Harissa—a blend of hot chiles, garlic, olive oil, and spices—is an essential condiment and flavor base in Tunisia and elsewhere in North Africa. It is is eaten in or alongside couscous, stews, egg dishes, and briks, or “stuffed parcels” made from the crisp, thinner-than-thin pastry called warka. It’s no surprise that there are as many recipes for harissa as there are spice merchants in the souks.

Perhaps the most surprising ingredient in harissa—to most Americans, at any rate—is coarsely ground caraway seeds. We tend to pigeonhole the warm, bittersweet spice as a northern or central European flavoring for stews, cabbage dishes, breads, sweets, and spirits such as aquavit and Kümmel.

But caraway (Carum carvi) likely originated in Central Asia “through to North Africa,” explained Clifford Wright, author of the sweeping, scholarly A Mediterranean Feast. “Within North Africa, it is most popular in Tunisia.” It’s related to cumin (Cuminum cyminum), and the two look very much alike. When you compare the umbellifers side by side, though, caraway (below photo, at left) is darker than cumin (at right).

Harissa appeared on my radar back in the late 1980s, when an ethnographer friend brought me a funky little pot of it from Morocco. These days, harissa is easy enough to buy in the States; brands to look for include M’hamsa (which means “by hand” in Arabic), Mustapha’s, and DEA. I was perfectly happy with the store-bought stuff until a few years ago, when I discovered that homemade harissa was well within the grasp of anyone with access to dried guajillo and New Mexican chiles (available at Latin markets and many supermarkets) and a recipe from Cliff Wright or Paula Wolfert. I never looked back.

Last weekend, when I was on the prowl for something different to do with a roast chicken. I found myself thinking of the harissa-marinated bird I’d devoured about ten years ago at the restaurant Moro, in Exmouth Market, London. Chef-owners Sam(uel) and Sam(antha) Clark are as knowledgeable as they are passionate about the intense, intricate flavors of Spain, North Africa, and the eastern Mediterranean. They are master interpreters of the romance and tradition of that food, and Moro: The Cookbook soon found a place in my library.

Sam and Sam make their harissa with fresh chiles instead of dried, which sounded not just intriguing, but a heaven-sent solution to what was crowding the vegetable crisper—a bag of long red medium-hot chiles from a neighbor’s garden. Roasted piquillo peppers (available at Whole Foods and other supermarkets as well as online sources like La Tienda) and sweet smoked Spanish paprika (I found La Chinata, my favorite brand, at Zingerman’s) add finesse and depth.

One ingredient that’s listed as optional is black cumin. There are a few spices that are sometimes given this name, but what the Sams mean is also known as royal cumin, shah jeera, or kala jeera, and found at Kalustyan’s and other Indian markets. It’s a uncommon spice grown in Kashmir, northern Pakistan, and Iran and is used mostly in Moghul-style meat dishes. Its musky, herbal flavor would give harissa even more complexity, although it was absolutely delicious without it.

Harissa

Adapted from Moro: The Cookbook, by Sam and Sam Clark (Ebury Press, London, 2001)

250 g [about 9 ounces] long fresh red chiles

4 garlic cloves

Sea salt

3 heaped teaspoons coarsely ground caraway seeds

3 heaped teaspoons coarsely ground cumin seeds

1 level teaspoon ground black cumin seeds (optional)

100 g [about 3½ ounces] jarred piquillo peppers, or 1 large red bell pepper, roasted, peeled, and seeded

1 dessertspoon [about 1½ teaspoons] tomato purée or tomato paste blended with a little water

1 dessertspoon [about 1½ teaspoons] red-wine vinegar

2 level teaspoons sweet smoked Spanish paprika

6 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

1. It is advisable to wear rubber gloves when preparing the chiles. Slice the chiles in half lengthwise. Lay each chile, cut side up, on a cutting board, cut side up and gently scrape away the seeds and fleshy veins, discarding them. Roughly chop the chiles and transfer to a food processor. Add the garlic, a pinch of salt, and half of each the spices; process until smooth. Add the piquillos and process. It’s important that the paste is as smooth as possible.

2. Transfer to a mixing bowl. Now add the remaining ingredients—the rest of the spices, tomato purée, vinegar, paprika, and olive oil. Taste and season with more salt to balance out the vinegar. Harissa keeps well in the fridge, but be sure to cover it with a little olive oil to seal it from the air.

Now, about that Moro roast chicken: It really couldn’t be simpler. Generously rub the harissa all over the bird, season with s & p, and refrigerate it for a few hours. Roast the bird in a preheated 425°F oven until done, about 50 minutes to an hour, depending on the size of the bird. Transfer the chicken to a cutting board or platter to rest, loosely covered with foil. If you like, pour off most of the fat from the pan, add about ¼ cup water and a squeeze of lemon, and heat, scraping up the brown bits, to make a simple pan sauce.

Sam and Sam serve their roast chicken with tapas-style fried potatoes, but I was in the mood for large-grained pearled couscous. Most supermarkets carry Near East brand, but for the past few months I’ve been smitten with an artisanal product called Maftoul, from Palestine. Like M’hamsa, from Tunisia, it’s available at Whole Foods, but I find the M’hamsa a trifle salty. No matter what kind of couscous you choose, it’s always a good idea to rinse the wheat granules well before cooking.

 

Roast chicken with lemons and sage is in the oven. Just-dug potatoes are simmering on the stovetop. We have had a run of what my mother would call “Champagne days”—cool and crisp, with high, cloudless blue skies. No Pol Roger or Gruet Brut in our fridge, alas, but wedged between a tub of gochujang and a bowl of thick bone-in pork chops (on sale!) bathing in brine for tomorrow night’s meal is a bottle of standard-issue Prosecco. Excellent.

No, not just excellent, but reason alone to turn to peach ratafia, the newest bottle on the drinks tray. We have actually been imbibing ratafias all summer; one friend, inspired by an ode to the homemade liqueurs by Pete Wells a few years ago, has worked his way through the season’s bounty with great verve (blackberry and lime was one favorite) and is always eager to share. Those ratafias have inexpensive white or red wine as a base, with vodka added as a preservative. They are wonderful served slightly chilled, as an aperitif.

The peach ratafia I’m talking about is different. Based on brandy and peach pits (for color and an almondy flavor), it has more in common with the ratafias of the Georgian and Regency eras, which today have their own Facebook pages. I would kill to have a conversation with Jane Austen or Georgette Heyer about that fact.

But instead I turned to Gerald Asher, Gourmet’s wine editor for 30 years and the author, most recently, of A Vineyard in my Glass, for context. “Ratafia was originally the unfermented sweet grape juice preserved and stopped from fermenting by adding brandy,” he explained. That brandy, he noted, was usually young, fiery stuff,  not aged Cognac. “The French—women, mostly—drank a small glass of ratafia as an aperitif, in the same way the French drink a small glass of ruby port, or concoctions like Lillet or Dubonnet.”

At any rate, ratafia traveled to the Colonies early on. Joe Dabney writes in The Food, Folklore, and Art of Lowcountry Cooking that, “In 1756 the noted Charleston planter Eliza Lucas Pinckney recorded a Ratafia recipe on her diary, calling for seventy-five peach kernels, two cups brandy and a half cup of sweet wine, a half cup of orange flower water, and a half cup of sugar.”

And Matthew Rowley, author of Moonshine!, wrote about this old-fashioned cordial, a.k.a. ratafia aux noyau in New Orleans, in his Whiskey Forge blog. He cleverly asked a restaurant chef to save peach pits for him, and soon had enough for a small batch. Matt likes to enjoy ratafia almost as he would a syrup. “Use it in generous quantities to moisten a cake thoroughly—maybe an almond cake to play off the marzipan flavors of the peach pits. Or with babas.” he said. “And ratafia remains an underappreciated component of mixed drinks—partly because it takes a while to macerate and age, and partly because the lurid red commercial brands most readily available are so bad that drinkers shy away from it.”

I wished I had thought to ask a chef to stockpile peach pits for me; by early August I had only amassed a small bowlful, but found myself poring over them as intently as Tennessee folk artist Roger Smith, who turns the rugged nuggets into miniature sculptures. I was ready to put peach ratafia on next summer’s to-do list, but then discovered an interesting-sounding recipe in Helen Witty’s Fancy Pantry. It only calls for a few peach kernels in addition to sliced fresh peaches. I imagined what those peaches, aged in brandy, would taste like over ice cream, or perhaps embedded in an upside-down cake, and I pounced.

Aside from the macerating time, the only difficult thing about making ratafia is cracking open the peach pits to get at the kernels within. You can wrap the pits in a kitchen towel (to contain the shards) and take a hammer to them, but a vise is really much more efficient. Then I combined all the elements in two canning jars and left them to get along with one another for six weeks, giving the jars an encouraging shake every so often.

Last week, I removed the fruit and peach kernels. Straining the ratafia through a coffee filter gave me time to rummage for a stemless cordial glass, in this household, most often used as a bud vase. The ratafia, which left a slight film on the side, was potent and sweet, very sweet, but a deep, rich, faintly nutty finish saved it from itself. I could decant it into smaller jars and give it away for Christmas. Or not.

Peach Ratafia

Adapted from Fancy Pantry, by Helen Witty (Workman, 1986)

Makes about 5 cups

1 cup granulated sugar

½ cup packed light-brown sugar

½ cup water

3 cups sliced ripe peaches (start with about 1½ pounds), peach pits reserved and more added if available

1/8 teaspoon ground mace

1 quart good-quality brandy

1. Combine the granulated sugar, the brown sugar, and the water in a saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil and boil the syrup briskly, uncovered, for 3 minutes. Cool the syrup.

2. Meanwhile, divide the peach slices between two 1-quart glass canning jars. Crack the peach pits (you will need a hammer or a vise). Extract the kernels and add them to the peaches.

3. Stir the cooled syrup, the mace, and the brandy together until they are completely mixed. Pour the mixture over the the peaches and stir the whole business. Cover airtight. Set the containers aside for at least a month and preferably 6 weeks. Stir or shake the contents once in a while.

4. Strain the cordial through a fine-meshed sieve lined with a coffee filter into a bowl and bottle it (if corking, use new corks only). Refrigerate the fruit.

 

One of the great things about having a blog is that sooner or later you can work in a topic that has been gnawing at you for years but has never found a home. Southern ratatooey is an excellent example of what I mean. I have wanted to write about it ever since the masterful Laura Shapiro asked (and answered) the question “Why Does America Hate Ratatouille?” for Gourmet back in 2008. I scrawled a few thoughts in a notebook and then got busy with something else. You know how it goes.

Because last night’s supper was so good, though, I have to tell about it. My husband and I call it southern ratatooey, but there is no eggplant involved. What it is, really, is nothing more than okra and tomatoes, cooked until tender and sludgy, then shoveled over hot buttered rice. This is nothing new to many southerners, but every time I serve it to the uninitiated—even those who are wary of okra—it is a big hit.

I generally start things off with a few slices of onion, but almost never add garlic, unless it is very young and fresh. I’ll incorporate summer squash or zucchini if it’s in the vegetable crisper, but I don’t go overboard. In fact, it is a mistake to get too lavish or complicated or to throw too many vegetables into the mix. It’s not a chopped salad, or an excuse to clean out the fridge. You want embellishment, not interference, with the lusciousness of the tomatoes and the sweet mellowness of the okra. (That said, in a few weeks, when the tomatoes are sharper and more acidic and the okra is hanging on for dear life, I’ll add some chopped fresh or crystallized ginger or a dab of anchovy paste.) And the overall textural effect should be juicy and soft, although a little crisp bacon crumbled over the top, for contrast, never hurts.

The rice here isn’t an afterthought, by the way, but part of the whole deal. Use your favorite long-grain rice and cook it with care. I just finished up a sack of Carolina Gold from Anson Mills and need to order more.

Southern Ratatooey

If you plan to serve this with crumbled bacon, go for broke and use some of the drippings as your cooking fat, in place of the olive oil. If there are any dribs and drabs of the ratatooey left over, they are delicious the next day for lunch, at room temperature and smooshed onto bruschetta.

Extra-virgin olive oil

Half a yellow onion or so, cut into thin slices

A pinch of red-pepper flakes

A few handfuls of young okra (a pound ought to do it), no more than 2 inches in length, rinsed

Summer squash and/or zucchini, thinly sliced, if desired

A few ripe, flavorful tomatoes, any kind, cut into wedges or chunks, along with any juices from the cutting board

Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

Unsalted butter

Cooked long-grain rice

Crumbled crisp-cooked bacon, for serving (see above note)

1. Heat a glug of oil in a heavy skillet (preferably cast iron) over moderate heat and get the onion and red-pepper flakes working. Meanwhile, trim the larger okra pods and thinly slice. If the okra pods are very small, with fresh, tender caps, leave them whole (if you are at all phobic about the viscosity of okra this pretty much solves the problem).

2. Once the onion is softened, add the squash and/or zucchini if using, and cook until everything just begins to color. Add the okra and cook, stirring, until it begins to yield. Add the tomatoes and once they begin to release their juices, increase the heat to moderately high. Season with salt and pepper and simmer everything until very tender and the juices are thickened.

3. Taste the ratatooey and season if necessary. Give it a chance to collect itself while you butter the rice and spoon it into shallow soup plates. Top it a generous amount of ratatooey and bacon, if using, and eat immediately.

 

You never know what you will find in a food stylist’s refrigerator. Take that of Rick Ellis, above. I had to ponder the contents for a minute before I figured it out. “You’re weighting a summer pudding!” I exclaimed. “Shh!” Rick replied. “It’s for Simon’s birthday.”

Simon Blake, a film and mixed-media director, and his wife, Nadine, two friends visiting from New Orleans, were holding court in the other room over plates of take-out Chinese food. They are two of the nicest and most interesting people on the planet.

“Because Simon is English, I wanted to make an English dessert for him,” Rick said. “How could I not make summer pudding? And it’s so simple.”

“You really want fresh currants for this, but there were none to be had,” he continued. “So in addition to raspberries, I used blueberries and blackberries. Call this a late-summer pudding.” He extricated the pudding from the fridge and removed the ballast, neatly stowed in a charlotte mold, that was compressing fruit and bread.

Then he inverted the pudding onto a serving plate. It looked very sure of itself and its place in the world.

Nigel Slater, writing about summer pudding in The Observer some years ago, explained that he ranks it “with Christmas pudding as one of the best recipes ever, except, of course, that the weather is usually better.” He continued, “It matters not one jot if you make it in a shallow dish, a pudding basin, or, charming this, in individual china dishes. What is important—no, essential—is the juice and how the bread soaks it up. This is your ‘essence.’  … The difference between a good pud and one that is utterly sublime is the juice that soaks into the bread. It is this—its flavour and sheer abundance—that will make or break this dessert.”

I had a feeling that Rick’s addition of blackberries was going to be a good one. Their complex, winey tartness would counter the sweetness of the other berries—a summer pudding is supposed to be tangy—and they intensified the brilliant color of the pudding as well.

I looked around for a jug of cream, for serving, but Rick, who can be unnervingly telepathic, forestalled me. “I know a summer pudding is traditionally served with cream, for pouring,” he said. “But this one needs to be a birthday cake.”

He snipped off the tip of a disposable pastry bag, filled it with whipped cream, and before I knew it, he had decorated the pudding with fat rosettes. “And I just happened to have some crystallized mint leaves in my pocket,” he added. Only a food stylist could get away with that line.

The great thing about a birthday summer pudding is that if it is as hot as blazes out or you suffer from F.O.F. (Fear of Flour), you don’t have to bake. There are no layers or frosting to worry about, yet there is still an inherent drama quotient. If the person you have made it for is English, he may get a little misty-eyed and nostalgic.

Be prepared for guests to crowd around as you cut enjoyably large servings. They will watch the jewel-colored fruit and its juices spill out and want a piece as soon as possible, even if they’re too polite to say so. One spoonful of the bright, fresh berry flavor is generally enough to reduce everyone to silence, the ultimate compliment.

Rick Ellis’s Late-Summer Pudding

“This is best made with local fresh fruit,” Rick said. “Berries bought at the grocery store may need a little more sugar or a little fresh lemon juice or zest to improve the flavor.” In making a summer pudding, you can waste lots of bread, trying to cut slices to fit the bowl uniformly. Rick froze his scraps for breadcrumbs, which is an excellent idea.

2 pints raspberries

½ pint blueberries

½ pint blackberries

1 loaf good white sandwich bread (Pepperidge Farm will do if you can’t buy a fresh loaf), sliced ½ inch thick

¼ cup sugar

¼ cup water

Freshly whipped cream, for serving

1. Pick over berries to remove leaves, stems, rotten ones, etc. Wash gently and let drain.

2. Trim the crusts off the bread. Line the bottom and sides of a 6- to 8-cup bowl (glass, stainless steel, or glazed ceramic) with slices of bread. They should fit tightly, with no gaps showing. Be sure to save enough slices to cover the pudding after you pour in the berry mixture.

3. In a medium saucepan, combine the sugar and water. Cook over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved. Add the berries, stir gently to combine, and cook 3 to 4 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool 10 minutes or so.

4. Pour the berries and liquid into the bread-lined bowl. (The mixture should come to slightly below the top edge of the bread slices.) Top with remaining slices of bread, again fitting them tightly together so no fruit is showing.

5. Put the bowl in a shallow dish to catch any juice, cover with plastic wrap, and top with a flat plate that fits inside the bowl. Put a heavy weight on the plate. Refrigerate at least 8 hours.

6. Run a thin blade around the edge of the pudding to loosen, then invert the bowl onto a serving plate. Rick did this very carefully, then gave the whole ensemble an encouraging little shake. Nothing happened. He gave the bowl a few sharp taps and then waited, bowl still upside-down on the plate. About 20 seconds later, the suction released and he lifted the bowl off the pudding. Ta dah! Serve with whipped cream.

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 with asparagus, romano beans, or seafood. It’s also pretty great in deviled eggs.

I have three more swear-by dressings in this category: poppy seed, Thousand Island, and ranch. They’re familiar to anyone who has ever walked down the dressings-condiments aisle at the supermarket, but flavorwise they may as well be from another planet. The first ingredients you’ll find listed on bottled dressings are usually high-fructose corn syrup and soybean oil, followed by a dreary line-up that includes artificial flavors, stabilizers, and preservatives. Life is too short for that sort of muck, so do as I do and make the dressings at home. You’ll discover that they’re delicious and easy to whiz up in a blender—just right, in fact, for a long weekend full of casual food. They will also send everyone at the table over the moon.

The creator of poppy-seed dressing (see above photo) is generally acknowledged to be Helen Corbitt (1906–1978), the widely influential Texas cooking authority who also gave the world Texas caviar—and who, in 1955, became director of food services for the Zodiac tearoom at Neiman-Marcus, in Dallas. I use the word creator advisedly, for Corbitt begged to differ. “Where it originated I have no idea,” she wrote in her 1957 cookbook. “I did popularize it when I realized that on the best grapefruit in the whole wide world [Texas grapefruit] it was the most delectable dressing imaginable.”

That is still true today. The sweet yet balanced dressing is also wonderful with the peaches, nectarines, melons, and berries of late summer; you may want to pair a fruity salad with ham or pork. It has a real affinity for a spinach salad, and I also love it in a carrot slaw. It is a great gateway dressing or dipping sauce for children (or grown-ups) who might otherwise balk at eating their fruits and veggies.

Helen Corbitt’s Poppy-Seed Dressing

Adapted from Helen Corbitt’s Cookbook (Houghton-Mifflin, 1957)

Makes 1¾ cups

Here, I’ve halved Corbitt’s original recipe. The onion juice is “obtained by grating a large white onion on the fine side of a grater, or by putting the onion in a blender, then straining the juice.” As for the poppy seeds, I advise you to buy a fresh bottle and taste them first, to make sure they’re not rancid.

¾ cup sugar

1 teaspoon dry mustard

1 teaspoon salt

⅓ cup vinegar (I use white-wine vinegar)

1½ tablespoon onion juice (see headnote)

1 cup vegetable oil (not olive oil; use safflower or organic canola oil)

1½ tablespoons poppy seeds

Mix the sugar, mustard, salt, and vinegar in a blender at low speed. Mix in the onion juice. Gradually mix in the oil. When the dressing is thickened, gradually mix in the poppy seeds until they are well blended.

Thousand Island dressing was a 19th-century invention, created in the resort town of Clayton, New York, by Sophia LaLonde, the wife of a fishing guide in the Thousand Islands archipegalo of the St. Lawrence  River. It was popularized first at the Herald Hotel (now the Thousand Islands Inn), in Clayton, and then at the Waldorf-Astoria, in Manhattan—the hotel’s owner, George C. Boldt, summered near Clayton in typical Gilded Age fashion.

Thousand Island dressing is mayonnaise-based and gets its pale color—and a welcome tang—from ketchup-style chile sauce. Some permutations contain pickle relish or chopped pimientos and/or green bell pepper, but I’m not crazy about the nubbly bits. I prefer the version below, from The Gourmet Cookbook, because it is perfectly smooth and voluptuous. Ribbon it over a wedge of crunchy, succulent iceberg lettuce, another great American culinary icon (developed in 1894 from an 1820s progenitor) that is overdue for a renaissance. Use it as a dip for the long slender inner leaves of romaine, or as a condiment for a chicken or turkey sandwich.

Thousand Island Dressing

From The Gourmet Cookbook (Houghton-Mifflin, 2004)

Makes about 1½ cups

2/3 cup mayonnaise

4 teaspoons ketchup-style chili sauce [such as Heinz]

2 tablespoons chopped shallots

1 tablespoon white-wine vinegar

2 teaspoons Dijon mustard

¼ treaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

½ vegetable oil [safflower or canola]

Combine all the ingredients except oil in a blender and blend until smooth. With the motor running [at slow speed], add oil in a slow stream and blend until well blended.

Would the salad bar phenomenon have happened without ranch dressing? I doubt it. The creamy buttermilk dressing is easy to love; in fact, it’s America’s bestselling salad topping. It was created by Steve Henson, the proprietor of the Hidden Valley dude ranch, near Santa Barbara, California, in the 1950s. Guests began taking it home in Mason jars, and soon Henson developed a packaged blend of dried herbs and spices, for mixing with fresh buttermilk and mayo. Before you could say “ka-ching!,” a multimillion-dollar business was born.

Henson never copyrighted the name “ranch,” so these days, various companies sell similarly flavored products. Clorox bought the rights to Henson’s dressing in 1972 and ever since has sold it under the Hidden Valley Ranch label. And now the company has developed a thicker version of the dressing to compete with ketchup. The company “is after your burgers, fries, and wings,” wrote Sarah Nassauer in the Wall Street Journal of April 4. Getting to quote the vice president and general manager for the food, charcoal, and cat-litter divisions of Clorox must have made her day.

The ranch dressing below, also from The Gourmet Cookbook, is based, I think, on a recipe from Sara Moulton. She has always liked to drizzle it over fried green tomatoes, but it is excellent over ripe red ones, too, as well as your favorite salad greens. Although it it thinner than the two dressings above, it still has great body and rich flavor—there is no need to add a whole lot to it. But you may want to make extra, so guests can take some home in a Mason jar.

Ranch Dressing (a.k.a. Herbed Buttermilk Dressing)

From The Gourmet Cookbook (Houghton-Mifflin, 2004)

Makes about 1¾ cups

1 cup well-shaken buttermilk

½ cup mayonnaise

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1 garlic clove, minced

2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives

1 tablespoon chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

¼ teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Combine all ingredients in a blender and blend until smooth.

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 guest room is very hard,” Linda announced, shortly after we arrived. “Come through and see. We can always switch rooms!” If you are anything like me, you find this remarkably relaxing and become part of the household right away.

One mistake that’s easy to make when you’re expecting guests around eleven-ish on a Saturday morning is preparing an elaborate lunch. Everyone will gorge themselves, then turn logy and not inclined to take the boat out, go bike-riding or swimming, or play badminton or golf.

Linda and Patricia know that the trick is assembling a meal that’s easy and light, yet fortifying. You won’t have spent the morning in the kitchen, and it will still make everyone sitting around the table feel very fortunate to be there: A big platter of prosciutto and sliced peaches or nectarines, say, and a generous basket of toasts brushed with olive oil. Embellishments aren’t complicated—all you need are small bowls of butter and fresh ricotta, balsamic vinegar for drizzling, tomatoes from the farm stand down the road, and fresh herbs from the pots on the porch steps. Afterward, you feel energized and ready for anything. Possibly the greatest thing about this sort of meal is that it works just as easily for one or two people as it does for a crowd.

It also happens to be a brilliant set-up for the evening’s entertainment: a pull-out-all-the-stops shore dinner, with steamers and boiled lobsters, creamy new potatoes and corn on the cob. Staggeringly simple and stellar all at the same time, this is one of the great joys of summer in the Northeast. Almost by design, it proceeds at a stately pace—the water has to boil, the clams have to decide to open their shells, and meat has to be teased out of lobster legs and claws and extricated in one enormous juicy piece from the tail.

There is all the time in the world, in fact, to first eat little empanadas and flash-fried shishito peppers, watch the sun slip behind the treeline, marvel at the resurgence of fireflies, and uncork something delicious to drink from PJ Wine—minerally Muscadet, a famous accompaniment to oysters but wonderful with the oceanic tang of lobster, too.

What hard bed? Sam and I slept like babies.

The next morning, the first one up made the coffee. No one was in a hurry to eat, but when we finally got around to it, we all agreed that leftover corn and potatoes from the night before were a godsend. I scraped the sweet heaviness of the kernels off their cobs and diced the potatoes, as well as an onion and red bell pepper. Linda got butter working in a cast-iron skillet and someone else cracked eggs and beat them with a fork. The vegetables hit the sizzling pan. More coffee was made, English muffins were toasted, tomato juice poured. Sam added the eggs to the vegetables, and before we knew it, breakfast was ready and waiting. So was the day.

 

 

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 long. We eat beets every which way. Roasted, sliced, and tossed with thin raw onion rings, orange rounds, and a orange zest–spiked vinaigrette, they are wonderful with grilled fish, especially fresh sardines or bluefish. Pan-glazed with honey and balsamic vinegar, they turn a slice or two of cold sliced ham or pork roast into supper. Sliced and diced and served on pasta à la Laurie Colwin, they make an impromptu dinner party.  And they’re reason alone to spring for a tin of walnut oil and a bunch of arugula or cress.

Beet tops, of course, are world-class pot greens—in fact, they sparked my inaugural blog post, almost two years ago. They become lush in flavor as well as texture without benefit of any help; seasoning meat seems superfluous, somehow, and they are my go-to cooking green when there are vegetarians in the house. The down side to beet greens is that they aren’t good keepers. If you can’t cook them the same day you buy them, separate the greens from the beets and store them separately; they will last another day or so, and the beets will stay juicier, too.

What I want to tell about now, though, is borscht, cold borscht. Generally speaking, I am not crazy about chilled soups, but given the sullen, sultry weather of late, borscht has been calling my name.

Naturally, Sam and his mother, Arlene, have had to get in on the act. They both thought my idea of using fresh beets instead of canned ones was quaint, but played along. “Put the beets in a pot and cover them with water,” they explained. “Cook them until they’re tender. Peel and grate the beets, then put them back in the liquid. Chill it and you’re done!”

I must have looked bewildered. “No matter what, you add garnishes,” Arlene said helpfully. “Chopped vegetables. You know, cucumber for crunch, and scallion, and radish—it’s peppery. Some people add boiled small potatoes and hard-boiled egg.” Sam interrupted. “But the most important thing is the sour cream,” he said. “That’s what gives the soup its body.”

“And tang,” Arlene elaborated, then adroitly upped the ante. “And why not use Greek yogurt instead? That would be good, too.”

I believed them. But that didn’t stop me from turning to The Jewish-American Kitchen, by Raymond Sokolov, with recipes by Susan Friedland. “In its simplest form, beet borscht is merely a cold soup made from beets and their cooking liquid,” I read.

It really is that easy.

Of course, it doesn’t have to be. I was intrigued by David Tanis’s homage to the cold borscht at Barney Greengrass, found in A Platter of Figs and Other Recipes. He cooks his beets in what is essentially a sweet-sour beet broth, and I think it was the citrusy coriander seeds, in particular, that spoke to me. In India, they’re considered a rejuvenating, cooling spice. Perfect, in other words, for borscht. At any rate, a sprinkle of freshly ground toasted seeds on top certainly plays well with all the other garnishes.

Cold Borscht chez Lear

Serves about 4

Adapted from Arlene Lear, Susan Friedland, and David Tanis

A dollop of sour cream looks beautiful on a bowl of borscht for about 30 seconds. Then it develops a lurid pink border, and the soup’s looks go downhill from there. If you like, do as David Tanis does and whisk the sour cream (or whole-milk yogurt, in his case) into the soup just before serving. Cold borscht makes a refreshing first course for dinner, but I’ve rapidly grown accustomed to it at lunchtime, with a slice of buttered brown bread.

About 2 pounds juicy summer beets (medium size), scrubbed and trimmed

Coarse salt

A little sugar (or not)

Fresh lemon juice, for spritzing

Optional garnishes

4 boiled small new potatoes, peeled, left whole

2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped

a few scallions, trimmed and chopped

A few radishes, trimmed and chopped

About ½ seedless cucumber, peeled and chopped

1 teaspoon or so coriander seeds, dry-toasted in a skillet until fragrant, cooled, then finely ground in a spice grinder or with a mortar and pestle

To finish

Plenty of sour cream or really good plain whole-milk yogurt

1. Cover the beets with a good 2 inches or so of water and season with salt. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer, uncovered, until the beets are tender. Don’t be tempted to add more water, or you’ll dilute the ruby-red cooking liquid.

2. Remove the beets from the liquid. As soon as they’re cool enough to handle, peel and trim off any remaining gnarly bits of root and stem. Dice, grate, or julienne the beets. Pour the liquid into a bowl or pitcher, straining it first, if you like, then add the beets. Refrigerate until cold.

3. When ready to serve, add a spritz of lemon juice and a little sugar if you feel it’s warranted. Set out the garnishes and sour cream, so everyone can customize to his or her heart’s content.

“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 the 1960s, and you would find my parents on a shadowy screened-in porch at cocktail time, seeking relief from the heat. The subject of their routine exchange was the rum-based Cool o’ the Evening, one of 46 libations in the 1950 Charleston Receipts*, the nation’s oldest Junior League cookbook (now in its 35th printing).

With 13 drinks recipes that call for rum (including a Champagne punch from the 1890s that serves 600 to 650), it’s no wonder that Rums of Puerto Rico featured Charleston Receipts in a 1952 print advertisement, complete with the recipe for Cool o’ the Evening, a photograph of its creator, Daniel Ravenel, in an old Charleston garden, and sprightly, learned text by South Carolina historian Samuel Gaillard Stoney**. He traces the use of rum in Charleston from 1670 (the year the city was founded) to the light-bodied Puerto Rican rums being marketed “in keeping with the modern trend to less heavy food and drink,” adding, “It makes a gay cocktail or tall mixed drink and wears well.”

I can just imagine my parents chorusing, “It certainly does,” before asking me to run into the kitchen for more mint. One of my summer chores was keeping a jam jar of mint fresh and full in the icebox, and you know what? I still do. Bouquets from the mint patch at my in-laws’ house, out on Long Island, not only come in handy for iced tea and other drinks, but the leaves are lovely torn and mixed with basil for a tomato salad, or chopped with cilantro and parsley and made into a garlicky salsa verde for grilled lamb steak.

My light rum of choice for the past couple of years is a Rhum Agricole, from Martinique. Unlike the vast majority of rums, which are distilled from molasses, Rhum Agricole is distilled solely from fresh sugar-cane juice. It’s rightly extolled for its freshness and purity, but what I really like is how nuanced it is, in the manner of a well-made bourbon.

Rhum Agricole is produced in the French West Indies, primarily Martinique. In fact, the words Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée on the label signify it’s been awarded a certified geographical designation by the French authorities, just like a terroir-specific wine (Champagne) or cheese (Roquefort). You can read more about Rhum Agricole here. Or maybe just go fix yourself a drink and find a porch.

Cool o’ the Evening

From Charleston Receipts (The Junior League of Charleston, 1950)

This is the summer version of the Charleston Cup, which combines light rum with curaçao and orange juice; both recipes are from Daniel Ravenel.

For each serving:

1 sprig mint

Juice of ½ lemon

½ teaspoon sugar

2 ounces light rum

Crush mint in shaker; add other ingredients, using finely chopped ice, and shake until frost forms. Serve in chilled glasses.

* “Receipt” is an old word for “recipe,” and I’m delighted that the online Merriam-Webster still thinks so, too.

** Author of a number of books on Charleston as well as Plantations of the Carolina Low Country, Mr. Stoney was also the creator of the Lazy Man’s Old Fashioned (the secret ingredient is orange marmalade). The recipe appears directly below that for Cool o’ the Evening in Charleston Receipts.

The venerable American dish called scalloped (baked) tomatoes is closely identified with the South. But why? Surely it’s a no-brainer idea in any part of the country that experiences a barrage of juicy, ripe tomatoes in high summer.

I reached out to culinary historian and former Gourmet contributing editor Anne Mendelson. The origin of “scalloped” in the culinary sense is a murky subject best left for another day. As to the main ingredient, however, “Tomatoes grew better—getting sweeter and more flavorful—in the South than in the North until the end of the Little Ice Age, at around 1850,” she explained. “And for a long time after that, the New England growing season was too short for real summer tomato bounty.”

Perhaps that is why most recipes call for canned tomatoes, turning the dish into one of the world’s simplest, most economical year-round pantry sides. Its homey, enduring appeal has even made a splash in Manhattan; the “tomato pudding” on offer at Keedick Coulter’s Bobwhite Lunch & Supper Counter, on the Lower East Side, is as de rigueur as the impeccably fried chicken.

Irma Rombauer included a recipe for “Scalloped Tomatoes or Tomato Pudding” in the 1936 Joy of Cooking. “It consisted of a canned tomato purée and brown sugar mixture,” Mendelson said. “It was poured over one cup ‘fresh white bread crumbs’ and one-quarter cup melted butter and baked in a covered dish.”

In The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (1896), the bestselling cookbook of the previous era, Fannie Farmer used canned tomatoes as well, sandwiching the contents of one can between layers of buttered cracker crumbs. But just 20-odd years earlier, Miss Leslie’s New Cook Book instructed readers to start with “fine large tomatoes, perfectly ripe,” and that is what I like to do this time of year, especially when I have a mixture of heirloom varieties on hand. When stewed, they give complexity and a good balance of acidity and fruity sweetness to the end result, and every time I make the dish, it tastes a little different.

Or very different, depending on what sort of mood I’m in. It’s easy to push scalloped tomatoes in an Italian direction by using olive oil instead of butter. Add chopped garlic to the onion in the pan and stir in some chopped fresh basil at the end of cooking. Then whizz up the bread into breadcrumbs and toss with more olive oil and Parmigiano-Reggiano for the topping. Or you could swing things over to Provence by adding garlic, a bay leaf, and a blend of finely chopped thyme, rosemary, and savory. Stir in a dab of anchovy paste or minced canned anchovy fillet while you’re at it. Here, too, breadcrumbs (or perhaps big irregular croutons) tossed in olive oil would be nice.

The following recipe is adapted from one in Gourmet called “Baked Tomatoes with Crusty Bread.” It appeared in the January 2008 issue along with a previously unpublished essay by Edna Lewis, one of our country’s most evocative food writers. In the headnote I wrote, “You will get enormous pleasure out of serving people this dish.” I still feel like that today. In fact, I can’t wait until my husband gets home and sees what is for supper.

Scalloped Fresh Tomatoes

Serves 4

Adapted from Gourmet and The Taste of Country Cooking, by Edna Lewis (Alfred A. Knopf, 1980)

If substituting canned tomatoes for fresh, you will need 2 large cans (about 28 ounces each) of them. Keedick Coulter’s family recipe specifies Hunt’s. I love that familiar taste as well, but please use your favorite brand. By the way, the brown sugar, common to many scalloped tomato recipes, isn’t meant to make the naturally sweet tomatoes any sweeter; it’s there to mellow their acidity (especially important if you are using canned) and add a little depth.

4 or 5 large soft-ripe fresh tomatoes (preferably a mix of heirloom varieties)

½ stick unsalted butter, softened, plus more for baking dish

1 medium onion, chopped

Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

A pinch of ground allspice

½ teaspoon finely chopped fresh thyme leaves

½ tablespoon packed dark-brown sugar

4 slices white bread from a good-quality bakery loaf

1.  To peel the tomatoes, drop them in a pot of boiling water. Turn off the burner and let them sit about 3 minutes. Drain the tomatoes in a colander and let them cool. Working over a sieve set over a bowl to catch the juices, pierce the skin of each tomato with a paring knife  and slip off the skin.

2. Seed the tomatoes by first cutting them in half crosswise—around the equator—exposing the seed pockets. Use a finger to loosen the seeds in each pocket, then empty the tomato halves over the sieve. Roughly chop tomatoes (you should have 4 to 5 cups) and set aside, along with 1 cup juices.

2. Preheat oven to 425º and butter an 8-inch-square baking dish. Heat about 1 tablespoon butter in a pot over medium-high heat; add the onion and season with salt. Cook until the onion is golden-brown, about 10 minutes. Stir in the allspice and cook 1 minute. Add the tomatoes and juices, thyme, brown sugar, and a few grinds of pepper, and cook at a brisk simmer, stirring occasionally or shaking the pan to prevent the tomatoes from sticking, until thickened, about 20 minutes. You can stew the tomatoes ahead of time and set them aside to cool until needed.

3. Melt the remaining butter and brush onto both sides of the bread. Cut each slice into half. Ladle the tomato mixture into the baking dish and top with the bread slices, overlapping them. Bake until the tomatoes are bubbling and the bread is crisp and golden brown, about 20 minutes.

 

Plenty of folks think yellow summer squash is boring, but I love it. I tell people this, and more often than not, they nod knowledgeably. “Well, you’re southern,” they say. “Squash casserole! Do you make yours with cornflakes or potato chips on top?”

I stopped trying to figure out whether I’d just been insulted long ago. Fact is, even though squash casserole reminds me of lunches with Savannah friends, companionably squeezed in among the tourists at Mrs. Wilkes’ dining room (“anthropology in action,” one pal would always mutter), I don’t really care for it all that much. All sorts of things that don’t belong have crept into squash casserole recipes, from Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom or Chicken soup to Pepperidge Farm herbed stuffing, and the end result usually tastes murky, too cooked, a dish bent on disguise instead of clarification.

Yellow summer squash comes crookneck, straightneck, or somewhere in between. For my money, crookneck has the most flavor and, underneath its tight, warty skin, the firmest flesh. It’s an old variety. According to correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and Philadelphia Quaker Timothy Matlack in 1807, it was native to New Jersey, and, in Heirloom Vegetable Gardening, William Woys Weaver tells us that the summer crookneck is “the only squash that can be traced directly to the Lenape people who once inhabited the Delaware Valley.” It does not need an assist from canned soup.

I cook mine a few different ways. Sliced thin and quickly sautéed, it’s a no-brainer weeknight side. Cut in half, slicked with olive oil, and grilled, its sweetness pops when paired with pesto or parsley-mint salsa verde. Very young specimens, with taut, unblemished pale skin, are delicious raw, sliced paper-thin on a Benriner—you know, the inexpensive Japanese mandoline-type slicer—and dressed with balsamic vinegar, flaky sea salt, and freshly ground pepper. If you happen to have a hunk of Parmigiano-Reggiano sitting in the fridge, a few shavings of that are nice on top.

But I suppose my favorite way is to simmer the squash whole until tender. This concentrates the sweet, delicate flavor wonderfully, and while it is working on the stovetop, you don’t have to fool with it. My mother prepared squash this way. She would cut the cooked squash into thick slices and then fool with it, cooking the slices in butter, maybe with a handful of garden thyme, until melt-in-your-mouth tender, which is not the same thing at all as mushy. (In a nutshell, that’s one thing that separates watchful cooking from criminal carelessness.)

Recently, I came across a recipe for creamed squash in Classical Southern Cooking by Damon Lee Fowler, and I realized that the method of cooking summer squash whole is a very old one, in continuous use since Mrs. Randolph set it down in The Virginia Housewife (1824). Mrs. Randolph would have used young white cymlings (patty-pan squash) or crooknecks; after simmering them until tender, she would make a creamy, buttery rough mash. I can’t wait to try that sometime.

Until then, I’ll do what my mother did, or, more likely, simply cut the cooked squash lengthwise into halves—I like preserving the elegant, alluring shape—and serve it with butter, which will begin to melt as soon as it hits its target. The plate in your hand will smell like summer.

Simmered Summer Squash

If this sounds too simple and plain, it’s easy enough to add some complexity. Mash together softened butter with a little freshly grated lemon zest and finely chopped fresh basil, then slather away. I serve summer squash with pretty much everything—fish, chicken, pork, even a juicy steak. It is also very good with nothing more than rice, leftover snap beans, a sliced garden tomato, and a few slices of crisp-fried bacon.

Small to medium yellow summer squash (preferably crooknecks)

Unsalted butter

Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

1.  Wash the squash well but leave it untrimmed. Fill a pot with water and bring it to a boil. Add the squash, return the water to a boil, and reduce to a simmer. Simmer the squash until tender when pierced by a fork. Depending on size, this should take 15 to 20 minutes.

2. Drain the squash and just as soon as you can bear to handle them, cut lengthwise into halves. Top with butter and serve right away with salt and pepper.