Autumn is sizing us up. It is cooler in the mornings. Old Luke the wonder dog has a spring in his step as we make our morning rounds. I have taken to wearing a light sweater for our first 5,000 steps of the day, and am enjoying the novelty. I imagine that in the middle of gelid February I will be singing a different tune, and will be yearning for short sleeves and balmy breezes. As we get used to autumnal changes, I am happily rummaging through my sweater collection, and thinking about other old favorites that I can bring into the dinner rotation, which is in need of a little energizing.

Our cooking routines just make it easier to plan dinner menus and the shopping trips to stock the larder. I know just what we need for Meatless Mondays (pasta) and Taco Tuesdays (ground beast, Colby cheese, jalapeños) and Friday Night is Pizza Night (00 flour, pepperoni, mozzarella). The routines can become so stultifying. What is wrong with experiencing some novel cooking during the week? Home cooking can be Instagram-worthy, if we can climb out of our precious, convenient ruts.

This week, Pasta Night is not going to be a summer-y Martha Stewart’s One Pan Pasta, which we have made at least twice a month since May (https://food52.com/recipes/30147-martha-stewart-s-one-pan-pasta) nor will it be our other fave in constant rotation, Samin Nosrat’s Cacio e Pepe (https://www.copymethat.com/r/iNU9zfzlp/samin-nosrats-pasta-cacio-e-pepe/). This week we are going to make adorable, individual baked mac and cheese casseroles, in the coquette pans I have had taking up precious cabinet space ever since I found them on sale last spring.

I love frozen Stouffer mac and cheese. I love Kraft boxed, powder-y mac and cheese. I love boxed Velveeta mac and cheese. I love Southern mac and cheese, with a coating of homemade bread crumbs. Mac and cheese. I do not discriminate. I prefer hot, steamy, give-you-blisters-on-the-roof-of-your-mouth mac and cheese. And I will not cook anything that calls for a can of Campbell’s mushroom soup. I like this recipe from the New York Times for its simplicity, and because our time is valuable: https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1015824-baked-macaroni-and-cheese?

Baked Macaroni and Cheese

3 tablespoons butter
12 ounces extra-sharp cheddar cheese, coarsely grated
12 ounces American cheese or cheddar cheese, coarsely grated
1 pound elbow pasta, boiled in salted water until just tender, drained, and rinsed under cold water
⅛ teaspoon cayenne
Salt
⅔ cup whole milk

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Use one tablespoon butter to thickly grease a 9-by-13-inch baking dish. Combine grated cheeses and set aside two heaping cups for topping.
In a large bowl, toss together the pasta, cheeses, cayenne (if using) and salt to taste. Place in prepared pan and evenly pour milk over surface. Sprinkle reserved cheese on top, dot with remaining butter and bake, uncovered, 45 minutes. Raise heat to 400 degrees and bake 15 to 20 minutes more, until crusty on top and bottom.

I like add-ons. Add crumbled bacon. Or if you must, broccoli. Or lobster. Or ham. Or onion rings. Please make your onion rings, and do not use French’s canned onion rings. Those are manufactured solely to disguise mushroom soup in the green bean casserole some misguided relative is sure to bring to Thanksgiving. Be sure to have an emergency can on hand, in case you are hosting this year…

Food52 always knows best. These are divine and crispy: https://food52.com/recipes/16365-crispy-onion-rings

This Mac and cheese recipe is a little fancier, and has more steps and ingredients. Go ahead, show off: https://whatshouldicook.coventry.domains/Digitalmarketingapplication/easyrecipes/easy-mac-and-cheese/

“Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn–that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness–that season which has drawn from every poet worthy of being read some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling.”
― Jane Austen

Last Friday night, after we had consumed copious amounts of Friday night pizza, we bid a fond farewell to Ted Lasso, our favorite sports figure. We were feeling a little sad after watching this season’s finale, and thought it would cheer us up to bake some of the biscuits Coach Lasso baked to ingratiate himself with his intimidating team owner, Rebecca. Apple TV+ has an official recipe, and then there is a fancier Milk Bar recipe, which claimed to be an improvement on the original. We then engaged in one of our favorite activities – a science fair experiment comparing recipes.

I had to explain who Ted Lasso is to the woman who cuts my hair. Between our masks and the roar of the hair dryers it was hard to convey the sweetness and the sly humor of the coaching staff of AFC Richmond, because she is a true crime TV aficionado, and had never heard of Ted Lasso. Sigh. In case you haven’t heard of Ted Lasso, it is a delightful Apple TV+ series about an American football coach who has been hired to coach an English football (soccer) team. It is less about football than it is about optimism. And kindness. It has been a genuine feel-good show through the depths of the pandemic. Go get a free trial subscription and catch up this weekend. It is goofy, poignant, and yes, there is some soccer. And biscuits.

It is difficult scientifically to prove which biscuit recipe tastes better, since the orginal is a fictional, magical biscuit that fictional, magical human Coach Lasso bakes every day. He might have a secret ingredient unknown to the corporate heads at Apple TV. Coach might have a little stash of pixie dust tucked away in a kitchen drawer with those little toy soldiers. Ted might imbue the biscuits with hope and optimism much needed on and off the pitch. And all we have is what we bring home from the grocery store, and concoct in the midst of our own messy lives.

We are rounding the corner, heading into baking season, and the holidays where little gifts of food are welcome. Go find some pink card stock, bring your butter to room temp, and prepare to mix up a batch of hope; you are on your way to the premier league. And do not, under any circumstances, buy pre-fab boxes. Make your own. These are deeply satisfying to assemble: http://www.saltharvestcreatives.com/-free_printable_ted_lasso_biscuit_box.pdf

This is the “official” streaming service-sanctioned recipe:

Ted Lasso’s Biscuits

Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoons coarse salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
3/4 cup confectioners’ sugar

Preparation
Preheat oven to 300° F.
Sift flour and salt, mix into bowl and set aside.
Mix butter on high speed until fluffy (3 to 5 minutes).
Gradually add sugar slowly, continuing to mix until pale and fluffy.
Add flour all at once and mix until combined.
Butter a square pan.
Pat and roll shortbread into pan no more than 1/2-inch thick.
Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes.
Cut into squares.
Bake until golden and make sure the middle is firm, approximate bake time 45 to 60 minutes.
Cool completely.

https://www.today.com/food/here-s-official-ted-lasso-biscuit-recipe-t230627

Now, here is a fancier version, as devised by Christina Tosi of Milk Bar fame, who also believes in gussying up birthday cakes with acres of sprinkles:

Ted Lasso x Milk Bar Biscuits

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 ¾ cup confectioner’s sugar
3 tablespoon light brown sugar
3 large egg yolks
1 ¾ cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon kosher salt

Heat an oven to 315 degrees and prepare an 8-inch square baking dish with cooking spray.
In a medium bowl, mix the butter and sugars vigorously until smooth.
Stir in the egg yolks. Add the flour and salt, mix just until the dough comes together. (“The less you mix the dough, the more positive vibes your biscuits will have,” according to Tosi.)
Using damp hands, press the dough in an even layer in the pan and bake for 40 to 45 minutes until a thin, golden brown layer forms on top. Let cool completely before cutting into two even columns and then six even rows. Arrange in pink boxes if you have them.
Yield: 12 Lasso-size slices

Here’s a link to Tosi’s famous birthday cake: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/momofuku-milk-bars-birthday-layer-cake

Food52 has a recipe for shortbread biscuits that is not for the faint of heart, or anyone in a hurry – they require 90 minutes of baking time. https://food52.com/blog/24156-how-to-make-shortbread-cookies-bien-cut-bakery

Ultimately, these are all well and good, tasty and dense, and are sure to brighten anyone’s day. But I prefer something a little less dense, and more crumbly. I like a classic shortbread, one that we bake when trying to recall a special trip to Scotland (without invoking the haggis experience). Granulated sugar and confectionary sugar are so different.

2 cups all-purpose flour
⅔ cup granulated sugar
¾ teaspoon fine salt
2 sticks, cold unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch chunks

Heat oven to 325°F. Pulse together flour, sugar and salt in a food processor. Add butter and pulse to fine crumbs.
Press dough into an even layer in an ungreased 8- or 9-inch-square baking pan, or a 9-inch pie pan. Prick dough all over with a fork. Bake until golden brown, about 35 to 40 minutes for the 9-inch square or pie pan, 45 to 50 minutes for the 8-inch. Transfer to a wire rack to cool. Cut into squares, bars or wedges while still warm.

https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1018784-shortbread-10-ways

“I promise you there is something worse out there than being sad, and that’s being alone and being sad. Ain’t no one in this room alone.” —Ted Lasso

An unshakeable rule in our house is that Friday night is pizza night. We are ready for the weekend to begin, but we are so exhausted from a week’s work that we can’t possible consider going anyplace. So we gather in the kitchen, pour some wine, turn on music, and warm up the oven while spending a couple of hours together crafting a pizza. It has been our weekly ritual for years, which was a good thing during lockdown, and continues to be our weekly aspiration as we try for the perfect pie.

I’m not sure what our perfect pizza pie is, exactly. Does it taste like the Pellicci’s pizza of my childhood? Pellicci’s is an Italian-American, red sauce restaurant in Stamford, Connecticut. It was where our family celebrated significant events and family milestones on the rare occasions we dined out. The crusty, fragrant bread was baked on site, the meatballs were oversized, the mounds of spaghetti were vertiginous, and the cheese pizzas were thin, and crisp, and scorched on the edges, with molten cheese. We were impressed that our parents knew how to fold pizza, like a paper airplane, before taking a bite. We didn’t appreciate then that they grew up eating at Sally’s Apizza in New Haven, the mothership of American pizza. They had skills. https://www.sallysapizza.com

We started making pizza at home when our children were young, and malleable. Pizza to them was not a treat or a ceremonial meal. They had cafeteria pizza for lunch in school. There were class pizza parties to celebrate honor roll announcements. Neighborhood birthday parties almost always rolled out a delivery pizza, along with a frozen grocery store sheet cake. The children were growing up on expensive, cardboard, industrial-complex-pizzas that had no soul. They actually liked the “butter-y” dipping sauce that accompanied one brand of delivery pizza. These were the grandchildren of original Sally’s Apizza aficionados, and we were ruining the bloodline.

We started slowly, making dough from a recipe in The Joy of Cooking, of all places to start, but those were the dark days before the internets, and Joy was my first resource. I still have photos of us, covered in flour, because the children were young, and kneading was an all-hands-on-deck proposition when you are trying to get children interested in their food, and how to make it. There are always math, geometry, and art lessons to be had when making pizzas. Eventually they tired of the dough-making process, and I would make it myself in the morning. They seemingly enjoyed the process of rolling out the dough, and adding the sauce and cheese, and finally, the eating. Sometimes we snuck in frozen pizza dough from the grocery store, but that wasn’t important: it was the Friday night ritual that had been firmly established.

Mr. Sanders and I can be found here almost every Friday night, rolling out the dough. Sometimes we post a video of the pizza as it emerges from the oven. Each week we enjoy our own apizza, and maybe you could, too.

Our dough, which has been evolving for 20-something years, is a variation on a Mark Bittman recipe: https://www.markbittman.com/recipes-1/pizza-dough For the past year we have been using a “00” flour, as suggested by my brother, the original family pizzaiolo, who still eats in New Haven pizzerias with regularity, and who bakes a mean pie. This flour has made a huge difference in the texture of the crust – it is lighter, and more flavorful, and makes an excellent crisp crust. For a while, the only place I could find it was on Amazon, but suddenly, the fancier grocery store in town is carrying it. https://www.amazon.com/King-Arthur-Flour-Specialty-American-Grown/dp/B08HZJ798S/ref=sr_1_7? For the formative years, though, we used all-purpose flour or bread flour, and made perfectly delicious pizzas. We are just showing off now.

Our take on pizza dough:
3 cups “00” flour
1 tablespoon yeast (I have been buying yeast in jars, because I am extremely cheap)
2 teaspoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup warm water (I warm it in a teapot that has a thermometer – to about 120°F – any warmer and you will kill the yeast)

I use a fancy KitchenAid stand mixer, which would probably offend Sally’s soul, but the romance of kneading by hand wore off decades ago. I mix all the dry ingredients, then add the oil, and finally the cup of water. Sometimes I have to add a little more water, until the shaggy mess forms a dough ball. Then I run the mixer for about 5 minutes. After 5 minutes, I take the ball of dough out and knead it on the counter, just to tidy of the ball. I put it in a mixing bowl, with a drizzle of olive oil, and cover the bowl with Saran Wrap, and pop it into the microwave for a day of rest. The microwave is a nice safe place; the dough is off of the counter, and the temperature stays constant. By around 6 o’clock, it has risen nicely, and is ready for transformation.

When we first started making pizza at home we had a standard issue electric oven. Now we have a slightly fancier gas oven. First we pop a pizza stone into the oven, and pre-heat to 525°F. Once the temperature reaches 525°, we set a timer for 30 minutes. We don’t have a coal-fired oven like Sally’s, but we can pretend. We started off using a standard cookie sheet, then graduated to a round pizza pan. Now, after all these years, we have lots of esoteric equipment: a metal pizza peel, a French rolling pin, the pizza stone, a stainless steel scraper, squeeze bottle for oil, and a gigantic pizza cutter.

Next comes the Friday Night Rite.

While the oven is heating, I grate an 8-ounce block of mozzarella cheese. Sometimes we use fresh mozzarella, but fresh tends to contain a lot of moisture, and can make a soggy pizza: use judiciously. We also employ freshly-grated Parmesan cheese with abandon.

I like pepperoni pizza best, and Mr. Sanders is a bon vivant who likes sausage, meatball, salami, proscuitto, ham, speck, kale, broccolini, peppers – you name it. Have these wild cards lined up on the counter, too. We cheat enormously with the pizza sauce. We stockpile jars of Rao’s Pizza Sauce when it is on sale. But leftover homemade spaghetti sauce is also a family fave. Use what makes you happy.

On a floured surface, divide the dough in half. We freeze one half, for emergency mid-week pan pizza, or garlic knots. Then Mr. Sanders rolls, rolls, rolls the pizza dough. (It took years to achieve a circle shape, so do not despair if you produce amoebas.) Using the rolling pin, he places it gently on the corn meal-covered pizza peel, which is essential to his art. Don’t forget the corn meal. (There is no other way to transfer an uncooked pizza to a hot pizza stone without a peel. We have been using a metal pizza peel for a couple of years which is much easier to ply than our old wooden one.)

Once the dough is on the pizza peel, Mr. Sanders squirts a couple of tablespoons of garlic-infused olive oil onto the dough, and spreads it around evenly with the back of a spoon. A gentle reader suggested the garlic-infusion because the house becomes redolent with garlic: nothing says “home-made pizza” faster than walking through a wall of garlic. (We have a plastic squirt bottle filled with olive oil and a couple of peeled garlic cloves – instant pizzeria! Thanks, Jane!)

Then Mr. Sanders spoons on some sauce, not lots, because you want the pie to stay light and crisp. You’ll develop an eye. Then he scatters the mozzarella cheese, and judiciously arranges the toppings. When it is safe for indoor dining again, stop by a pizza joint, not a fancy place, and watch how the journeymen pizza guys scatter the cheese and toppings. They are fast, spare, and economical. Less is better.

Then transfer the pizza from the peel to the blazing hot pizza stone. This takes some practice. Set the timer for 8 minutes. Pour some more wine, light the candles, and prepare for glory. Homemade pizza. Divine.

Every week we sit in judgment – it’s never the best pizza ever, but it is always getting better. And the flops are forgotten quickly, because why else is there wine? Sometimes we achieve near-Pellicci’s quality, and we are always Sally’s-level aspirational. Someday we’ll get back to New Haven to compare. Until then, we always have Friday nights at home.

“But magic is like pizza: even when it’s bad it’s pretty good.” Neil Patrick Harris

As we slowly wind through the COVID labyrinth, skirting crowds, eschewing indoor dining, and devising our own small cooking triumphs, I have learned it isn’t enough just following last year’s trendy sour dough bread bake off. Sometimes we just need to make ourselves happy. We can indulge in little acts of kindness to ourselves, without going all Madison Avenue slick, or woowoo, and espousing themes of “self-care”. Sometimes we just need the comfort food. To have a treat.

Comfort food doesn’t need to be fancy or laden with calories and fat. Comfort food can remind us of our mothers (cinnamon toast), our college roommates (Kraft Mac & cheese, the stuff in the box, with the orange powder) or restaurant meals we enjoyed years ago (burrata and grilled tomatoes). They can help us relive of our child-rearing years – I just bought a bag of Goldfish because we ate so many of them when our children were little, and life was good with fistfuls of Goldfish or Cheerios. Remember, Proust wrote a 7-volume novel because of a bite of a Madeleine cookie.

I just started listening to a new podcast as Luke the wonder dog and I make our neighborhood rounds: FT Weekend, from the Financial Times. It contains only the amusing bits of news that end up in the Financial Times’s weekend magazine. (Trust me, the financial news is not my usual podcast fare.) This week they were talking about the coping mechanisms people were developing to get through the COVID lockdowns. A man in England they cited, rode his bicycle once a week to buy 6 oysters on the half shell. He would sit on a park bench, swallow the oysters, get back on his bike and pedal back to the safety of his home. That was his treat, his indulgence; his brain treat. (Treat Brain: https://www.ft.com/content/1c5a18a1-9b0f-4b16-912b-1aeb60a63162)

When I was in high school, we used to walk down the hill after school to a deli that made excellent meatball subs (except in Connecticut, in that era, they were called grinders*). I remember feeling thrillingly independent buying such an exotic sandwich – something that we never had at home. It was hot, and filling, and the melted mozzarella cheese stretched forever. The memory of those grinders wafted through my brain the other day, and I had to treat myself.

It seems silly to have a recipe for a meatball sandwich, but maybe you have never tried your hand at one before. I would say to include plenty of mozzarella cheese, though, which is strangely missing from this recipe: https://tastesbetterfromscratch.com/italian-meatball-subs/ And I would also say that you should have a side of a large bag of UTZ sour cream and onion potato chips, because who really would have a fruit salad when plumbing the depths of a high school food memory? And maybe a real, 100%, full-throated Coke. This is a one-time treat. Not the rest of your life. And then take a good, long walk. Luke is available.

Since movies have been off limits for a year and a half, we have been having movie nights at home, complete with big bowls of hot, salty, buttery, wonderful popcorn. I will have a weekly bowl of popcorn before I would ever have 6 oysters on a half shell, but that’s me. It’s not quite as magical as sitting in a movie theatre, but the popcorn is better, and it doesn’t cost a fortune. Also, there are no annoying people texting.

We also have a comforting weekly ritual of making pizza on Friday nights. Which we will talk about next week. Maybe I will freeze a couple of meatballs for that event. In the meantime, remember your mask, and try to enjoy yourself.

“With enough butter, anything is good.”
-Julia Child

* https://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/ingredients/article/the-origin-of-hoagies-grinders-subs-heroes-and-spuckies

We almost always have a big bowl of green apples sitting on the kitchen counter. I tend to buy green apples, and that is the way I think of them, “green apples,”  when I should be thinking “Granny Smith.” Granny Smith apples are good for eating raw and also for baking in pies. Which is about the extent of my apple repertoire.

The smart folks at Saveur magazine have a more novel approach, apples for every dinner course: “An All-Apple Dinner.”
http://www.saveur.com/article/Menu/An-All-Apple-Dinner

Apples are the harbinger of autumn, and of school lunches, and snacks gnawed after school while sitting at the kitchen table. I remember lolling the summers away in a neighbor’s back yard, where blowsy hydrangea blossoms wafted and the grass was covered with fragrant, rotting crabapples. That crabapple tree was a good height for climbing, too, always an added kid bonus. And there were grapevines, with lip-puckering green grapes. Eventually the grapes ripened into sweet purple orbs, which were perfect for spitting.

Apples remind me of brown-bagged lunches, with warm, wax paper-wrapped cheese sandwiches. They were an intrinsic part of the lunchroom smell: apples, old bananas, sour milk, vomit and the green sawdust the janitors used for sweeping up the floors.

Apples make me think of Jo March, scribbling in her cold New England attic, her inky fingers clutching apples as she nibbled away, scrawling her latest lurid tale. Apples bring knowledge and comfort, and at this time of year, and in these perilous times, there are plenty of reasons to eat them often.

There seem to be an equal number of apple dishes we can prepare, as there are varieties of apples: apple sauce, apple butter, apple cake, apple pie, apple tart, apple cider, apple crisp, apple brown betty, caramel apples, apple turnovers, apple pancakes, apples and cheddar cheese… (Here are 80 apple recipes, all in one place: https://www.delish.com/cooking/g1968/easy-apple-recipes/ ) We have discovered that Luke the wonder dog likes green apples. (He also likes iceberg lettuce, fresh asparagus, Roma tomatoes, green peppers and the sound of plastic-wrapped slices of processed American cheese food.)

It’s a little early for the strolls through crunchy leaves, but the autumnal yen of eating crunchy apples can be indulged right now. You need to mask up and travel to your favorite farmers’ markets this weekend, and stock up on freshly picked treasures. Of course, it is always gilding the lily to do anything to an apple except wash it and take a bite. Even pies seem unnecessarily contrived. Does an apple really need brown sugar, cinnamon and dabs of butter to taste better? Of course not! But any iteration of an apple is a good thing.

This Apple Crumble is easy peasy.

6 Golden Delicious or Braeburn apples, peeled, sliced into 1 inch pieces
4 tablespoons sugar
2/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 tablespoon lemon juice
Grated zest of one orange
2/3 cup melted butter
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup uncooked oats

Preheat oven to 375°F

Mix apples, sugar, lemon juice and orange zest. In another bowl combine flour, oats, brown sugar, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. Toss with butter. Combine with apple mixture in a buttered baking dish.

Bake for 30 to 40 minutes. Cool 10 minutes before serving. Serve with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a nice big wodge of whipped cream. Yumsters. All of the taste of apple pie with no fragile or temperamental pie crust to contend with.

The Farmers’ Almanac has a handy-dandy chart for which apples are best suited to various dishes: sauces, cider, pie and baking. http://www.almanac.com/content/best-apples-baking

“And there never was an apple, in Adam’s opinion, that wasn’t worth the trouble you got into for eating it.”
Neil Gaiman

Some seasons end abruptly. One day it is freezing cold, the next it is warm and sunny. Summer ends next week, and it has been taking its sweet time. We have been having cooler mornings, but sneaky high afternoon temperatures have been loitering around. Like high school cool kids hanging in the smoking courtyard, they are tedious and must be borne.

We threaded through the farmers’ market last Saturday, trying to keep our social distance from the other folks eager to get out of the house. We are all a little weary and shopworn, like some of the produce. The peaches were looking a little older. The tomatoes didn’t hold the same glistening promise they they proffered in June. We have reached the squash maximum tolerance threshold. I couldn’t even find a new basil plant to buy, as our current plant just gave up the ghost on the back porch: too much summer. What on earth are we going to cook for dinner?

In the summer we are always in a rush to get someplace. The easy peasy, no-cook meals are perfect for busy summer people. We are ready to slow down a little now, and start thinking about a less harried, more reflective way to prepare meals. It’s almost time to dig out the slow cooker. But let’s not waste any time, or tomatoes, zucchini or over-ripe peaches as we anticipate the change of season.

Vivian Howard know just what to do with peaches. This recipe makes me feel happy that I am not a restaurant cook, and as a home cook I can smugly wrap peaches in a leisurely fashion. This is new life for old-ish peaches: https://www.vivianhoward.com/gorging-on-life/country-ham-peaches

Did I say we were tired of squash? Nonsense. Because now I know about squash tacos. These are easy, they are novel, and they are something new and wonderful. Plus we use up more squash. https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/245766/butternut-squash-tacos/

If I see another Caprese salad before 2022 I will surely cause an embarrassing scene. https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/ultimate-caprese-salad Enough! And now that we are living without a viable basil plant, I should be able to avoid Caprese salad at home. Which isn’t to say that I don’t still love a nice big tomato salad. Just hold off on the bland, fresh mozzarella. Keep it for the pizza Margherita. I am moving on to something tart and tangy. https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/late-summer-tomatoes-with-fresh-herbs?

Some cooks are turning to TikTok for meal inspiration. https://www.thrillist.com/eat/nation/tiktok-recipes-to-try-out-now

But that crafty Martha has a recipe for squash, zucchini and tomatoes. Of course she would. https://www.marthastewart.com/1549611/baked-fish-summer-squash

Maybe I am just weary of all the numbers, bad news, and monotony, but I cannot wait for autumn to start. I have probably contributed to the weather staying warm by buying a couple of big, yellow chrysanthemum plants for the front porch already. They need daily watering, which fills the basil maintenance void, and look they carefree and cheerful. I’ve ordered daffodil bulbs, and I even though I won’t get to plant them until Thanksgiving, it is nice to have something to look forward to. Spring is just around the corner!

“That old September feeling, left over from school days, of summer passing, vacation nearly done, obligations gathering, books and football in the air … Another fall, another turned page: there was something of jubilee in that annual autumnal beginning, as if last year’s mistakes had been wiped clean by summer.”
― Wallace Stegner,

As I feared, the respite from summer heat that blew through here last week was fleeting. The temperature is back into the 80s in the afternoons, and Luke the wonder dog positively melts during our afternoon walk. He enjoys the ritual of getting in the car, throwing his head out the window, and smelling all the delights our suburban neighborhood can offer a suburban dog. We arrive at the cemetery, where in cooler times we log a brisk half hour of me following him as he determines our path, sniffing fences, bushes, benches, turkey vulture feathers, and yesterday, oddly, a dinner roll. After we have made a couple of circuits he is ready, reluctantly, to get back in the car, to go home, to his kibble. Yesterday, despite the novelty of the abandoned dinner roll, he was nosing toward the car after about 15 minutes. It’s still not fall, and he is rather sad about it.

After our Labor Day weekend, where we celebrated by grilling hot dogs, making potato salad, eating corn on the cob, making yet another batch of Cole slaw, and reveling in the final, end-of-the-season raspberry fool, I am ready to move on to heartier stuff. Isn’t it time to cook some chili? When can we have meatloaf? I am longing for some roasted chicken. How about a nice bowl of steaming spaghetti? I am itching to get back in the kitchen, to turn on the oven, and prepare for winter.

Still. The temperature is not looking autumnal, no matter what my sentimental heart yearns for. If Luke is exhausted and liquified by the heat, a long bout in the kitchen would parboil me, too. So let’s start with a little baking. Something light-weight, and almost seasonal, because it really still is summer, despite myriad pumpkin spice items that have suddenly appeared in grocery stores and coffee shops all over town. I think I can gamble a quick hour of time on some cinnamon sugar pumpkin muffins. The kitchen will smell wonderful, we’ll have muffins with our grilled chicken dinner tonight, and muffins for breakfast in the morning, and if we are feeling generous, Mr. Sanders can bring some to the office to share.

I love the fact that the sugary topping is essential to the appearance of these muffins. Sadly, I never find my toppings approach the deliciousness of the Drake’s Coffee Cakes of my childhood. Remember having those in your lunch bag? Yumsters.

https://www.momontimeout.com/cinnamon-sugar-pumpkin-muffins/

https://plumstreetcollective.com/pumpkin-muffins-with-cinnamon-crumble-topping/

I admire the confidence of our friends at Food52, that theirs are the best ever pumpkin spice muffins. But they are usually right! I also like the helpful hint, buried deep in the recipe, to use a piece of uncooked spaghetti instead of a toothpick when testing for doneness. Genius! Since we haven’t had a cocktail party in a couple of years, due I hope to behaving responsibly during COVID and not to our lack of a social life, there has been little reason to keep toothpicks on hand. And I always have pasta in the pantry. Thanks, Food52! https://food52.com/recipes/84086-best-ever-pumpkin-spice-muffins

I was standing in the check out line at the grocery store earlier this week, eavesdropping on a couple of clerks, who were excitedly sharing their Halloween costume plans. So I am not the only one who is eagerly anticipating the fall. I am even eyeing the candy corn, which is also suddenly ubiquitous.

“But when fall comes, kicking summer out on its treacherous ass as it always does one day sometime after the midpoint of September, it stays awhile like an old friend that you have missed. It settles in the way an old friend will settle into your favorite chair and take out his pipe and light it and then fill the afternoon with stories of places he has been and things he has done since last he saw you.”
― Stephen King

Just as I was thinking that summer was nearly over, we have gotten slammed in a huge panini press of searing, scorching heat. My daughter lives in Florida, and I compare her temperatures almost daily with ours. We are neck-in-neck. It’s going to be 93° this afternoon, here and in Florida. On the whole, I think I’d like an ocean view, at least there I could go swimming.

Instead, here I melt, a soft, oozing cheese, while I puzzle over the mysteries of summer squash. Have you noticed the annual wave of zucchinis and squash taking over the produce section at your grocery store? It reminds me of the moment in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, when the pods are disgorged from trucks and car trunks – the gourds are everywhere. We have been outnumbered, and we must do all we can to protect our species, even in this roasting heat. It’s time to whip out our cookbooks and save humanity.

There are green zucchini and yellow zucchini. There is Costata Romanesco Zucchini, which is striped. There is an eightball zucchini, which is a pale green billiard ball. There are straight neck and goose neck yellow squash. There are yellow, green and a yellow/green combination of pattypan squash. There is a pale green Cousa Squash. There is the hybrid Zephyr squash, which is a combination of yellow crook neck, delicata, and yellow acorn squash. It is no wonder that cucumbers are feeling crowded out of the produce section.

While we are still enthusiastic about eating summer squash this is an excellent dish: https://food52.com/recipes/86125-best-orzo-risotto-recipe-with-summer-squash You can eat it sitting on the back porch, once the sun has set, the temperature has dropped, and it is feeling less like a furnace in your own back yard. Look, there are still a few fireflies, and we can almost converse over the racket of the cicadas! Have another glass of wine!

As long as it is summer, let’s use the grill again. Some nights I can’t face more than a salad. Adding a side of grilled zucchini makes a salad more of an event. https://www.skinnytaste.com/grilled-zucchini/ And then a bowl of icy cubes of fresh watermelon. Deelish.

How about dinner and a movie tonight? Ratatouille and Alice Waters’ genius Ratatouille http://tastyoasis.net/2015/11/11/alice-waters-ratatouille/. After you spend the afternoon slicing and dicing, you can spend the evening in Paris with a couple of charmers.

(Here is the link to Ratatouille the TikTok Musical, which is lots of fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1aIzbW6Lrs)

Watch out for your neighbor who shares too much. The first couple of zucchini shared over the back fence are nice and neighborly, but it can lead to mysterious midnight deposits of body bags of them left on your front porch. I can handle any amount of home-grown tomatoes, but my taste for zucchini and squash is limited.

As a thank you for your neighbor, try this subtle revenge: zucchini bread: https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-zucchini-bread-157748

Summer is going to wind down. I have seen a scattering of red leaves in the dogwood tree across the street. Our zinnias are going nuts, and the black-eyed Susans are petering out. I will never remember this heat deep in February, when I will be heartily tired of turtlenecks and knee socks. Carpe diem.

“The trouble is, you cannot grow just one zucchini. Minutes after you plant a single seed, hundreds of zucchini will barge out of the ground and sprawl around the garden, menacing the other vegetables. At night, you will be able to hear the ground quake as more and more zucchinis erupt.”
—Dave Barry

I always loved that first day of school:new shoes, new notebooks, new pencils, and a pristine box of still-pointy, aromatic crayons. I always forgot about my crippling locker combination anxiety over the summer. I never thought about the social implications of lunchroom seating during those leisurely hours, either. And as a responsible parental-unit, I loved shopping for school supplies, and shoes, and new lunch boxes. It was only the night before school started that I confronted the horror: the woeful lack of organization in our lives.

While the young ‘uns were setting out their new sneakers for the morning, and frantically paging through a book that should have been read weeks before, I was peering into the fridge and taking stock of our jumble of foodstuffs. What nutritional and tempting combinations could I conjure that would actually be eaten? Once, when Mr. Sanders had been out of town for a very long business trip, we attempted to set a world’s record for eating pizza for every meal, for many days in a row. I understand that that sort of tomfoolery doesn’t set a good example nowadays.

Now everyone has cute, eco-friendly, bento box lunch boxes, Mr. Sanders included. They have cunning little containers for vegetables, for fruits, for proteins. People cut vegetables on Sunday afternoons, and put them in the fridge for easy access on school mornings. They roll up lettuce wraps, dice carrots, prepare tuna salad, bake muffins and stack little cups of applesauce. These people also involve their children in the lunch assembly process. The existential despair I often felt in those dark, early mornings racing to get lunches made before the school bus arrived no longer exists, because people are organized and thorough. And you can be, too.

While we are still leftover-dependent in this house, these folks know what to do about school lunch organization: https://www.therisingspoon.com/2020/07/healthy-make-ahead-lunches-back-to-school-work.html

A handy guide to Sunday night preps: https://www.realmomnutrition.com/lunch-packing-stations/

And at Food52, the ever-clever Amanda always has some really fab lunch ideas. http://www.food52.com/blog/4436_the_return_of_amandas_kids_lunch

This year, another COVID-19 year, there are still huge challenges for the school-aged. This year we will be sending everyone off with masks and social distancing requirements. Will the children eat their lunches in a cafeteria or from social distances at their desks? Maybe there will be picnic tables outside, while the weather is still nice? Will the children bring lunches from home, or eat school-provided meals? Is this the end of the bologna sandwich?

And now, with a modest little drumroll, is the Spy Test Kitchen lunch list, which I haul out, shamelessly, every fall. Feel free to make your own spreadsheet, or PowerPoint deck so you never have another moment of lunch ennui. The Test Kitchen came up with this flexible list of ingredients for packing school lunches a few years ago. It is just as timely today:

Luncheon Variations

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, layer 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
Chutney
Butter
Hot sauce
Salsa
Salsa verde

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
Jalapeños
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
Blueberries

“ ‘We could take our lunch,’ said Katherine.‘What kind of sandwiches?’ said Mark. ‘Jam,’ said Martha thoughtfully, ‘and peanut-butter-and-banana, and cream-cheese-and-honey, and date-and-nut, and prune-and-marshmallow…’”

-Edward Eager