Our girl Tanya is on vacation, so I get to do the honors of announcing: SUMMER’S HERE!
Every summer, I write a to-do list. It started as a joke on a Memorial Day trip a few years ago and included (ironically juvenile) items like “sneak out!” and “pierce each other’s ears,” inked with colored gel pens. What I discovered as I iterated on the list (“watch a sunrise,” “get a Mister Softee cone,” “make a new friend”) is a bit of childlike wonder: It has brought me back to all the reasons to be excited about summer, despite the sweltering subway platforms and diabolical air conditioning bills.
These days, my summer bucket list is a Notes app checklist, and as is my nature, it is increasingly food-centric (but no less wonder-filled): “Make a piña colada,” “grill summer vegetables,” “invent a new s’more.” It’s becoming an extension of my recipe box, which is overflowing with summer-themed dishes. So, if summer recipe inspiration hasn’t quite hit you yet, allow me to expedite the process.
I’m going to start with a bang: Hetty Lui McKinnon’s showstopping yuzu-miso glazed asparagus tart. Even if you don’t make it this weekend, I implore you to linger on the video of Hetty making it — how lovely is she? I’ve been thinking I’ll bring this to the first Memorial Day function I get invited to, serving it right in the sheet pan to show how casual and chill I am.
Yuzu-Miso Glazed Asparagus Tart
On that note, if some picnic invites start rolling in (do I sound desperate?), I’ve got a couple more ideas top of mind:
This herby chive pesto potato salad from Kay Chun is my platonic ideal of a summer dish. A punchy chive-and-parsley pesto tossed with buttery-soft boiled potatoes and snappy green beans? Yeah!
My other ideas are of the creamier variety. This coleslaw, also from Kay, is about as straightforward as summer recipes come, tossed in a lightly sweet mayonnaise dressing, spiked with celery seeds. I’ve also been eyeing this five-star number from Lidey Heuck: chickpea salad with fresh herbs and scallions, an incredible way to turn three cans of chickpeas into a smooth, herb-packed dish that uses more Greek yogurt than mayonnaise in its cooling dressing.
In the same make-ahead salad vein, consider Lisa Donovan’s elegant French lentil salad. It’s slightly more involved but well worth the effort, using green lentils as its base and tossed with confetti-bright ribbons of radicchio, rounds of carrots and a simple, mustardy shallot vinaigrette.
A perennial hit at any cookout-style occasion is Lidey’s Greek salad, made in the traditional horiatiki salata style (not the romaine-based kind you find on an American diner menu). Big wedges of tomato, chunks of cucumbers and green pepper, along with rounds of red onion and slabs of feta make this a very chic “oh, I just threw this together” kind of salad.
And to drink: I can’t imagine showing up at a party with anything more joyful than a cooler of Millie Peartree’s bright-pink nutcrackers over ice. Let the summer festivities begin!
