No-Name Summer

Snapshots from a Texas summer: grief, green ribbons, and coconut sheet cake.

Someone on the internet observed that this summer has no name. It’s not Brat Summer. It’s not Hot Girl Summer. It’s… just summer. I had lunch with a friend this week who said she really thought it was going to be a chill one. Wishful thinking, considering she’s working from home with the kids out of school and a home renovation mid-chaos. What I’m hearing is - I very much like I need to invite her and the kids over for a pool day and popsicles. Stat.

But even beyond nameless season and personal overwhelm, it feels like a summer marked by grief and upheaval. The catastrophic floods that swept through Central Texas last week have left so much heartbreak. We feel it deeply here in Bellville. Green ribbons have appeared on trees all over town as a sign of hope and solidarity. The police department has been the hub for donations, and trailers of supplies are heading to our neighbors. Texans really do show up for each other like nowhere I’ve ever seen.

Abby’s Sunday post (linked below) includes ways to support flood relief efforts. But if all you have to give is your prayers, we’ll take those with so much gratitude.

This week from the kitchen I’m throwing a little backyard pizza party for Will’s mom’s birthday (Happy Birthday, Martha!!) wherein I’ll be firing up and manning the Ooni. It’s a labor of love and prep and 00 flour and it’s absolutely worth the effort. (Let me know if you want to the details on an outdoor pizza oven night or if that’s too niche).

Also on the menu is this very easy Four Can Pantry Salad that is closely related to the traditional Three Bean Salad I’ve been craving. For dessert I’m making My Favorite Coconut Cake (spoiler alert: it’s made with cake mix and served as a sheet cake). Casual. Thank goodness!

Here’s today’s offering, with love.

Let It Be Sunday, 524!

This week, Joy the Baker editor Abby Mallett is back on the blog and catching us up on everything. We're talking breakups, a new Chicago apartment, the Beyoncé concert, road-tripping to Margaritaville, and adopting a toddler cat named Junie B. Jones!

Abby, honest as always, shares her thoughts on grief, forward momentum, and the power in showing up for yourself - even when you’re not entirely sure how. Included this week is Maggie Rogers commencement speech about fear and creativity, the ennui of social media, the unexpected Nashville hotel mentioned above (but not the restaurant), and a gentle reminder that sometimes your best is just “some.”

Pop over and read Abby’s full Sunday post - Catching Up!

An interview with Georgia Freedman of Snacking Dinner! (plus a giveaway, duh!)

It’s absolutely Snacking Dinner season! It’s so hot that cheese, a handful of cherries, and some torn bread can pass as a proper meal. I was thrilled to chat with Georgia Freedman about her new cookbook Snacking Dinner: Recipes for Casual Meals and Easygoing Gatherings.

Georgia is a seasoned food writer and editor whose work has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Saveur, and Gastronomica. Snacking Dinner is full of approachable, seasonal ideas for feeding ourselves and our people in joyful, unfussy - exactly the vibe we need right now.

Let’s start with the origin story. What was the spark that made you think, Yep, this cookbook needs to exist?

This book felt like a really sudden idea—I wrote my agent a quick note about it at the end of September in 2023 and had an offer from my publisher three weeks later. But, like most great ideas, it was actually percolating in the back of my mind for a long time. I first started making these kinds of meals when my daughter was a toddler and I needed to get something on the table fast, and then these meals evolved over the past decade and became something I kept in my back pocket for nights when my other dinner plans failed. (We all have those nights when a traffic jam or a work emergency or a kid thing—or even an ingredient gone bad—derails our plans.)

But I hadn't really thought about snacking dinners as an idea worthy of a stand-alone book until after the "girl dinner" trend took off. I realized that I'd been perfecting that idea of a super easy, no-pressure dinner for years, and I had something to say about it.

What’s the recipe in the book that people will come back to over and over again? That one deeply satisfying dessert, cozy weeknight dinner, or “this always works” recipe that feels like an instant classic
Ooo - this is such a good question, but it's one that I don't think I can answer for other people. For me, personally, it's a toss-up between the burrata with fresh fruit and pesto with crostini or the kimchi melt topped with potato chips, or maybe also the prep-ahead recipe for sweet and spicy chilled sesame noodles. But I know that for my daughter it's the make-your-own spicy tuna hand rolls. And other cooks have told me they're making the okonomiyaki tater tots or the white beans and salami on toast on repeat.

The thing is, this book is built to appeal to a wide range of cooks and eaters because I want everyone to find their own kind of comfort meal within these pages. The study that came out a few months ago about the fact that people only use ~3 recipes from each of their cookbooks made a lot of sense to me, and I'd already built this book to accommodate for that. There are a variety of different recipes from different parts of the world specifically so that everyone can find their own version of that go-to comfort meal here.

Marry, shag, kill: buttercream frosting, whipped cream, jam.
Marry whipped cream, shag buttercream, kill jam (I guess? I wouldn't really kill jam. I just don't lean into super sweet very often, and jam on baked goods can be a lot.)

What’s a cooking or baking hill you’re willing to die on?
No store-bought salad dressing—ever. It's a massive waste of money and never, ever as good as a quick homemade dressing. I've converted people who think they hate salad just by giving them one with a good homemade dressing. I'll make an exception for ranch from a pizza parlour.

We’re going to a dinner party with a recipe from your book? What are we bringing to impress?
The banh mi bites—they look super fancy and special but you're really just buying some pate (mushroom/vegan versions also work), making a really quick pickle out of grated daikon and carrot, and slicing up some jalapeños and some baguette. When I make this for a party, I pre-make three or four "bites," so people can see what they're meant to do, then leave everything arranged nicely on a board so guests can customize their own.

What’s the most chaotic recipe in the book? The one that makes you feel like you’re running a restaurant... alone... with a toddler hanging onto your leg?
Any recipe that made me feel this much chaos would not have made it into the book! I think for Western cooks, however, the most intimidating recipe is probably going to be the "Bali in California" urap salad wraps that chef Nora Haron developed and I tweaked for the book. It's not a hard recipe—it's a classic Balinese salad made with California ingredients—but if people aren't used to having makrut lime leaves or toasting coconut in spices, or it takes them a while to do lots of chopping, they might find it intimidating.

What’s a kitchen task you secretly love that everyone else seems to dread?
I really love time-consuming seasonal veg prep like shelling peas or prepping/peeling favas. There's something so meditative about it. And because I'm in the busy working mom phase of my life, having a task that forces me to stand still for a while and do something repetitive can give me time to just think through my day, or even turn on a podcast or a show and zone out.

What’s the most you recipe in this book? The one that feels like your signature in edible form?
The fruit with burrata, pesto, and crostini that I mentioned above. All it is is fresh fruit—ideally a combination of summer treats like cherries, apricots, figs, peaches, etc—with a ball of creamy burrata that is all dressed with pesto and a drizzle of honey. To eat it you just pile bites onto pieces of baguette (toasted or not). I was born and raised in California, in a house with lots of fruit trees near one of the very first farmers markets in the country, so high-quality fruit is really important to me. Also, the balance of the sweet-savory-creamy-fresh-crunchy flavors really appeals to my libra-ness. This is actually the very first recipe I developed for the book.

What’s your current cookbook crush? What are you dog-earing, gifting to friends, or quietly obsessed with lately
The new Seasons of Greens cookbook. I had never eaten at Greens before I tried the recipes from an advance PDF of this book, and then I had an opportunity to try some of the dishes at a media dinner, and I'm totally obsessed. Every recipe I've tried has been utterly delicious. The green goddess hummus is almost shockingly delicious. And Chef Katie Reicher (who wrote the book and has been the executive chef at the restaurant for five years now) and I have been chatting and even did an event together, which was a real treat.

GIVEAWAY TIME!

To celebrate Snacking Dinner season (aka every summer night when dinner is “a little of this and a little of that”), we’re giving away a copy of Georgia Freedman’s new cookbook to one lucky reader!

To enter, just leave a comment below answering this question:

What’s your go-to summer snack plate?
(Cherries and cheddar? Hummus and Ritz? Olives, pickles, and cold chicken straight from the fridge?)

We want all your snack dinner inspo. Giveaway closes Wednesday, July 16, and the winner will be notified via Substack message. Open to U.S. residents only. Thaaaaanks! xo