: hamburgers, hot dogs, corn-on-the-cob, potato salad, green salad, and strawberry short cake. Also, chips and classic French onion dip, and little bowls of radishes, cucumber spears, celery and carrots for karmic balance. There will be beer. (Nothing like that Hoboken Brewing beer at Mischa for $14 a serving…) Welcome to summer. Welcome to ordinary America. No fancy pants here! Mischa Hot Dog on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/CrJs0WgPE45/

This is the best sort of holiday meal, one that doesn’t require numerous trips to the grocery store, ordering fancy cuts of meat, 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 crunchy, 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 sausage, or have a watermelon. Maybe your family always grills chicken. Be sure to enjoy yourself! COVID seems to be behind us, after all.

We will be putting a personal touch on the corn, to tide us over until our first crab feast:

Old Bay Corn on the Cob on the Grill

Heat the grill to 350° F.

Wrap each ear of corn in aluminum foil.

Generously butter the corn and sprinkle with Old Bay seasoning.

Roll the corn in the foil and twist the ends tight.

Grill for 5-8 minutes on each side.

Carefully unwrap the corn and place back on the grill for a quick 1-2 minute char on each side, if desired. The grilled ears will be Instagram-able.

For added flavor, sprinkle with more Old Bay after serving.

For your oh, so, reliable pre-dinner snack’ums:
Onion Soup Dip

We never make this dip when it is just the two of us, so I welcome major religious holidays and group events when we can indulge in a nice, big, retro bowl of dip. With Ruffles. I do a slight spin on the traditional Lipton’s sour cream and French onion soup back-of-the-box dip recipe – I add a generous shakes of red pepper flakes, garlic powder and onion powder. Sometimes I splurge and get Knorr French onion soup mix, so there are attractive bits greenery in the dip, but mostly I buy the store brand. I read that this dip, a staple of the 1960s, is hot again in New York City. Just so you know, too.

Silly folks at Food52 think you might like to make the dip from scratch, but I have the Succession finale to watch this weekend, and I do not want to waste any time standing over a hot stove. May the best Roy win!

Food52’s Homemade French Onion Soup Dip: https://food52.com/blog/27921-absolute-best-onion-dip

“The first ear of corn, eaten like a typewriter, means summer to me— intense, but fleeting.”
― Michael Anthony

Strawberry pie. Strawberry shortcake. Strawberry salad. Strawberry lemonade. Rhubarb strawberry compote. This is just the beginning of strawberry season, and all I can greedily think of are the the crazy delicious strawberry dishes coming our way.

It almost feels as if it was worth the winter wait to enjoy fresh, sweet strawberries. I mean, we could visit Japan in mid-winter to have a taste of their specially-ripened Bijin-Hime (“Beautiful Princess”) strawberries – if we wanted to spend crazy amounts of money for strawberries. Those strawberries can cost $500 each. They can be quite large – almost the size of a baseball. A Japanese strawberry farmer, Mikio Okuda grows these strawberries: https://strawberryplants.org/japanese-strawberry-growing-secrets/

In Japan, enormous wintertime strawberries are grown in kerosene-heated greenhouses, and sold for $5 and $6 a piece. And while it would be nice to enjoy such a treat, I think I’d rather crawl around the local You-Pick-It farm, and scramble with the eager kids for a bucket of my own sweet, just-picked May strawberries.

I never do anything fancy with strawberries. How can you improve upon perfection? Last weekend I baked some back-of-the-Bisquick-box strawberry shortcakes, and whipped up a bowl of diaphanous cream. Added a little sugar. Voilà. Who could ask for anything more? I think for this weekend I am going to try Martha’s Strawberry Shortcake Cupcakes – they will be prettier than my dropped (yet so amoeba-like) shortcakes.

Martha’s cupcakes: https://food52.com/recipes/21857-strawberry-shortcake-cupcakes

We’ve been experimenting with different kinds bruschetta – sweet and savory. Initially we made bruschetta when we had casual dinners with friends, and needed finger food that was easily transportable. And yet I consistently brought bruschetta, which would tip over in the car, or end disastrously in someone’s lap; chopped tomatoes and fragments of feta cheese ruining a Lilly Pulitzer. Now we are wise, and spread the garlic-rubbed toasted baguette with thick schmears of creamy burrata, topped with soft, roasted cherry tomatoes.

Garlic-y bruschetta: https://dishingouthealth.com/burrata-bruschetta/

Except when we make Strawberry Bruschetta: https://www.tastingtable.com/765660/strawberry-bruschetta-recipe/

Strawberries are sweet enough on their own, but they are always enhanced with a little cream and a pinch of sugar. A handful of sliced strawberries scattered over your morning bowl of muesli is the easiest treat; sticks and bark never tasted better. I like strawberries, homemade granola and some vanilla yogurt as a morning pick-me-up. After dinner, sitting on the back porch, neglecting the evening news, is perfect time for strawberries on a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Although it is not finger food, a strawberry pie is a nice dish to bring to a gathering: https://www.thepioneerwoman.com/food-cooking/recipes/a35917337/easy-strawberry-pie/

If you’ve gone overboard with You-Pick-It strawberries, here is a catalogue of recipes to make sure you use up every sweet, gem-like strawberry: https://www.foodandwine.com/fruits/berries/strawberry/30-days-strawberry-recipes

And don’t forget the cocktail hour! Pretend you are on an expense account getaway, sitting by a pool, lathered in sunscreen: https://www.thespruceeats.com/strawberry-daiquiri-recipes-759821

Here is a list of Maryland strawberry festivals – check it carefully as some of the events may have been discontinued: https://www.pickyourown.org/strawberryfestivals-Maryland.php

“She has a laugh so hearty it knocks the whipped cream off an order of strawberry shortcake on a table fifty feet away.”
– Damon Runyon

I am jumping the garden gun. A few weeks ago we planted a dozen slender tomato seedlings in the 8 foot by 4 foot raised garden bed in the back yard. They are now slope-shouldered adolescents and about a foot tall, with a few of the more mature plants sprouting little yellow flowers. These are burgeoning tomatoes, our future summer meals; these are Big Boy tomatoes.

I can see a sunny summer ahead, with lotsa tomato sandwiches, and BLTs and cool Caprese salads with garden-warm tomatoes and cool creamy buffalo mozzarella, with exquisitely scented home-grown basil leaves gently wafting down onto the artfully poured olive oil and balsamic vinegar puddles. I will give David Lebovitz’s massively popular Tomato Tart a try, and maybe it will become part of our summertime roster of meals. I saw the first fireflies in the back yard a few nights ago. Can cocktail hour on the back porch be far off?

Tomato Tart: https://www.davidlebovitz.com/french-tomato-tart-recipe/

I love having lots of nibbles for the cocktail hour, when we might have a fancy French 75 or a non-alcoholic beer as the shadows lengthen and Luke the wonder dog has calmed down enough to rest his head on the top step of the stairs, watching the Marx Brother squirrel team tearing through the trees, way up high, too far away for Luke to reach. The birds are coming home, and singing their jubilant three-part harmonies, and we watch the golden light moving lower on the trees, as the sun goes down.

I have improvised a salsa, usually based on what is left over from Taco Tuesday night’s dinner: some jalepeno pepper, a chunk of Vidalia onion, the leftover ear of corn, half a red pepper, and this summer we will add our own garden fresh Big Boy tomato or two. First I slice the corn from cob, then I chop everything up roughly, throw it on a baking sheet and drizzle with oil. The gas grill scares me, so I stick the sheet under the broiler, stirring and shaking it every few minutes with what what I hope looks like a practiced eye, until there is a nice amount of black char, just before everything self-immolates. Then I whirr it up in a food processor for a couple of seconds.

Sometimes I have let it process too long, and everything blends together and starts to look like gazpacho, or baby food: chunks are more attractive, because we are going to dip warm, crisp and salty corn chips into the salsa and try to balance them while we juggle a wet glass and a napkin, too. Try to remember to get some fresh cilantro. The scent of a scattering of chartreuse cilantro leaves is an invitation to dig in to the bowl of fresh salsa. (Don’t forget to heat up some chips in the oven after you have turned off the broiler. Warm chips, which get gobbled faster, are so much more delicious than cold chips. Show you care!) If you are not afraid of the gas grill, here is a recipe with measurements:

Grilled Salsa: https://minimalistbaker.com/perfect-grilled-corn-salsa/

Are there tomatoes in your garden this summer? Let the Spy Test Kitchens know how your garden grows, and what you are planning on making with your future harvest. I have to get some bamboo stakes this weekend; those plants of ours are enjoying the rain and have been growing by leaps and bounds.

Other tomato ideas: https://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/the-best-ways-to-use-cherry-tomatoes-gallery

“I let Annabel show me how to do it, and together we planted the tomatoes. Once I’d done one or two, I discovered that I liked it, and that furthermore tomato plants smelled good. Not a pretty smell, but an interesting one, peppery and green. I could smell it on my hands, and in the sunny air.”
― Abbi Waxman

Having grown up in the era when salads made with iceberg lettuce and hothouse tomatoes, I welcome crunchy spring salads with ravenous enthusiasm. Brand spanking new spring veggies are leaping off the produce displays into my NPR shopping bag whenever I venture to the grocery store. We no longer have to endure the tired vegetables trucked in from California – everything local is tastier and better for our sorry carbon footprints.

While I wait to harvest our dozen tomato plants, many months from now, I am going to enjoy other peoples’ crops: fresh asparagus, spring peas, crisp peppery radishes, with slices of hard boiled eggs and crunched-up bacon atop green beds of Boston lettuce, arugula and Bibb. I thought this was a grand idea – adding a sprinkling of fresh, edible flowers: I have harvested some pansies from the window boxes, though there is still time before the nasturtiums bloom.

I like a simple vinaigrette salad dressing, but I have noticed that Green Goddess dressing has been enjoying a renaissance. I hope you are making your own dressings – think of the money you could be saving! Remember the golden rule of vinaigrette: one part vinegar to three parts oil. And make a big batch – I keep a stash of Ball jars under the kitchen sink just in case: use 1/4 cup of vinegar mixed with 3/4 cups oil. We use olive oil, but you might like walnut or sesame oil. I always add a pinch of Maldon salt and pepper and a couple of pressed gloves of garlic. And I use apple cider vinegar or red wine vinegar. You might be fancier and like a Champagne vinegar or balsamic vinegar. Experiment to see what you like best. Some people like to add a touch of mustard, or miso, or honey. If you are using a Ball jar, just shake the dressing up to emulsify it. Otherwise, get out a whisk, or a fork, to blend everything evenly, and dress your salad just before eating it.

This month Cook’s Illustrated had a fascinating piece about the real science of soaking vegetables in ice water for added crunch. Leaving the vegetables in a bath of icy cold water rehydrates them – they absorb the water and it causes the pectin within to get firm – more crunch for you. I have often perked up sad limp carrots and celery by putting them into a glass of ice water, and in the summer there is nothing better than a bowl of icy radishes, but it had never occurred to me to add the ice treatment as a regular part of meal prep. If we like the mouth feel of our salad vegetables, then perhaps we will eat more of them! Eureka!

So get out your mandoline, and carefully slice your vegetables, load them into a bowl of ice water and leave it in the fridge overnight. You’ve got a plan for dinner, and it is almost fully prepared. Add some warm crusty bread, a little cheese, a glug of wine and a couple of candles.

Vinaigrette Dressing: https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-a-basic-vinaigrette-226699

Welcome back to the 1950s: Green Goddess Dressing:https://www.copymethat.com/r/APrJt8loH/jamie-olivers-green-goddess-dressing-wit/

Be careful. Don’t just put any flower you see in your salad. Oleander is poison! Edible Flowers:https://whatscookingamerica.net/edibleflowers/edibleflowersmain.htm

Wedge Salad: https://smittenkitchen.com/2023/04/baby-wedge-salad-with-avocado-and-pickled-onions/

Pizza Salad: https://www.randomhousebooks.com/campaign/pizza-salad-weekday-vegetarians/

“… The older I grow, the more do I love spring and spring flowers. Is it not so with you?”
– Emily Dickinson

It’s finally spring, and I am itching to be outside in the garden, in the yellow sunshine, warming my wintery soul. The wisteria I planted five years ago has finally bloomed, with drooping shrimp-shaped pink and purple cascades; the more mature hydrangeas are opening tiny clumps of tender flowers; the day lilies are bright puddles of gamboge in the front yard. Around the corner a neighbor’s late-blooming daffodils have finally given up the ghost, nodding their solemn yellow heads goodbye in the rain yesterday.

There is a sudden tranche of lemon-zested recipes in all my favorite publications. The New York Times Lemon Sheet Cake with Buttercream Frosting (this is a gifted article, so you shouldn’t have paywall issues):

The Kitchn has feature a Five Ingredient Lemon Capellini recipe: https://www.thekitchn.com/five-ingredient-capellini-recipe-23523841 This is much easier than pie, trust me.

One of my favorite contributors to Food52 is MrsLarkin. She has the easiest recipe for Lemon Chicken, so simple that you’ll wonder why you haven’t thought of it already: https://food52.com/recipes/3840-lemon-chicken I’ve got everything needed for this recipe, except the parsley. Luckily, I need to head to the grocery store for some cheap white wine anyway…

Finally, Alexandra Stafford, of Alexandra’s Kitchen, has introduced the Spy Test Kitchens to Lemon-Blueberry Dutch Baby: https://alexandracooks.com/2023/04/22/lemon-blueberry-dutch-baby/

I am coming to the Dutch baby party rather late: this was my first time baking one – although I have listened to other cooks rave about how deelish they can be. This recipe was appealing as an elegant, though hands-off Sunday breakfast, in spring, when we wanted to linger over our papers for a little while, before seizing the day and going out to re-build the raised garden bed. We had the leisurely ceremony of a nice, baked, maple-syrupy Sunday breakfast, cooked in our cast iron skillet, and we also had motivation to get outside.

While Mr. Sanders took Luke the wonder dog out for a quick morning constitutional, I assembled the Dutch baby ingredients on the counter; no heroic steps needed to be taken to obscure markets to gather elusive or rare ingredients: butter, milk, flour, eggs, sugar, vanilla, salt, lemon zest, blueberries and confectioner’s sugar. Once the energetic pair returned home I put the skillet on the stove to melt the butter.

I melted some more more butter in the microwave, and mixed it with the other ingredients with the electric mixer. I added the blueberries to the sizzling butter on the stove, rolled them around for about a minute, enjoying watching them pop and squirm, and poured the batter over the agitated blueberries. Then I popped the skillet into the oven for about 15 minutes. Our skillet is 10 1/2 inches, so I think the mixture spread out more than rose up, but there was a delightfully giddy and towering pancake dome when I first took the pan out of the oven. It soon collapsed, as the recipe predicted, and looked a little humbled. The confection’s sugar at the end isn’t necessary, but it does add a pretentious, decorative flourish. We bathed our wedges of Dutch baby warm maple syrup, added crispy slices of bacon, and just to be obnoxious, a wedge of orange. It felt a little like a hotel breakfast, though without the tiny pots of jams.

The lemon in all of these recipes is bright and sunny; a harbinger the warm weather ahead. It will help you to make hay while the sun shines. These are quick and easy recipes. There is no time for fussing with a Sunday red sauce, or a Sunday roast. You can prepare your meal with little fuss, a little fanfare, and then toss those dishes in the sink and head outside to weed. Quick! Before the mosquitoes get you!

“So the freshness lives on
in a lemon,
in the sweet-smelling house of the rind,
the proportions, arcane and acerb.”
― Pablo Neruda

It is time for our annual paean to farmers’ markets. With Earth Day celebrations and spring-y weather we are looking forward to enjoying the weekend. There is nothing like taking a leisurely stroll through a farmers’ market to remind us of the bounty of good and healthy foods our farmers grow here on our beautiful blue jewel of a planet. Remember to bring your own bags!

Every year I wander through the garden shops and envision beautiful tomato plants growing in the raised bed in our back yard, burgeoning with warm and aromatic fruit, soon to be sliced on tomato sandwiches, or incorporated into fragrant and garlic-y tomato sauces. The grim reality is that I get busy, or indifferent to the weather, or have moved onto another project – look at those Adirondack chairs! They need a good coat of paint! And another weekend has flown by. Consequently, I have never had a decent crop of tomatoes.

Oh, last year I posted Instagram pics of the first tomato in mid-April, just to needle my friends in New England who were still shoveling snow, but the friends might not have noticed that I never posted another garden IG for the rest of the growing season. (In reality they had probably stopped following me because they were fed up with my smug, petty humblebrags.) Later in the season, when I finally wrested a couple of wizened tomatoes away from the birds and the nematodes, I did not whip out the iPhone to capture the moment. We have started the annual tomato ritual optimistic, yet again, as one does, by buying a dozen tomato seedlings from the garden store. Right now they look so adorable: short, green and weed-free. Check back with us next month.

In a small collection of containers by the back porch I have planted a packet of basil seeds because we are a respectable middle-class family, and realize how wonderful fresh basil smells and tastes. But that’s it, the sum total of the 2023 garden. No beans. No peppers. No zucchini. No lofty aspirations, or brag-worthy, IG-influencing, state fair fruit or vegetables. We are going to be honest, responsible consumers, eager patrons of our farmers’ market, bringing our own public television tote bags, and buying organic. I hope to see you there.

Some of you might be lucky enough to live just a stroll or a bike ride away from the market. We have to drive about ten minutes. Last year we decided to have a Saturday road trip, and we drove an hour to try out another town’s market. There is nothing like a little Saturday car ride, with NPR playing softly in the background, as we drove in the sunshine over bridges, past farms and miles of car dealerships, tooling through little towns and hamlets. After one stop for coffee and a Diet Coke, we arrived.
I don’t care if it is 8:30 in the morning, or 3:00 in the afternoon, those wretched kettle corn vendors always stop me in my tracks. Popcorn is such a miracle and a delight, and kettle corn is insidious and always irresistible. Here is my money, give me some fillings, please. This fool soon parted with her cash, and then had the necessary energy required to walk around the couple of dozen white tents nestled under a grove of large oak trees. In the tents were tempting fruits, vegetables, flowers, crafts, live geese and bunnies, organic eggs, jewelry, seafood, and coffees. There was even a live music performance, with a little family jug band: I bet holidays at their house are raucous and joyous events!

We wandered around for a while, saying hello to the many dogs who were behaving so nicely. I fear that Luke the wonder dog might have a little too much energy for such a public outing. The other dogs all seemed inured to the passing variety of people and dogs. There were few surprises for these farmers’ market habitués, as they tagged along with their yoga pants-clad people. An ancient, white-muzzled black lab waddled after its plump, madras shorts-wearing folks. A young springer spaniel struggled to contain himself on a short pink and green leash with its young Lilly Pulitzer family. A mutt (rather like Luke) was sartorial in a bandana; nothing makes a dog look jauntier, I think.

And when we got in the car, hoping that it was time for Wait Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, as we turned toward Luke and home. We could have saved a couple of hours and just buzzed over to the grocery store to make our produce purchases, but it was a worthwhile adventure to get out and meet the folks who raise and grow and dig our food. It was a sunny beginning to summer.

Now it’s your turn. Go out to your farmers’ market tomorrow and buy some kettle corn, some home-churned ice cream and some rhubarb. Pat some dogs. Happy spring!

Cambridge Farmers Market
May – October – Thursdays, 3:00 PM – 6:00 PM
Farmers’ Market at Long Wharf

https://downtowncambridge.org/farmers-market/

Chestertown Farmers’ Market
Saturdays, 8:00 AM to Noon
High & Cross Streets & Fountain Park
https://www.chestertownfarmersmarket.org

St. Michaels Farmers’ Market
Saturdays, 8:30 AM-11:30 AM
206 S. Talbot St., St. Michaels, MD
https://stmichaelsfarmersmarket.org

Easton Farm Market
Saturdays, April 15 – December 17, 8:00 AM-1:00 PM, Rain or Shine
100 Block of North Harrison Street, in the municipal parking lot

https://avalonfoundation.org/easton-farmers-market

Kent Island Farmers’ Market
Thursdays, 3:30 PM-6:30 PM, Winter Hours 3:30-5:30
Cult Classic Brewery, 1169 Shopping Center Rd. in Stevensville
https://www.kentislandfarmersmarket.net/

“And what a wonderful relief, every so often, to know who the enemy is.
Because in the garden, the enemy is everything: the aphids, the weather, time.
And so you pour yourself into it, care so much, and see up close so much birth, and growth, and beauty, and danger, and triumph.
And then everything dies anyway, right? 
But you just keep doing it.”
― Anne Lamott

Don’t you love the cloud of steam that rises when you first break through the crust on a hot chicken pot pie? There is that soft hiss as the puff pastry resting lightly on the pie pan falls apart, or when the fragile buttery sheet of top crust is shattered. It is a warm and reassuring. Baking nurtures. Baking satisfies. We developed some survivalist baking skills during COVID, remember all that sour dough bread? This is the good creative stuff, that we can enjoy and share.

We are enjoying a respite between holidays and birthdays at the moment. Sometimes holiday baking feels like factory work, rolling out dozens of sheets of uniform, decorated cookies for Christmas. Now, in mid-April, when there isn’t any pressure, it is a pleasure to bake a batch of chocolate chip cookies on a Sunday afternoon. No one expects fresh, homemade baked cookies when kitchen gets too hot. This is shoulder season, between the cold of winter and the heat of summer. It is the time to pounce, and enjoy baking. Summer is lurking just around the corner.

The weather has been peculiar, as we all have noticed. I felt like the daffodils were up awfully early this year, because we had such a mild winter. But I went through photographs for the past few years, and saw that the daffodils have been keeping to a strict schedule. I was all ready for summer to descend on us last week, and then chilly winter rains roared back. Now is the time to enjoy some low pressure, recreational baking, before I start whining about how hot it is, and how I can’t bear to be in the kitchen.

Shoulder season is the perfect time to bake: low stakes, low pressure. Easter is behind us. Thanksgiving is months away. Let’s start with some chicken pot pie. Something warm and cosy for dinner.
https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/chicken-pot-pie.html

There is no better time to practice working out pie crusts – when the weather is still cool, and there is no holiday meal panic. You don’t need to strive for perfection when you are baking in April, learning how to mix flour and butter with your fingers. You are building muscle memory. But if the siren song of the garden is too strong, some Pepperidge Farm puff pastry is a mighty fine cook’s tool, too. You will still get the gentle whoosh of steam in your face when cutting open a pie topped with store-bought crust. We embrace time-saving technology and innovations here in the Spy Test Kitchens.

Dorie Greenspan has lots of practical hints for pie crusts for fruit pies. Aren’t you longing for something sweet? Strawberries are coming into season, and they are always better with rhubarb. And we won’t be waiting too much longer for blueberries. You can extend shoulder season by baking fruit pies at night, when the kitchen will cool off while you catch up on Ted Lasso. https://doriegreenspan.com/recipe/blueberry-pie-a-lesson-in-piemaking/

Focaccia is simple and forgiving. There are no techniques you need to master, no fancy equipment. You just need flour, yeast , olive oil, salt and a little time. (This is a “gifted” recipe from the New York Times that everyone can read here.

You have to remember that it takes two days. You cannot read this piece and expect to turn around and bake a pan of it for tonight’s dinner. It takes two days of resting time, and two days of space in the fridge. I baked a pan last week, and we still have three more servings of focaccia in the freezer. We tore through the first quarter with sausage and peppers. Tonight we will have the second quarter when we have Martha’s famous One Pan Pasta, because the container garden has started to yield lots of fragrant basil and it is definitely feeling like spring outside. https://food52.com/recipes/30147-martha-stewart-s-one-pan-pasta

This is our favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe. It is practically health food because it also has oatmeal as one of the main ingredients. It takes longer to assemble all of the ingredients from the pantry and the cabinets than it does to mix the cookie dough, so be sure to line them all up on the kitchen counter. It is another handy dandy recipe to mix up, and then only bake about a dozen cookies. I shape the rest of the dough into little balls, then periodically break out frozen balls of cookie dough to bake (at 375°F for 10 minutes) when we need a little treat. (And I hate to disappoint Dorie, but I use chocolate chips, I do not chop chocolate. Mr. Sanders has certain chocolate expectations and I don’t like to disappoint.) https://food52.com/recipes/78188-chewy-chocolate-chip-cookies

Slow down. Enjoy the spring sunshine, and relish wearing a light sweater at night. Start looking for fireflies, and listen for the peepers. A little baking is good for your creative soul if you can take your time.

“The place I like best in this world is the kitchen. No matter where it is, no matter what kind, if it’s a kitchen, if it’s a place where they make food, it’s fine with me. Ideally it should be well broken in. Lots of tea towels, dry and immaculate.”
― Banana Yoshimoto

In the 70-ish years, since 1953, when Peeps hatched on the Easter scene, folks have been divided by these garish, sugary, chewy confections. Love them, or loathe them, Peeps are iconic fixtures in Easter baskets. Not content to rest on their yearly laurels, Peeps can now be had year-round, depending on the holiday. There can be more to hate. There are Halloween Peeps and Christmas Peeps. I even found Peep-flavored Pepsi at the store the other day while doing Food Friday due diligence. I did not buy, nor indeed, taste the Peep pop. Sometimes those branding ideas go too far for human tolerance.
https://www.farmersalmanac.com/marshmallow-peeps-facts-31037

I think jelly beans are universally loved, chocolate bunnies and eggs are scarfed down, Cadbury eggs have a lot of fans if you don’t mind all the calories (every 40 gram egg contains 177 calories and 26.5 grams of sugar). Peeps are practically health food with a mere 32 calories! Yay!

But do you remember the humble Easter egg? Eggs are the basis of Easter baskets. Eggs are the symbol of new life, pagans and Christians agree. Generations of children have hunted for Easter eggs, or rolled them across the White House lawn. And many of us sat patiently with grocery store PAAS Easter egg kits, coaxing colors and patterns onto obdurate eggs. Surely the Ukrainian Pysanky eggs are the most beautiful eggs ever seen! They are marvels of artistic control with intricate, colorful designs. https://www.allrecipes.com/article/how-to-decorate-pysanky-ukrainian-easter-eggs/

This year we are decorating eggs with the young ‘uns, and there will be no PAAS kits. Sadly, we will never approach the beauty of Pysanky eggs, because we lack skills and patience, but we are going to over-saturate some eggs with lots of food colors, wielding some white Cray-Pas oil pastels (or white crayons, which might be easier for tiny hands to manipulate) in our mid-twenty-first century attempt to decorate eggs with a wax resist.
https://www.myfrugalhome.com/how-to-dye-easter-eggs-without-a-kit/

I am bringing some white gel pens to the decorating table, because they dry fast, and resist smudging. And also some washable markers, because half of the fun of dyeing eggs is dyeing your fingers, too.

More homemade easter eggs without a kit:
https://studiodiy.com/how-to-dye-easter-eggs-with-food-coloring/

Don’t feel you have to be all-springy and Martha-y with your Easter egg designs. Flowers are nice, but so are stripes, and flames, and rabbits, and strands of spaghetti. Roz Chast, the New Yorker cartoonist, has started branching out from print to her own version of Pysanky eggs, and you can, too: https://carolcoreyfineart.com/artworks/categories/1/831-roz-chast-beach-2022/

I saw the ultimate Easter basket indignity at Target last week: Decorated plastic eggs, which were already filled with candy. How lazy can you get? Have some fun, save some money, and decorate the eggs yourself. Keep a fresh bowl of jelly beans around at all times to provide energy and inspiration. And be sure you have a stash of yellow chick Peeps getting stale on top of the fridge; along about Memorial Day they will be good and crunchy, at the peak of perfection.

And once all those eggs have been discovered, here are some ideas for recycling them: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/slideshow/how-to-cook-leftover-easter-eggs

“Hard-boiled eggs are wonderful when they’re really done right. I bring the water to a boil, and then I put in the eggs. And then I boil them for – well, it depends on the size of the egg – maybe eight minutes.”
– Alice Waters

I’m taking a little time off to smell the flowers. This is a column from a couple of years ago.

It’s time to put the wool away and focus on spring and all the felicity therein. The towhees are performing an operetta in the front yard. The bluebirds are setting up housekeeping in the nesting box out back. Our daffodils are bobbing in the breeze, and now, in the evening, though still cool, we have enough sunshine for a quick Rhubarb Spritzer on the back porch as we watch the sun go down. The mosquitoes haven’t yet taken up residence, so quick, get outside and enjoy the coolth.

Plan ahead for the weekend:
Make some rhubarb juice
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 pound rhubarb, chopped
4 basil leaves, for garnish
Much Prosecco

In a medium saucepan, bring 1/2 cup water, sugar, rhubarb to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook until the rhubarb is tender, about 10 minutes. Push through a fine-mesh sieve. Let cool.
Fill 4 small glasses halfway with ice. Pour into each glass a scant 1/4 cup rhubarb juice, then top with Prosecco or sparkling wine, or if you insist, soda water to taste. Garnish with a basil leaf.

Growing up we had a couple of rhubarb plants growing in the lower garden, near the compost pile by the barn/garage. We never ate the rhubarb. My mother was never going to serve Rhubarb Spritzers, so I think it they were plants she inherited from the original owners of the house. Like the Jack-in-the-Pulpit by the back steps and the bank of Lilies of the Valley on the west side of the stone wall. I have to use store-bought (or farmers’ market-bought) rhubarb, and that’s a good thing.

Every spring there are cascades of recipes for rhubarb and strawberry pies, cakes, jams, lemon bars, tarts, crumbles and fools. Which are all wonderful and delicious, but this year I want to try a couple of new recipes; where rhubarb isn’t the main novelty or ingredient, but is a subtle and unusual taste.
I am related to a couple of people who are always looking for the next best ribs recipe, and I think this might scratch their itch, for this weekend, at least: https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/rhubarbecue/

And here is one that will make an excellent Sunday night supper: https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/roast-chicken-with-rhubarb-butter-and-asparagus-56389535

Try this for something light in the middle of the week, when you want to stay out in the garden a little bit longer and plant those daylilies, or when you cannot stand another minute in the kitchen: https://carolcookskeller.blogspot.com/2007/05/salad-du-printemps-rhubarb-confit-with.html

And any of these meals can only be enhanced if you give in to the springtime celebration of sweet and sour rhubarb desserts. An Eton Mess is always bliss, but it becomes more than a childhood treat when rhubarb and lemon basil are added to the lush whipped cream and the airy and crisp meringue. Or maybe you should reconsider dinner, and just have some Eton Mess with those Rhubarb Spritzers. Yum. https://food52.com/recipes/22388-eton-mess-with-rhubarb-gin-jam-and-lemon-basil-meringue

Roasting the rhubarb elevates the humble, lower garden vegetable considerably. This shortcake will be scarfed down by your rib lovers, too: https://food52.com/recipes/76923-slab-shortcake-with-roasted-rhubarb

And something easy to make, and keep in the fridge to give you another little taste of spring even when the mosquitoes are back, and the frantic moths are circling the the back light: rhubarb jam. There is a link in this recipe for a PDF for printing jam jar labels:
https://cookienameddesire.com/rhubarb-jam-recipe/

Please remember if you are eating home-grown rhubarb DO NOT eat the leaves – very sick-making.

“I want a dish to taste good, rather than to have been seethed in pig’s milk and served wrapped in a rhubarb leaf with grated thistle root.”
-Kingsley Amis

Last week The Spy received a query about our St. Patrick’s Day piece, asking why we published recipes from easy-to-find websites, and why we weren’t featuring local restaurant reviews. Food Friday has always been about home cooking and never about food criticism – unless we are disparaging my inability to make a pie crust. The foods we talk about are seasonal, sometimes home grown, or found at our farmers’ markets. Sometimes it’s when when we have to get creative with a load of turnips from the CSA. It is economic food cooked hastily; or the tedious and oft toiled over: the boring and repetitious lunch box challenge. We have modest expectations. Sometimes we are served an unexpected and wonderful dish in a restaurant we’d like to recreate, or we remember a childhood dish, and find out it that isn’t a secret family recipe after all – but one from the back of the box of Baker’s Chocolate.

I have never been a professional cook. I worked as a server in a few restaurants during college, but never in an establishment with aspirations of greatness: my best job was waitressing at L.S. Grunt’s Chicago Pizza Pie Factory in London: sightseer by day, waitress at night. After six months I thought I’d never want to see another pizza in my life. And now, my longest cooking experiment has been 30 odd years perfecting pizza dough. In the 90s, I started making a weekly Friday night pizza with our children. The fever was re-ignited during COVID, while everyone else had a named pet sour dough starter, I was weighing and measuring King Arthur’s “00” flour and comparing it to Cento Anna Napoletana Tipo “00” Extra Fine Flour Italian pizza flour, seeking the magical ratio of water to flour, stretching, rolling and manipulating the resulting doughs. (I can’t toss the dough – low ceilings and decided lack of coordination.) We even bought a pricey Ooni pizza oven for flash cooking pizzas at 900°F. This is very serious, though highly unprofessional cooking.

But it is home cooking. COVID brought us all home. There aren’t too many restaurants in our little town, so for three years we very studiously tried to stay safe at home, reading other people’s food stories for inspiration, because otherwise we would be mired in the cavernous rut of cooking the same foods every week. Monday is pasta night. Tuesday is Taco Tuesday. You know the drill.

When I post links to “easily accessible websites” it’s because help is out there, and I spend a fair amount of time every week thinking about the other home cooks, who don’t have the leisure time to poke around the back waters of food writing like I do. Since we started the Spy back in 2009 we have always admired the Food52 website. What a wildly successful juggernaut of food thought: recipes, helpful hints, videos, virtual classes, podcasts, merchandise. Wow. It is daunting just to tap onto their site sometimes – all their positive energy and myriad inspirations! They are full time geniuses. While the rest of us limp along.

Kenji Lopez-Alt, who used to be with Cook’s Illustrated and now is with the New York Times, will take huge amounts of time exploring cooking processes. He spent an entire month perfecting cooking a hard boiled egg. He keeps exacting records, with photographs and annotations. I don’t have that kind of skill, or stamina. But I do have subscriptions to both publications, and can read about it, and let me tell you, the paywalls there are swift and unyielding. I try to digest some of Lopez-Alt’s research. ( He also has a charming Instagram account: https://www.instagram.com/kenjilopezalt/ Lots of great ideas there.)

I also keep shelves of cookbooks, most of which are not digitized. They came in handy this weekend, when I couldn’t find our most delicious and reliable chocolate chip cookie recipe. It had vanished out of the 3-ring binder where I keep printouts of our faves. I couldn’t find it on the Food52 website – which has a great little file for saving recipes. I couldn’t find it in the New York Times food section. It wasn’t in Julia Child’s, or Alice Waters’books. Finally Mr. Sanders dug it out of a Dorie Greenspan cookbook. Phew. The cookie attack was successfully resolved.

Origin stories of recipes almost never make it to websites. You have to thumb through your own batter-flecked and stained cookbooks to remember a successful birthday dinner, or a firefly enchanted summer cookout. (Unless you document everything on IG. Good luck to you there.) That’s why I read Vivian Howard, M.F.K. Fisher, Mark Bittman, Laurie Colwin, and Nigel Slater. I listen to food podcasts while walking Luke the wonder dog. This morning on Table Manners a guest remembered Iraqi-influenced chicken dishes from his childhood – the orange chicken was sweet and citrusy, and the lemon chicken was tart and peppery. Listening to the stories of those meals made me think a little more creatively about our dinner tonight. Maybe I’ll thaw some chicken. Because we will be cooking at home.

COVID and the restrictions that we have learned to live with have influenced how we eat and cook. The economy makes it challenging, too. I like setting the table and lighting candles every night; to rehash the day, talk about the news, share some gossip, while eating a modest, home cooked meal. I will never cook a real New Haven pizza, but I enjoy making the effort every week. There is always room for improvement, and the time spent in the kitchen, at home, is rewarding. We enjoy the feeling of satisfaction when the bubbling pizza slides off the peel, when the freshly baked cake springs to the touch, when the steak sizzles in the cast iron pan. There are stories to tell.

“No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers.”
― Laurie Colwin