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Several months ago, shared with us that Trader Joe’s has started carrying paneer. I made a mental note because I love paneer — the sear-able, fresh Indian cheese — but at my local grocery stores it’s as absurdly expensive as halloumi. The last time I was there at TJ’s, I threw a block into my cart knowing I’d figure out something to do with it.

A few days later, I passed through the farmer’s market and was reminded that many of the leafy greens that pop up in the spring (arugula, spinach, Swiss chard) and disappear as things heat up, in fact reappear in the fall, before winter hits. A huge, bushy, $4 bunch of chard beckoned me.

I put the leaves to use right away by batch cooking them and stashing them in the fridge (essentially my marinated greens from Start Simple). Left on the counter was a mound of the colorful stems, and they were destined to be roasted.

(I’ve written about this before (also in Start Simple) but the gist is simple: trim the stems into French fry-sized batons, roast them in a hot oven until crispy at the edges and tender in their middles, season them well with salt, and hello, you’ve got a sweet-savory, succulent treat.)

Originally thinking I’d take this dinner into a tofu direction, the TJ’s paneer was at the ready instead, leading us to today’s recipe. Chard stems get a pre-roast, and then tumbled into the hot sheet pan go chickpeas for bulk and fiber, cherry tomatoes for slight sauciness, and tender cubes of paneer for concentrated protein. The balance of flavors strikes me as perfect, especially how the deep-sweet chard stems and bright-sweet tomatoes play off one another, perfectly summing up the flavors of late fall.

Spoon this flavorful medley warm over rice while the paneer is still soft, and with a plop of spiked yogurt. It’s a pretty dreamy dinner.

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Here & There

• For paid subscribers of this newsletter, I recently shared a Protein Cheat Sheet, which makes tallying up your protein counts easy.

• For the SALT PIG newsletter, and I rounded up some of the pesto tricks, tips, and tidbits we wish we’d known years ago.

• And in our latest SALT PIG episode, we chatted about all the pleasures of our freezers.

• I mentioned Trader Joe’s up above, and I do shop there fairly regularly because it is such a huge savings over every other grocery store near where I live. But it’s best to enter open-eyed. ’ piece from earlier this year is worth reading, as is everything she writes.

• New York Times Cooking is building AI into their user functionality.

• I’m queuing up ’ Kerry Apple Cake and ’s Hassleback Sugarcone Cabbage to make soon.

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Sheet Pan Paneer, Chard, & Chickpeas

• Chard is closely related to beets, which is a major factor in what makes chard stems taste so good. Other hearty green stems like kale or collard greens unfortunately don’t work in this treatment.

• Instead of paneer, feel free to throw in a cubed block of tofu or tempeh.

• I haven’t tried this yet but if you wanted to go “whole chard” here, just add the torn leaves to the pan along with the chickpeas and tomatoes in step 6 below.

• The Trader Joe’s paneer comes in a 10-ounce package, though I used about half the block in the photographed version of this recipe, originally because the most common sizes I can find are the 6- to 8-ounce packages. But sizes range quite a bit, with many 10-, 12-, and 14-ounce packs out there, too. You won’t mess up the recipe by adding too much or too little of it in here; use your judgment.

Yield 3 to 4 servings | Prep & cook time About 40 minutes

Stems from 1 bunch Swiss chard
3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
½ teaspoon fine salt, divided
1 (15-ounce) can chickpeas, drained
1 (6-10 ounce) package paneer, cubed
1 cup halved cherry tomatoes (6 ounces)
2 teaspoons honey
1 to 2 teaspoons chili paste, or to taste
Juice of 1 lemon
Freshly ground black pepper
Freshly cooked rice, for serving
Greek yogurt spiked with sriracha to taste, for serving

1. Preheat the oven to 400F.

2. Trim the chard stems into thin pieces about the size of shoestring French fries, cutting them first into segments, and then cutting thick segments into half, thirds, or forths, so that all the pieces are roughly the same size.

3. Toss the chard stems with 2 tablespoons olive oil and ¼ teaspoon salt in a mixing bowl. Spread out onto an unlined sheet pan.

4. Transfer the pan to the oven and roast for 10 minutes, until the stems are beginning to blister and look a bit crispy at the edges.

5. Meanwhile, in the same mixing bowl toss the chickpeas, paneer, cherry tomatoes, honey, chili paste, and remaining 1 tablespoon oil and ¼ teaspoon salt together.

6. Add the chickpea mixture to the pan with the chard, spreading everything out in an even layer.

7. Return the pan to the oven and roast without stirring for 12 to 15 minutes more, until the tomatoes are softened and the cheese has browned on its bottoms. Squeeze lemon juice over everything and season with pepper.

8. Serve war over rice, with a big dollop of the spiked yogurt.

Recipe: Sheet Pan Paneer, Chard, & Chickpeas

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When I first started paying attention to protein and learning about nutrition, I really started from zero. I didn’t know the term “macros” and had no general understanding of the nutritional makeup of foods. I only knew of calories as “low calorie = good,” because I grew up in the 80s and 90s and couldn’t escape such dogma. From college through my young adulthood I ate “food. Not too much. Mostly plants,” as I wrote a few months ago here.

As I write in that article, I decided to change my eating when I entered my late thirties and early forties and switched up my exercise regimen, which drove a greater focus on protein.

But once I began tracking it, I had to use one of those tedious online nutritional calculator websites to tally everything up. I spent probably a year doing that for everything I ate, never enjoying the clunky, time-consuming nature of it. But I must admit I did enjoy learning about food this way, and now I’m now grateful for the experience. It offered me a new way to approach and think about food, beyond just flavor and texture.

HIGH PROTEIN RECIPES

Through the experience, I always wished that I had one easy thing to reference so that I could tally up my protein without having to turn to such a database. Something that could allow me to casually keep a macro picture, particularly as I threw together bowls and other quick, assembled meals — and that wouldn’t always force me into the “micro” of the full nutritional picture (though I do think it’s good to understand the full nutritional picture of food, too, since protein is just one component).

Finally, I made such a thing. And I’m sharing it with you.

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If you watched season 6 of the Great American Baking Show, you know as the winner. If you spend much time here on Substack, I’ll bet you’re already familiar with his work. But if not, Martin is a hugely accomplished, Chicago-based baker, and his new cookbook Great Bakes: Mordern Classic Recipes from the Midwest is finally out.

For me, Great Bakes is the perfect baking cookbook. It’s one for us home bakers, with recipes that glorify the familiar home kitchen and hint at nostalgia while getting my creative juices flowing: Peach Pie with Cornmeal Crumble. Super Green Quiche. Sweet Corn Milk Bread. Whole Wheat Toast Bread. And Martin’s recipes are rich with the types of details that ensure success and make us all better bakers as we read and cook along.

A few years ago, when I was wanting a good recipe for a German sourdough rye bread — the dense, seedy kind — Martin was the first person I thought to ask. (He has a keen interest in German bread traditions, and even recently became an official bread sommelier.) Of course he knew exactly what I was looking for (Vollkornbrot), and he even happened to have a recipe, ready to be tested for this new cookbook. I’ve now made it more times that I can count because it’s perfect.

I got to know Martin when he was in the early stages of working on this book, and if you’re an aspiring author, I recommend paying attention to how he’s gone about expanding his platform and orchestrating a book publication. His blueprint is really one to follow.

If you live in the NYC area, I’ll be chatting with Martin about his book at Brooklyn Granary and Mill on October 15th. And below, find our “Snack Chat” to learn more about Martin, his book, his baking sensibility — and for instructions on how to enter to win a copy of Great Bakes.

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Recently…

and I are gearing up to kick off season 2 of our podcast SALT PIG, and while we’re getting that ready, we rounded up some of our favorite “cheap and cheerful” dinner ideas, to speak to this frenzied time of the year:

SALT PIG: A Home Cooking Podcast

Cheap and Cheerful Dinner Ideas When It’s Too Busy to Aim High

Hi friends…

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a month ago · 74 likes · 5 comments · Lukas Volger and Elinor Hutton

Snack Chat 001: Martin Sorge

Great Bakes

Get some great bakes along with a peek inside the kitchen (and the mind) of an enthusiastic baking nerd: Recipes, tips and tricks, stories and more

By Martin Sorge

1. Five words that describe your vibe as baker: Nerdy, opinionated, classic, unfussy, whole-grain. (Ok, that’s six.)

2. Your own Proust’s madeleine: Real 100% rye, or mostly-rye bread. Recipes like my Vollkornbrot or Bungalowbrot teleport me to a German bakery, which is the best kind of bakery. It’s not a recipe from my childhood, but it transports me more than any other recipe. The fruity, sweetly spiced aroma from a rye sourdough and the moist, hearty crumb smeared with some butter is a perfect food. When I take a loaf from the oven, I will stand there and smell it, transfixed, for longer than might be healthy. I would wear that scent as a cologne: eau de Roggenbrot.

   

3. One ingredient that’s always worth the splurge: Good cocoa powder. A high-fat Dutch-processed cocoa, like Cocoa Barry’s Extra Brut or Valrhona will make all the difference in your chocolate desserts.

4. One ingredient that’s never worth the splurge: Out-of-season fresh produce. Don’t waste your time making blueberry muffins with southern hemisphere blueberries in February. Using rock-hard flavorless peaches will not make a good cobbler. (Frozen produce is nearly always a better bet.)

5. The best under-the-radar cookbook: Existential Bread, by Jim Franks. It’s not a recipe book per se but it’s a book about bread written in verse. There’s also an audiobook set to music. Its iconic, and I get it as a gift to bread bakers in my life.

6. What makes a recipe good? One that enters your regular repertoire. I knew I had nailed my Flaky Pastry recipe when I had it memorized and made it constantly. My Breakfast Crisp emerges from my oven almost weekly from October to April.

7. A major ah-ha moment with food: My first loaf of no-knead bread from Jim Lahey’s book My Bread. Ever since that crusty boule, I was addicted to baking bread. It’s easy, cheap, and the main ingredient is time.

8. Who's your ideal cookbook reader? A reader. Great Bakes is a book, not simply a collection of recipes. I could have started a blog, posted recipes on Instagram, or shared these in my newsletter, but I assembled them in a book. There are stories, tips, bits of science and history, and more. I wrote the book with a flow in mind, from simple bakes to more complex one.

   

9. Your favorite food in fiction/film: I think a lot about the shortbread cookies from Ted Lasso. They represent kindness, generosity, and persistence. I had these in mind when developing the Shortbread recipe in my book. I was going for that same, sugared long shortbread from the show.

10. The first recipe from Great Bakes that we should cook: The first one: Apple Crisp, perfect for this time of year, and it’s practically foolproof. You can make the topping months ahead of time, freeze it, and bake it directly from frozen. In fact, I’m whipping up a batch this week with some stunning, tangy, red-fleshed apples.

For more information about Martin and his work, follow him on Substack and Instagram.

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Fall arrived rather suddenly here in New York. And with it, a short window of opportunity where summer produce meets creamy, comforting, fall-winter food. What better expression for such a moment than a warm bowl of oatmeal?

Today I’m sharing the failsafe method for the best oats. Many of you may already be familiar — I’ve shared it before — but for new subscribers, earmark this page. I very rarely call anything “the best” (have I ever?), so when I do, you just have to trust me and tune in.

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The Best Steel-Cut Oatmeal

Step 1: Toast Your Oats

Throw a pat of butter into a saucepan set over medium to medium-high heat. Once the bubbling dies down, add 1 cup steel-cut oats. Stir to coat them in the butter and then toast them, jiggling and stirring the pan, until they become nice and fragrant. This takes just a few minutes.

Step 2: Add enriched liquid.

When April Bloomfield’s recipe went 2013’s equivalent of viral, I started adding milk to my oatmeal. And while this isn’t a new trick, it was a revelation because I’d only ever cooked oatmeal in water. One part milk to three parts water (for 1 cup steel-cut oats, this means 1 cup milk + 3 cups water) is the magic ratio for me, but you can play around to see what you like best. Just add the liquid cautiously, because the pan is hot and things will bubble up.

Step 2A: Don’t forget salt.

In addition to the milk, salt is key, transforming flat-tasting mush into full-flavored, nuanced, nubby nourishment. For 1 cup of oats, throw in ½ teaspoon fine salt with the liquid.

Step 3: Simmer the pan partially covered.

Once the liquid is boiling, turn the heat down to low. As they simmer, the oats need to plump up and absorb the liquid, but you also want the milk to reduce so as to create a creamy texture. Therefore, partially covering the pan is the answer. Set a lid little askew on the saucepan, so that steam can escape. Then stir every 5 minutes or so.

Step 4: Adjust the consistency as you like.

After 15 to 20 minutes, the oats should be tender, but you have decisions to make regarding overall consistency. If you like your oatmeal thick and scoopable, uncover the pan and leave it over the heat to cook it down for a few minutes more. Or, if you prefer it soupier and lighter, just stir in a few splashes of water or milk to loosen it up.

Step 5. Oatmeal toppings are fun!

Now it’s time to eat! As I said, we’ve got summer stone fruits overlapping with fall apples and honeynut squash. So dig yourself out of your cinnamon-raisin rut and experiment a little:

• Layers of sweetness — combine coarsely grated or chopped apple with scoops of leftover roasted squash, for example

• Swap your usual nut butter for tahini or black tahini (or any other nut or seed butter)

• Go sweet-salty by mixing a little miso into the oats, then topping with pears and maple

• Combine dried fruits — cherries, prunes, mango — with fresh ones, treating them as part of a garnish of nuts and seeds.

• Of course, you’ve got to throw a pinch of flaky salt on top

• And don’t shy away from savory toppings. Seared mushrooms, wilted greens, roasted squash, woody herbs, and a poached egg — any or all of them — can turn a bowl of oatmeal into a hearty brunch, or even dinner. A drizzle of soy sauce or olive oil can awaken new flavors. Savory sprinkles like shichimi togarashi, za’atar, or dukkah bring all kinds of texture.

All in all, just let your lingering produce inspire you.

Step 6. Leftovers instructions

I’ve never found that the pressure cooker or soaking oats overnight meaningfully saves me time and effort. But I do always like to remind people that steel-cut oats batch cook brilliantly. Pack the leftovers up into a container and keep them in the fridge. Then reheat them on the stove or in the microwave with an extra splash of water or milk to loosen them up.

More Oats Inspo

How a 28-Day Oatmeal Challenge Made My Mornings Exciting Again (an old article I wrote for Epicurious)

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I needed a pick-me-up while on the road a few weeks ago, and grabbed a canned mocha cold brew from the nearest grocery store. I don’t normally drink iced coffee, or add sugar to my coffee, and it’d been decades since I had a mocha. But this was such a good treat. It contained no dairy, was sweetened with dates, and tasted rich but not heavy. I immediately wondered if I could make something like it at home.

If you have a Nutri-Bullet or one of those Ninja smoothie blenders, making this is almost easier than a pot of coffee. It uses cold brew (a store-bought one is great if you don’t make it at home), though a shot or two of espresso fashioned into an iced americano would also work really well.

Like that canned mocha, I opted for softened dates — with their iron and fiber and other minerals add more than just sweetness. They’re blended into this drink along with flavonoid-rich cacao, a less processed type of cocoa powder that retains more of cacao’s nutrients (you can sometimes find it at Trader Joe’s). Just a dab of nut butter brings the richness and binding you need for it to become creamy and indulgent.

I think this would also be nice with your favorite chocolate or vanilla protein powder, if you wanted it to be a morning smoothie. But right now it’s really hitting the spot as a mid-morning or afternoon pick-me-up.

Cold Brew & Cacao Frappé

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Last week I spent a few days at the beach on a mostly unplugged, mostly no-work vacation with a group of new and old friends. I read John of John and Fruit Fly and I’m currently working through They Stole a City — all great books, the latter a little less beach-read-ey than I’d prefer but much more engrossing than expected. I got more of a tan than I probably should have. I drank more gin and tonics than I should have. No regrets.

All the cooking was simple, and one night I wanted to make my usual slaw to add to a dinner menu. But with only broccoli in the crisper and peanut butter in the pantry, I had to make some tweaks. The result is this entirely different, equally good slaw that I couldn’t wait to revisit when I got home.

Broccoli is really a sponge, so while the dressed slaw may look dry, that’s only because those bushy florets have soaked everything up. The flavor is in there. And perhaps because of this, it somehow tastes even better the next day; the vegetables lose crunch, but they gain flavor.

So here we are, nearing the close of a busy summer that feels like it should be over already, though I’m glad that it’s not. I hope you’re busy and far from your phone or computer screen, but if you happen to be scrolling, here’s a really good salad to cap off the season and carry you into the fall.

Upcoming NYC Event

In the coming weeks, I’ll have much more to say about ’s wonderful new cookbook Great Bakes, but for friends in the NYC area, mark your calendar: I’m excited to chat with Martin while he’s in town at Brooklyn Grainery & Mill on October 15th.

Reserve Your Spot Here

Peanut Butter Broccoli Slaw

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If you weren’t able to tune in, the recording is attached. I loved Grace’s comments about how versatile cottage cheese is, and how she organized her book around getting a variety of different vegetarian proteins all day long.

And I thought it was fun to cook together in a chatty, casual way. Maybe I’ll do one of these again.

You have until Thursday to enter to win a copy of Protein-Packed Vegetarian! Giveaway details are here:

Hope you’re all having a terrific week!

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This coming Monday, August 24th, at 1:00pm EST — not Tuesday, if you happened to receive an erroneously sent message earlier — I’m thrilled to announce my first-ever Substack Live video. I’ll be cooking and chatting with none other than , author of the brand-new cookbook Protein-Packed Vegetarian (Bookshop / Amazon).

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You can even win a copy — details below.

You probably know Grace from her many viral videos on Instagram and TikTok. She also has a terrific recipe newsletter, which you can sign up for on her website.

Protein-Packed Vegetarian, her first book, is a stunner. It’s packed with meticulously tested recipes that, as the title suggests, prioritize protein. But just as important are all the colorful vegetables, the broadly appealing and uncompromising flavors, and plenty of clever tricks to save time and effort in everyday cooking. I have a feeling it will be right up your alley.

Grace and I are going to make a recipe from her book together, and as we do, we’ll chat about how she approaches protein in her cooking and how Protein-Packed Vegetarian came to be. I hope you’ll join us on Monday at 1pm EST!

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But don’t worry if you can’t make it — I’ll send out a recording of our video afterwards.

See you Monday at 1pm!

Making a batch of fermented hot sauce is one of the great pleasures of late summer for me. The full array of peppers in their various shapes, sizes, colors, and heat intensities have turned up at the farmers market at last, and they’re dazzling enough to make you wonder if we should be making jewelry out of them.

They won’t be around for long, so it’s important to act fact.

But I’ve recently learned that I don’t have go the full distance of hot sauce. I can make a simpler condiment instead: lacto-fermented chilis. My friend Paul taught me this when we were in the kitchen together — he spotted my “mash” (the chilis packed up in a jar and fermenting on the top of my fridge, destined at that point for hot sauce) and said, “You can snack on that!”

Unlike vinegar-pickled chiles, where peppers like jalapeños are covered in a sweetened vinegar brine and ready to eat almost immediately, lacto-fermented chilis pickle over the course of a few weeks in salt or a salt brine. They’re packed into an airtight environment (a jar), and over time bacterias convert the sugars in the peppers into lactic acid, creating tangy, salty, complex flavors. If you were making hot sauce, you’d blend them up with a few other ingredients.

Fermentation is one way to preserve fleeting summer flavor, making it last for many months to come. But fermented peppers are also just such a fun, flexible ingredient for adding distinctive personality to all kinds of dishes. And very easy to do.

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I’ve been out in Nevada for several weeks now, where the spectacular tomatoes and cucumbers at the farmers market, which come in from Central California, mean that an excellent summer salad requires little more a little salt and vinegar.

I also came across corn at the market and grilled it inside its husks, a method I learned last summer. Just put the cobs over indirect medium-high heat, and turn them until lightly browned and charred all over. It smells heavenly as the kernels heat up. I’ve been going by my nose and eyes rather than the clock, but I’d say it only takes about 10 minutes, with a sizable buffer.

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Last month, in the Substack Chat (a feature that I sometimes forget about!), a great topic came up thanks to Alison: protein-focused meal planning when you’re on the road. I’ve taken a screenshot up above.

I love this topic, and really love all the replies. To be honest, “portable meals” is one of my favorite categories of cooking and eating. Aren’t the rewards just so satisfying? A little bit of foresight and/or strategy reaps dividends.

It inspired a new feature in the newsletter: Ask a Friend, something of a hotline to ask questions about recipes, nutrition, meal prepping, grocery shopping, travel food, and anything else you think of that might feel pertinent to this space. When a good topic comes up, I’ll pull my thoughts together and do some research, and then hopefully you will be compelled to chime in with your ideas.

You can add questions and reply to them in the chat, or feel free to message me here on Substack or by responding to this email, and on a monthly basis, I’ll dig into one. Inspired by Alison’s question, today is the first installment.

A Portable “Wrap Bar”

Lest you think I’m on Brunch with Babs level of vacation/travel cooking, I’m focusing today’s Ask a Friend on store-bought components that make meal assembly from your destination easy. And to give the components a bit of an anchor, I’ve chosen a format that speaks straight to my ‘90’s-teenager heart: healthy, high-protein wraps.

Wraps are easy to make your own and require no special equipment when it comes to assembly, just some counter space. This makes them perfect for hotel rooms, wanting rental kitchens, camping, or even when the trunk of the car is your work space. Sealed in plastic or parchment, they’ll then keep for hours.

The extra advantage is that while the items below are nutrient-dense components for wraps, they’re also pretty handy foods to have around for snacking.

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First, the Wrap

You probably know that these types of store-bought tortilla wraps are, across the board, quite processed. But I love them still. They hit a nostalgic chord, and are easy to find and easy to pack, no fear of crushing or damaging in transit. Just make sure to get the big, “burrito-sized” ones.

The wrap can be a good source of fiber when you seek out whole grain options or those advertised as high fiber, such as the Ole’ brand above. Some of the gluten-free or alt-grain tortillas, like almond- or cassava-flour ones, tend to be prone to tearing/cracking, at least in my experience. I save those for quesadillas.

Do you have a favorite wrap brand or alternative? (I wish these ready-to-cook roti/chapati were big enough to use.) Please share if so.

Prepared Protein

Again, this is convenience-focused rather than recipe-focused — the idea here is no prepping or pre-cooking required.

• Canned, jarred, or precooked beans (such as steamed lentils or edamame), marinated beans, or spiced/sauced beans like those from Heyday Canning Co.

• Seasoned tofu, such as the ones by Hodo Soy (I’m very interested in their new “Lightly Fried” Chili Crisp, Golden Turmeric, and Gochujang Tofu, which I haven’t yet seen at my grocery stores). Even unseasoned tofu works well as long as the other components deliver plenty of flavor; just try to find the vacuum-packed rather than water-packed varieties, so that the wrap doesn’t get soggy as it sits

• Boiled eggs, of course — in a pinch get these at the grocery store, though I have to admit something about a sealed bag of boiled, peeled eggs on the shelf grosses me out

• Cheese: slabs of feta, cheddar, or mozzarella, or another substantial cheese

• Other prepared protein like tinned fish, deli meats, leftover cooked chicken are of course also super handy here

Fresh Vegetables with Lots of Texture

If you don’t have time to prep vegetables in advance, pre-cut, ready-to-eat veggies and vegetable mixes will slot right in (though, given current events, it’s still probably a good idea to give them a wash).

• Bulking fresh veg, like chopped or shredded cabbage, crunchy lettuce like romaine or gem lettuce, or a prepared slaw or other salad mixes

• Crunchy, quenching veg, such as sliced cucumbers, shredded carrots, sliced radishes, bell peppers, a prepared crudités medley

• Sprouts help bulk things up and add plenty of freshness: alfalfa sprouts, sunflower sprouts, micro greens, sprouts blends

• Crisp fruits like apple or pear slices add a little sweetness and crunch

Flavor Bursts

Think of these as the accessories, adding personality and concentrated bites of flavor.

• Antipasti are one of my favorite things in this category: Roasted red peppers, sun-dried tomatoes, marinated artichoke hearts, marinated mushrooms, olives. If there’s an olive or antipasto bar at the grocery store, you can customize your own mix

• Pickles: quick-pickled onions, cucumber pickles, giardiniera, pickled hot peppers or pepperoncini peppers

• If time allows: Grilled or caramelized onions packed into a tub, adding tons of deep flavor. A packed of grilled onions, peppers, and other veggies works similarly.

• Dried fruit like cranberries, cherries, currants, raisins, diced dried apples add fun pops of sweetness

Spreads, Dips, Dressings

• Store-bought dips for smearing or drizzling: Pesto, hummus, tzatziki, guacamole, baba ganoush — and Bitchin’ Sauce is a summer favorite of mine

• Spiked yogurt, made in advance right in the tub it comes in: Season Greek yogurt to taste with hot sauce, ranch seasonings, tahini, hot honey, or just some garlic powder and salt

• Spreadable cheese: Cream cheese or flavored cream cheese, cashew cheese, labneh, goat cheese

• Classic sandwich condiments: Mustard (honey-mustard for me, please), mayonnaise or vegenaise, oil and vinegar, hot sauce

Crunchy Components

These are more of a “nice to have” than a “need to have” — and essentially great snacks to stock up on, too.

• Dry-roasted beans, like chickpeas, lentils, or edamame: I recently found these Ranch Flavored Dry-Roasted Edamame in a snack-pack format from Costco and have been a bit obsessed: 12 grams protein and 4 grams fiber per pack.

• Roasted/toasted nuts like almonds, cashews, walnuts…. or coconut chips

• Tempeh Chips: I’ve only come across these Mamame tempeh chips once at the grocery store but I loved them. Evidently there’s also a TJ’s brand, and now I’m curious about making them at home, too.

• Cheese crisps like Whisps or Parm Crisps

What am I missing here? Please chime in, and let me know if there’s another topic you’d like me to explore next month!

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Do you remember Martha Rose Shulman’s weekly “Recipes for Health” column in the New York Times? In it, she shared a set of four original, health-focused recipes every single week — and did it for years. There are over a thousand of her recipes in the NYT archives.

She was hugely influential for me as a young cook, and in fact I still find her writing to be a masterclass in elegant efficiency. Her health-forward approach also always appealed: It never feels as if it comes from a mindset of restriction, but rather focuses on nutrient-density, ingredient variety, and a grounded creativity.

I think of her during eggplant season because it was in one of her columns I learned that an eggplant’s skin — the part of the vegetable that I typically torched to smithereens and discarded — contains a heap of antioxidants and much of the vegetable’s nutrition.

Inspired by Martha R. S., and more recently, ’s Grilled Eggplant Salad in Flavors of the Southeast Asian Grill, I wanted to create a recipe that retains some of eggplant’s structure and does not waste its skin. So I grilled it as Leela instructs, which is halved and placed right over the flame, then folded it into a bowl of punchy marinating beans.

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I’m sending this off from the final, final few days as I finish writing my next cookbook. Hence the silence here in newsletter land. I will tell you about the book in much more detail over the coming year, but in a nutshell, it’s been incredibly rewarding so far. I have so many recipes that I cannot wait to share, and it’s been a thrilling opportunity to learn, think, and hopefully teach about food in a way that I hope is going to be valuable to you.

To give myself space to focus, I’ve been out in Lake Tahoe for a stretch on something of a writing retreat. We brought our dog Susan with us, and I’m not at all surprised that she’s found herself living in Dog Paradise. There are all the critters to chase and monitor, the new smells to explore, and the miles and miles of hiking trails where she can run free. I really had no idea she’d be so dexterous scaling the side of a mountain, or even, despite the evidence of her super long legs, that she can run so incredibly fast.

I polished off all the recipes for the new book before I left, so that cooking here can be simple, lazy, and pretty quick. It’s not too difficult to do thanks to the terrific farmers market 20 minutes away, where I’m again envious of how Californians get to eat.

But arriving to a bare kitchen has got me thinking about what essential ingredients I need to get through the next couple weeks of cooking. I’m here long enough to stock up on perishables, but not necessarily long enough to work through a whole bottle of vinegar. So I thought it might be interesting to frame out the situation a survey.

What do you think of as cooking essentials in a bare-bones, short-term kitchen? The rules are:

• There’s access to produce from the farmers market, and a grocery store with proteins, dairy, eggs, etc.

• You have traveled light, not packing any of this stuff with you.

• You’re cooking every night for 3 to 4 weeks.

Clearly this poll is not exhaustive, and skews towards my typical pantry. But let me know what I’m missing, and if you have any tricks for cooking in such conditions.

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While the heat wave gripped the East Coast (I was spared!), I’ve also been thinking about more summer recipes to build on the batch I sent out last month. It’s a favorite category because it’s almost always so simple.

reminded me to queue up last year’s Halloumi-Pea Burgers, which are so savory, satisfying, and protein-packed. Remember, halloumi is a seasonal item at Trader Joe’s and you can find it in stock now.

A lot of SALT PIG listeners have been raving about ’s Marinated Beans. This is such a great tactic for turning fresh cooked beans into a readymade snack or component for bowls and meals.

And having mentioned halloumi, remember to throw it into a Seared Cheese and Watermelon Salad, along with dates and cucumbers for maximum juicy-sweet quench and crunch.

Lastly, paid subscribers of this newsletter are also getting this favorite recipe from my book Start Simple, for Silken Tofu Topped with Soy-Sauce’d Tomatoes. It’s a version of the Japanese dish hiyayakko, and the recipe has two important takeaways:

• One, that soy sauce is an excellent way to enhance the umami of ripe tomatoes, and

• Two, spooning almost anything that’s saturated with flavor over a cold block of silken tofu will be cooling, filling, and delicious.

That’s all for now—I hope there’s some easy summer cooking in your immediate future.

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It’s almost a hundred degrees here in New York, and some of my most favorite minimal-heat-application recipes are collected below. It’s also Pride month, and Queer Soup Night: The Cookbook — a community-driven, one-of-a-kind, independently published collection of recipes celebrating 10 years of Queer Soup Night — has just been announced for pre-order. So I have a short Q&A with Clare Lagomarsino from Combos Press about how the book is coming together. Scroll down for more — and stay cool!

—Lukas

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My Summer Recipe Rundown

Halloumi-Stuffed Dates

For me, summer also means halloumi season. Around where I live and shop, halloumi is absurdly expensive — except for the summer months, when Trader Joe’s stocks it as a seasonal item. So it’s time make these salty-sweet, stupid-simple, stuffed dates that are so fun to serve with a glass of very cold wine.

Briny Wild Rice Salad with Charred Scallions & Tomatoes

With crunchy cucumbers, juicy tomatoes, briny olives, and smoky charred scallions, this was my salad of the summer in 2024. I’m bringing it back for 2026. Wild rice has a grassy, nutty flavor that works so well with everything else going on, and the salad tastes even better the next day.

Charred, Chilled Zucchini Soup

I’ve unlocked this from the archives, because I really think that it’s a comfort to have cold soup in the fridge when it’s hot out. This yogurt-based soup includes a marinated chickpea topping, so that it both quenches and fortifies with plenty of protein. When I next make it, I’m going to try blending in silken tofu, which I expect to be delicious.

Honey’d Tomato Beans on Toast

This recipe has two important takeaways: One, that it’s never too hot to cook beans from scratch (use a slow cooker! Or remind yourself, as Steve Sando does in our SALT PIG podcast episode, that the best hot soups come from hot weather climates — so why on earth should we think of beans as only a cold weather food?). And two: we should all be drizzling honey on our ripe summer tomatoes.

Extreme Green Sandwich

Are you going on a hike or a road trip anytime soon? Let lunch be a highlight by packing a few of these into the cooler. They have so much freshness and texture. And reminded recently of a “health cafe” sandwich I used to love, I’m going to add a thick slab of sharp cheddar when I next make them.

Summer Bowl with Minty Green Yogurt Sauce

A fresh sauce can make almost anything taste summery, including a humble bowl of lentils, and the minty green yogurt sauce included here is a great way to beat the heat until peak-season produce arrives. Also, check out my mint plant (below)! In April, I thought this thing was fully deceased, but apparently it’s true what they say, that you can’t kill mint. Time to make ’s Fresh Mint Chip Ice Cream, too.

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That’s a Wrap on Season 1 of SALT PIG

Thanks so much to everyone who listened to SALT PIG. and I had such fun chatting about life in the kitchen, and I found it to be kind of freeing to discuss home cooking in a way that didn’t feel completely tethered to aspirational practices and service journalism.

In our final episode of Season 1 (we’ll be back in the fall), we close in on an over-arching theme: Intentionality in the Kitchen. Ellie and I cook under very different circumstances (her for a family of four that includes two 7-year-old twins, me for a house of two grown adults and a dog), but we come to the realization that the difference between cooking feeling like work and pleasure can be the same for both of us: setting the intention of enjoyment, and taking a few small steps to ensure it’s a smoother operation.

Other favorite episodes include Beans at Home, with Steve Sando, Is Costco Worth It?, and Living through Our Salad Days, but you can find the full catalog on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

SALT PIG: A Home Cooking Podcast

Open mouths, a little salty: Cookbook writers Elinor Hutton & Lukas Volger talk home kitchen life

By Lukas Volger

Queer Soup Night: The Cookbook!

It’s been a strange couple years for Pride, reminding me of something a professor once said about how history moves not so much in a straight line across an axis as in a coil. It feels to me that Pride is returning to its roots: not so much a party but a call to action, and that is probably good.

So what better time than Pride month to spread the news that Queer Soup Night is working on a cookbook. Queer Soup Night straddles the line of fun and activism in such a unique way for us food folk, with parties that always highlight queer chefs slinging soup (I’ve been lucky to make soup before) and raise money for deserving local nonprofits across the country.

Next year will be ten years of Queer Soup Night, and to commemorate the occasion, they are publishing Queer Soup Night: The Cookbook with Combos Press. I had a quick exchange with Clare Lagomarsino of Combos Press below, to share a little bit more about the project.

Preorder Queer Soup Night: The Cookbook

How did Queer Soup Night: The Cookbook come together? Is its timing significant?

Liz Alpern and the Queer Soup Night team had been thinking about doing a QSN cookbook since the pre-pandemic days, but the stars just hadn’t aligned to make it happen. Liz and I met at the Queer Food Conference in 2024 and had vaguely talked about doing a book together, and in the fall of 2025 we started seriously envisioning what a Queer Soup Night Cookbook could look like. Queer Soup Night’s 10 year anniversary is in January 2027, so the timing felt right to release the book then as a celebration of all that QSN has done in the last decade.

Aside from all the contributors identifying as queer, do you notice any other commonalities in the recipes collected?

Our team (of about 15 volunteers who are making this cookbook happen) has been joking recently that there are so many chicken soup recipes in this book — it really is the most global, universal soup that can be adapted in so many different ways! We’ve also noticed that the recipes have neatly split themselves up by effort level. There are a big portion of soups that are totally cookable, easy weeknight soups, and also a lot that are “project soups”—they’ll take all weekend, you’ll make the stock from scratch, there are toppings and garnishes, etc.

How do you think about design when it comes to food books and cookbooks? Queer Earth Food is so cool and distinctive.

Thank you! I love talking about design. We talk a lot about “queering the cookbook,” which means examining what a typical cookbook looks like (usually 8x10”, hardcover, starts with an intro and ends with an index, etc.) and which parts of this format do and don’t serve us. The Queer Soup Night Cookbook will have lots of fun elements like essays and charts in unexpected places, potentially a zine accompaniment, an alternative size (no 8x10” vertical book here!), and many more details that will make it feel different and special. That’s part of the fun of publishing independently as well. We’re less focused on sticking with a traditional format in order to make a million sales, and more focused on making a book that commemorates QSN, is extremely cookable and accessible, and will be a special object in people’s homes.

What are your favorite cookbooks to reach for during Pride month (and... all year long)?

I cook from Simply Julia by all year long, but love the asparagus and snap pea salad (and other cold veggie sides from that book) for this particularly hot pride month we’re having. She contributed a recipe to my first ever book, Queer Earth Food, and is involved in the Queer Soup Night cookbook as well, and is just brilliant. The other book I’m reaching for this month is The Bloodroot Calendar Cookbook from the pioneering lesbian-owned vegetarian restaurant that closed last December after nearly 50 years in business. I have my eye on the ginger peach ice cream once peaches are in season (soon).

Thank you, Clare! For more information and to preorder, visit the Queer Soup Night: The Cookbook page or head to the project’s FAQ page here.

Preorder Queer Soup Night: The Cookbook

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Here’s a fun, easy recipe that takes a block of tofu and turns it into something Vincent thought was crusted cheese sticks.

You know I’m normally not one to try to make tofu be something that it’s not, but I had to laugh at that, knowing that some could would call it a big win. The “cheesiness” is really more a full-on savoriness, thanks to umami-rich, multi-textured Everything Bagel Seasoning.

This blend is a new offering from Burlap & Barrel, the renowned single-origin spice company. When I first met co-founder Ethan Frisch several years ago, I was only dimly aware how complicated a spice business is, especially one that’s as much about finding the best tasting spices in the world as it is putting sustainability and equity at its heart.

I loved learning how one of his initiatives was persuading the farmers he works with to take more of a role in processing and packaging, so as to own a larger share of the supply chain and keep money in local economies.

If you’re interested in more of how Burlap & Barrel does business, I encourage you to check out their Impact Report, as well as learn about their successful lawsuit against the U.S. federal government’s latest effort to unlawfully impose global tariffs.

But this Everything Bagel Crunch really earns its name. On top of the classic poppyseeds and sesame seeds, it has pearl salt from Tanzania’s Swahili Coast, which is formed by the winds that roll the salt crystals into rounds and has such a rich, mineraley flavor that pops in the mouth. And then there’s Vietnamese granulated purple garlic, a spice-drawer staple that I’d never considered as a finishing condiment. But with its intensely flavorful, crunchy texture, I will from now on.

Maybe it’s all the umami-rich flavors, combined with a fleeting awareness that there’s been a resurgence of a certain ‘90s lunch staple, but the first place my mind when when I tasted these crusted tofu sticks was to put them inside a Caesar wrap.

They get tucked in with a pile of dressed Caesar salad and a handful of roasted chickpeas—so simple. The tofu is also great cut into cubes and used as protein topping for bowls and salads; you don’t have to take things in a full-on Caesar wrap direction. But that seems boring by comparison.

MORE TOFU RECIPES

Everything Bagel Tofu Caesar Wraps

• I created this recipe using Burlap & Barrel’s new Everything Bagel Crunch spice blend, which is really excellent and I encourage you to give it a try. It has a similar salt level to other brands, so you can easily swap in a homemade blend or a different store-bought one.

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This time of year always has me thinking big about what I might do with all the seasonal produce coming up. Maybe I’ll finally become a jam person! Or stash away a bunch of pickles pickles, apple butter, homemade tomato sauce, or a year’s worth of dried chili flakes.

Yet I can already predict what’s going to happen: Summer will be over before I know it, and I’ll be left looking to next year to implement those grand plans.

’s new book Essential Food Preserving offers a more pragmatic way to get into food preserving for overly ambitious people like me, which is to start a little smaller, but think a little broader. In other words, be realistic about what’s possible given my resources, but realize that there’s a bigger world of food preserving that doesn’t involve pressure canning.

After an in-depth section on preservation techniques, the book is organized by ingredients. So when I’ve got a few extra bunches of herbs, I can flip to a chapter devoted to them to get ideas (vinegar! syrups! soda! salts! canned herbal sauce!).

If you’ve read Julia’s Our Fermented Lives or are familiar with any of her other books and work, you know that she is passionate about this topic. For her, extending the shelf life and transforming the flavors of perishable food involves much more than delicious things to eat and a well-stocked larder. So it was such a pleasure to have a quick chat with her about her new book.

As a bonus, she’s shared her recipe for Soy-Sauce Pickled Romaine Lettuce, a simple preserve that really called out to me. I love throwing lettuce in a stir-fry, so the flavors make sense. I also thought that a pickled lettuce condiment would be a fun thing to have on hand…

And it is! I’ve been adding it to this springy stir-fry with snap peas and tofu (paid subscribers of the newsletter have just received the recipe) but scooped over a bowl of rice with a fried egg and an assortment of odds and ends? A perfect lunch.

Scroll down for the Q&A and recipe!

More about ESSENTIAL FOOD PRESERVING

Meanwhile on SALT PIG…

and I have been busy chatting, and here’s a rundown of episodes you might have missed!

• Striving for No-Stress Dinner Hangs

• Is Costco Worth It?

• Homegrown Food Highs and Lows

• Outside Eating

We have a very special guest joining us for next week’s episode, so make sure you’re subscribed! Here’s a hint: We might be going deep on beans…

SALT PIG: A Home Cooking Podcast

Open mouths, a little salty: Cookbook writers Elinor Hutton & Lukas Volger talk home kitchen life

By Lukas Volger

Q&A with Julia Skinner

How did you set the book’s expansive scope?

When I started writing this book, I had to navigate a vast world of preserving (and learn some new things, too. I hadn’t, for example, done a ton of pressure canning before I wrote this book). I decided to include the kinds of things I most wanted to know when I was starting out, and the kinds of things I get the most questions about. While the book covers meat, dairy, eggs, and seafood too, I dedicated more pages to fruits and vegetables as these are the kinds of things a home food preserver (or someone with a small farm) are more likely to have in excess. The book is meant to be practical and to give folks ways to fit preserving into their lives, however their lives look, and to help people consider preserving in its many contexts, too (historical, for food security, for community care, etc.)

My hope is that this book goes beyond being “just” recipes (the quotes are intentional there because recipes are so important!) to a treasured volume people turn to again and again.

What are your favorite preserving projects to recommend to someone just getting started?

I always tell people to start simply and grow from there. So, if you’ve never preserved before, pressure canning probably isn’t the best move. But you could make refrigerator pickles, or dry bundles of herbs in a dry place, or ferment some sauerkraut, or make a fruit syrup. The biggest thing is to decide what kinds of things you enjoy eating, as well as what ingredients you have access to, and start there.

So, for example, if I like carrots and have a lot of them, I can flip to “carrots” and explore all the different ways I can preserve them, and choose one that both sounds like a food I want to eat and fits my skill level. As you preserve more, your confidence grows, and you can keep expanding your skill set, but there’s no rush or pressure to learn everything at once.

Have you had any food preserving fails?

YES. I think everyone who has preserved food has. Thankfully I only had safety-related fails in canning that had to do with jars not sealing correctly (which I noticed and caught, because I check every jar every time, before disaster strikes). But most have been more flavor and texture-related fails. Like sauerkraut or full sour pickles that go mushy when I fermented them in too-hot weather (so they got mashed up and turned into marinades for other things). Once in a while I’ll neglect a ferment if I’m traveling and I’ll come back to multicolor molds on top, so I don’t eat them.

The main lesson I’ve learned is that we make mistakes at every level of experience, and in most cases (outside of safety-related concerns, hence why canning safety is so important), those mistakes are just a chance to learn (e.g. learning how long I want to ferment certain foods to get the flavor and texture I want).

Are there any major misconceptions when it comes to preserving at home?

I think a lot of people who aren’t familiar with preserving find it intimidating or assume it’s dangerous. And yes there are certain safety guidelines everyone needs to consider (I say “don’t can pureed squash or pumpkin butter!” about 20 times throughout the book...). But once you know the process, it’s easy to do as a matter of course.

However, this is also why I encourage learning preserving processes from people who’ve learned how to do them confidently and safely (sorry, rogue canners), because just like with anything else, that confidence and those safety-ensuring steps become automatic each time you can, or do whatever else.

Overall, preserving is safe and fun, and most of all, a flexible and versatile variety of processes that you can choose from to build a unique preserving practice all your own. If you don’t want to can food or canning scares you, for example, don’t do it! There are so many other ways to play around in this world.

A sidebar: I’m also encountering more and more people who look things up online or prompt AI (please do not do this, ESPECIALLY with food safety anything), but who don’t have a familiarity with the processes enough to tell if they’re getting good information. That’s why I included a section in the book on identifying good food preserving resources (you can see an expanded version of that section in my newsletter here). I also use the internet constantly, as we all do, so this isn’t a dig against looking things up when you have questions, but just check your sources before you dive in!

I love what a strong current ancestral traditions are throughout the book, and how many different experts you involved. Can you speak a little about how you consider food preservation in a larger context than just the home kitchen?

Folks who have read Our Fermented Lives will recognize this approach, since thinking about context has long been a staple part of my practice. I could talk about the contexts of food preserving for HOURS but instead of doing that, here are a few key things I think about a lot:

Food preserving (fermentation and other practices) has been around for thousands of years. We have been preserving food since we started living in permanent settlements and practicing agriculture BUT we probably knew about at least some of these techniques beforehand. Some technologies (like canning or freeze drying) are obviously much more recent, however they still fit into this same umbrella of caring for food security, preserving the flavors of the seasons, and feeding loved ones, just as every food preserving technique does.

Preserving food helps us honor the many hands that went into bringing that food to our tables: Even food you grew yourself came from seeds someone else grew at some point, plus soil amendments, water from a water source piped onto your property, etc. Food purchased from someone obviously was grown, harvested, transported, packaged, set on a store shelf, etc. by other people too. We can honor their role in feeding us by making the most of the food we eat, and preserving helps us do that. I also include the natural world as one of those ‘hands’ too, since we’re honoring the soil, sun, and all the elements that went into making food and life possible by preserving what’s in season and using each ingredient to the fullest extent.

For more information about and her work, follow her on Substack:

Root: Historic Food for the Modern World

Rediscovering the magic of everyday life through food, nature, and the creative process, plus recipes, writing tips, and stories By Dr. Julia Skinner.

By Julia Skinner

Julia Skinner’s Soy Sauce–Pickled Romaine Lettuce

• From Julia in Essential Food Preserving: “This variation is loosely based on Chinese pickled celtuce (stem lettuce) traditions. The firmer stems of celtuce help it hold up to pickling, but this recipe can work with romaine lettuce, too. Keeping the brine cool is critical for a crisp texture. Eat as a pickle or add to a stir-fry. You can substitute other vegetables for the lettuce, like celtuce or celery.”

• Regarding the soy sauce: “You can totally use whatever soy sauce you have to hand, I prefer the richness of dark soy sauce, but if you've only got light, that will still be great too!”

• Use the leftover brine as a marinade for tofu or any protein you’re cooking — or make another batch of pickled romaine lettuce. I think that any lettuce that has some solid crunch in the stem would work pretty well here.

• Paid subscribers just received my Tofu & Snap Pea Stir-Fry with Pickled Lettuce — I think of this pickle as something of a stir-fry shortcut, because the brine is such a flavorful extra ingredient. In a stir-fry, I drain the lettuce but don’t bother squeezing out the excess brine because it just turns into sauce. But if you were to use the pickled lettuce as a sandwich, grain bowl, or salad condiment, gently squeeze it dry so that it doesn’t add sogginess.

• Reprinted from Essential Food Preserving Copyright © 2026 by Julia Skinner. Published by Storey Publishing.

Yield About 2 cups | Prep time 15 minutes

1 head romaine lettuce (see LV note)
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1 small whole star anise, or ½ to 1 teaspoon five-spice powder
½ cup dark soy sauce (see note)
½ cup brown rice or rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil

1. Cut the lettuce into 1-inch-wide pieces and place it in a one-quart jar or divide between two pint jars.

2. Make the brine: Add the sugar, pepper flakes, star anise (if using), soy sauce, vinegar, and oil to a small bowl and whisk until the sugar is dissolved.

3. Pour the brine over the lettuce until covered, add the jar lids, and set the jars in the fridge, where the pickled lettuce will last for about 2 weeks. (LV note: The lettuce will significantly collapse within an hour and be covered by the brined; I found that after it does, you can easily top up the jar with an additional head of chopped lettuce if you’d like to increase your yield!)

Recipe: Julia Skinner’s Soy Sauce–Pickled Romaine

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This quick dinner pairs with the Q&A and recipe for Soy Sauce–Pickled Romaine Lettuce, from and her new book Essential Food Preserving.

Pickled romaine has been a very fun garnish to have around, especially for quickly jazzing up a bowl of rice (rice + fried egg + pickled romaine + any other lingering veg, plus maybe a squirt of sriracha). But in this stir fry, the intensely flavorful marinade plays just as important a role as the lettuce, as the basis for the saucy glaze.

Tofu & Snap Pea Stir-Fry with Pickled Romaine

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I used to do an annual oatmeal challenge that involved eating my oats differently each day of February (I even made a very limited-run oatmeal zine; maybe someday I’ll auction off the remaining handful of copies). I haven’t kept up with the challenge, but I love my oats now just as much as then.

So when I got a copy of chef and restauranteur Nichole Accettola’s new book Scandinavian Everyday, the inviting bowl of caramelized mushroom-studded porridge emerging from the cover indicated to me that yes, this is a book for oatmeal (or, more precisely: porridge) people. She even confesses she could have written a whole book about porridge, and I hope that she does.

In it, I learned that there was a “porridge renaissance” in Scandinavia that began around 2010, with porridge-themed eateries like Grød and others commanding long lines and media hype. Nichole, who lived and worked in Scandinavia during the time, even finished second place in Copenhagen’s Porridge Championship. And after she moved to San Francisco, she sold porridge at the Ferry Plaza farmer’s market, at popups in the Mission, and to this day, at her Scandinavia-inspired restaurant Kantine.

Of course Scandinavian Everyday is about much more than just porridge. Vibrant vegetables are everywhere: on and in the porridges, in beautiful salads, soups, and stews; in homemade larder staples, cheese tarts, and mung bean fritters. The principles of the Nordic Diet inform the book but definitely don’t dictate it. It’s more a celebration fresh produce, legumes and whole grains, good ingredients, and a practical sensibility about healthful, creative, longevity-oriented eating.

Below, Nichole graciously answered a few questions about her new book and shared the recipe for her Barley Porridge, which is easy, toasty, and a really fun whole-grain variation on oatmeal that you can take in a million different directions to showcase your spring produce.

Q&A With Nichole Accettola

How does the Nordic Diet inform Scandinavian Everyday?

The principles of the Nordic Diet are really woven through the entire book, though I wasn’t interested in making it feel preachy or clinical. What resonates with me most about Scandinavian cooking is its natural reliance on whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds, seafood, seasonal vegetables, and preservation techniques that help you carry the brightness of one season into the next. It’s a cuisine that feels deeply practical and deeply pleasurable at the same time.

Living in San Francisco, is there synergy between the food cultures of the Bay Area and the Nordic region?

Living in San Francisco has actually strengthened my connection to those values. The Bay Area and the Nordic countries share an almost obsessive reverence for seasonality and ingredient quality. There’s a similar excitement around the arrival of asparagus, peas, berries, potatoes, mushrooms. And both cultures embrace cooking where you try not to obscure the ingredient itself. Maybe that’s why it feels like Scandinavian food has always felt surprisingly at home here?

Is porridge meaningfully different in Scandinavia compared to the US?

I think many Americans still associate porridge with a somewhat austere bowl of gruel, whereas in Scandinavia it occupies a much broader and more beloved category. It can be breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, comfort food, or celebration food.

Scandinavian porridges are often created with a base of hearty grains, like rye, barley, oats, spelt, and quinoa. Some grains lend creaminess, while others retain a pleasant chew, which is why I often like combining them. Texture is a huge part of what makes porridge feel satisfying and dynamic rather than one note.

And then there are the toppings, which are never really an afterthought. A bowl of porridge becomes a vehicle for contrast: tart berries, crunchy seeds, browned butter, jammy fruit, sharp cheese, smoked fish, fresh herbs. It can skew savory or sweet depending on the season or time of day. That adaptability is part of why I devoted an entire chapter to it.

In your barley porridge, do you have a favorite meatless swap for the salmon? Or any other seasonal produce glow-ups, now that summer is approaching?

Absolutely. The smoked salmon brings salinity and richness, so I’d look for something that provides a similar savory depth. A soft boiled egg is lovely, especially when topped with fresh dill sprigs.

As we move toward summer, I’d lean into freshness and crunch. Thinly sliced radishes, peas, pea shoots, or sautéed asparagus segments would all brighten the bowl beautifully. One thing I love about porridge is that it can quietly track the seasons without requiring a completely different recipe each time.

As a chef and restaurant owner, how do you approach home cooking in your day-to-day life?

At home, I cook very differently than I do professionally. Restaurant cooking involves a tremendous amount of precision, repetition, and coordination, whereas home cooking is where I look for flexibility and ease. I’m usually trying to work creatively with what I already have on hand and turn it into something that feels comforting and satisfying enough that even my two teenage boys will get excited about it.

I also intentionally shop for multiple days at a time and make a bit more food than necessary during the week so that components can carry over into future simple meals. A pot of grains might become porridge the next day, roasted meat and vegetables are pan fried and topped with a runny egg, or other vegetables are chopped into bite-sized pieces and added to a tart or salad. That kind of continuity feels very Scandinavian to me. There’s a practicality to it, but also a coziness.

Thank you, Nichole! For more information, see the link below or follow her or Kantine on Instagram.

More about SCANDINAVIAN EVERYDAY

Nichole Accettola’s Barley Porridge

• From Nichole: “To boost the nutrition, you can swap in hulled barley for pearled, but the cooking time will need to increase to about 50 minutes.”

• Rather than smoked salmon, I’ve topped mine with a 7-minute egg, radishes quickly seared in butter and then steamed with asparagus, as well as some pickled fennel and a plop of yogurt, pictured up top. This could go in dozens of savory directions, with tahini, roasted vegetables, paper thin shavings of fresh vegetables, wilted greens, caramelized onions, soft or crumbly cheese…

• Reprinted from Scandinavian Everyday Copyright © 2026 by Nichole Accettola. Food photographs copyright © 2026 by Molly DeCoudreau. Lifestyle photographs copyright © 2026 by Mikkel Vang. Published by Ten Speed Press, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC.

Yield 4 servings | Prep & cook time About 30 minutes

1½ cups (300g) pearled barley
1 tablespoon neutral oil
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 small shallot, thinly sliced
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
4 cups (960g) water

For serving (see above for additional ideas)
2 cups (40g) loosely packed baby spinach
2 tablespoons chopped fresh chives
2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill, plus a few sprigs for garnish
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
8 ounces (224 g) smoked salmon, flaked into chunks, or 4 poached eggs
½ lemon, for squeezing, as needed
Extra-virgin olive oil, for garnish

1. In a spice grinder or blender, grind ½ cup of the barley into a very coarse flour. Set aside.

2. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, heat the oil and butter until the butter melts. Add the shallot to the pan and cook, stirring, until soft, about 1 minute. Add the remaining 1 cup barley and a pinch of salt and cook, stirring constantly, until there are some flecks of color on the grains and the barley smells toasted, 2 minutes. Add the pulverized barley and the water to the pan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then decrease the heat to low, cover, and simmer until the barley is very tender and creamy, about 20 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside, covered, for 5 to 10 minutes.

3. The porridge base can be prepared in advance and stored in an airtight container in the refrigerator for 3 days. To reheat, add a splash of water and proceed with the recipe.

4. Just before serving, stir in the spinach, chives, chopped dill, and lemon juice and simmer just until the spinach wilts, about 30 seconds. Season with salt and pepper.

5. Divide the porridge among four bowls. Dot each portion with pieces of salmon, then garnish with dill sprigs. Squeeze the ½ lemon and drizzle a little olive oil over each bowl. Serve immediately.

Recipe: Nichole Accettola's Barley Porridge

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I have been so grateful for the nice, long days lately. All the extra sun has given me a jolt of renewed energy for cooking, gardening, being outside, and for locking into my routines — like going to the gym, which over the past several months, was more of a struggle than ever.

Riding this wave, today I’m rounding up the principles I keep in mind with a category of eating I think of as “fueling foods” — the stuff I like to eat around exercise, or even just extra active days.

This is guided by my own appetites and instincts, but also informed by what I’ve learned from research and conversations with trainers and nutritionists over the years. What’s best for me may not be best for you, but hopefully the below will at least provide some delicious inspiration.

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Variety Is Fun — and Valuable

One thing that can bum me out in the category of exercise-oriented eating is a “food is just function” mindset, which means eating the same five things all day long, every day. Not only is it boring if you love food as I do, but if you’re inclined to get nourishment from ingredients rather than supplements, variety helps to capture the breadth of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients that whole foods deliver. My mantra is to eat with the seasons, mix things up, be adventurous, and take advantage of whatever bounty is available.

Recipes with built-in variety:

• Summer Bowl with Minty Green Yogurt Sauce (pictured)

• Protein Bowl with Roasted Delicata Squash & Hemp Heart Za’atar

• Protein Toasts with Asparagus Coins and Pumpkin Seed Sprinkle

Factor Hydration into Meals

In addition to drinking water during workouts, in these fueling foods I’m also intentional about hydration. This means including fruits and vegetables, which contain lots of water, as well as dishes like overnight oats, chia puddings, beans, and grains, that have water or moisture cooked back into them. And of course, I love a good smoothie. This practice works towards replenishing the body of water and electrolytes burnt during exercise, but also aids digestion and, since I do morning workouts, sets me on the right track for staying hydrated through the rest of the day.

Hydration-oriented recipes:

• Berry-Almond Smoothie (pictured)

• Honey’d Tomato & Beans on Toast

• Rice Pudding-ish Overnight Oats

Prioritize Protein, Of Course

It’s quite simple: eating protein after a workout capitalizes on all the hard work of exercising. Otherwise, the body isn’t getting the fuel it needs to both support the exertion, and to build and hold onto muscle mass. A protein smoothie can make this pretty easy, and I do drink them every now and then (this is my favorite), but I get much more pleasure when protein comes from whole food sources.

High-protein morning meals:

• Breakfast Tofu Scramble (pictured)

• Broccoli Slice

• Bean & Quinoa Skillet with Eggs & Feta

And Prioritize Complex Carbs, Too

Dietary fiber delivered via complex carbohydrates (whole grains, beans, high-fiber vegetables) helps to slow digestion and make all the nutrients in food easier for the body to absorb. For those of us who are in our 40s, which is when many begin losing muscle mass, studies indicate that increased fiber intake can help us hold onto it. If you’re reading this newsletter, you’re probably already on the right track with fiber (hello, fellow bean folks). But I loved learning that fiber is an equally important factor when it comes exercise, because protein so often steals the spotlight.

Favorite fiber-rich recipes:

• Power Porridge (pictured)

• Earl Grey Overnight Oats

• Kabocha Soup with Black-Eyed Peas and Broccoli Rabe

Snacks Never Get Old

Having written a whole book about snacks, my love of them needs little explanation. And it’s always a thrill when I’ve got something to grab on the way out the door, designed specifically for putting some fuel in the tank. Granted, I don’t often eat before going to the gym because I’m headed there 10 minutes after I get out of bed. But these nutrient-dense, relatively high-protein snacks are always welcome when the schedule is tight and there isn’t much time to eat properly between my workout and the next commitment.

Nutrient-dense, fueling snacks:

• Energy Bar Stuffed Dates (pictured)

• Seedy Chocolate & Hemp Heart Squares

• Roxana Jullapat’s Power Oat Bars

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