Hi Reader, Cherries are the ones I eat standing at the counter, spitting pits into my hand, telling myself I will save some for a tart. I rarely do.Plums and apricots hold longer. They keep for days in the bowl, soften over the better part of a week, and make the best baking of the summer if I get to them in time.This is the short window when all three overlap. Cherries at their dark, sweet peak, plums turning jammy, apricots gone soft and honeyed, all in the market at once.The cherries go...
2 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, I have opinions about fried chicken, and I have had them challenged at more than one family table where everyone else also had opinions.Buttermilk or no buttermilk. Flour or cornmeal. Cast iron or a deep pot. Plain or Nashville-hot enough to make your eyes water.Every version is a slightly different argument about crunch and seasoning and how much heat is too much, and I am happy to make all of them to find out. Rules Before Rankings Brine or buttermilk-soak first, no shortcuts. A...
4 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, For most of the year a tomato is a sad, pink, mealy thing I refuse to buy. Then for about six weeks in summer it becomes the best thing in the kitchen, and I build half my meals around it.A real July tomato, still warm from the garden or the market, needs almost nothing done to it.That is the whole point of tomato season. It is the one stretch of the year when the best thing you can do to your food is get out of its way. Good salt, good oil, maybe some torn basil and a slab of...
6 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, Here is a small confession. After years of grilling all summer, I got bored of the condiments before I got bored of the food.The burger was great. The squeeze bottle of yellow mustard next to it was the same squeeze bottle it had been since I was a kid.So one rainy afternoon I made my own mustard, and it was so much better and so much easier than I expected that I have been quietly making my own condiments ever since. Mustard, ketchup, a barbecue sauce or two, a hot sauce for the...
7 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, For most of the year a tomato is a sad, pink, mealy thing I refuse to buy. Then for about six weeks in summer it becomes the best thing in the kitchen, and I build half my meals around it.A real July tomato, still warm from the garden or the market, needs almost nothing done to it.That is the whole point of tomato season. It is the one stretch of the year when the best thing you can do to your food is get out of its way. Good salt, good oil, maybe some torn basil and a slab of...
9 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, A ripe peach is a short-lived thing. It is rock hard at the store, then perfect for about a day and a half, then it is jam whether you planned on jam or not.I bought a basket anyway, because a good July peach is one of the few foods I will rearrange a week around.Use them at the right moment and a basket goes a long way. The firm ones go into something that cooks. The dead-ripe ones, the ones that drip down your wrist, you eat over the sink or fold raw into a salad before the...
11 days ago • 3 min read
Hi Reader, By the Wednesday after the Fourth, the idea of another heavy dinner just does not appeal. You have grilled. You have eaten ribs. The body wants something lighter and quicker, and it wants it without much fuss.That is fish weather.A fillet of salmon, a pile of shrimp, a whole fish if you are feeling it: most of these are on the plate faster than the grilled food and leave you feeling like you ate well rather than ate a lot.The trouble is that seafood is the thing home cooks are most...
14 days ago • 2 min read
Hi Reader, Two flats of blueberries came home with me this weekend. That is more blueberries than two people can reasonably eat before they turn, and I knew it when I bought them.I do this every July. The first really good local berries show up, sweet and almost too soft to carry home gently, and all sense leaves me at the market.But a flat of blueberries is not a problem. It is a week of breakfasts, a pie, a jar of jam for the back of the fridge, and a cake that makes Monday feel like a...
16 days ago • 2 min read
Southern cooking has spent decades suffering from excellent public relations. Somewhere along the way, we all agreed that every biscuit required a grandmother's touch, every barbecue needed an entire Saturday, and every proper Southern meal began three days before anyone sat down to eat. I admire the mythology. I just don't entirely believe it. The Southern Recipes Readers Return To Most That is what inspired this month's special series, 5 Days of Not-Too-Fussy Southern Recipes! Over the...
20 days ago • 1 min read
