A recent encounter with a restaurant salad drenched in a thin, too-sharp vinaigrette left me pining for richer dressings, those with swagger and substance. Green Goddess is one such treasure: Anchovies give it a deep resonance and tarragon, a bright, joyous peal of flavor. It’s most famously served over avocado, but it is also superb […]

Giving a house party is an art form. It’s not just forethought and organizational skills that can make a visit memorable, but something rarer, the ability to take people as you find them. Our friends Linda and Patricia, who spend weekends on the North Fork of Long Island, possess this quality in spades. “The bed in the […]

I am extremely fond of beets. What first drew me to them were their handsome, saturated pigments—their drama quotient is off the charts—but then their earthy, equally saturated sweetness took hold, and I was a goner. Luckily, my husband, Sam, is of the same mind, and so we walk around with magenta-stained fingers all summer […]

“Never was a drink more optimistically christened,” my father would say, squinting at his glass. “I don’t know,” my mother would reply, settling into a wicker chair and fanning herself with a copy of Life or the evening paper. “It makes me feel cooler just to look at it.” Pick a summer, any summer, back in […]