Summer at Home

I’m cooking somewhere between one and three meals a day. On Sunday or Monday, I’ll make a great salad dressing (blue cheese, miso, or a French dressing) and a batch of sweet potatoes and roasted beets to use throughout the week. Brad eats the sweet potatoes as a snack every day, and we put them into a smoothie or make a hash.

There’s a fantastic recipe that I’ve been making that I found on Cooking Light. It’s a perfect pot of lentils you can stick in the fridge and reach for when you need a quick, plant-based protein. I scoop a spoonful onto a plate with frisée and a poached egg, or on top of mashed potatoes with butter in a ramekin, almost like a vegetarian riff on shepherd’s pie. As long as I have good produce stocked in my fridge and my premade dressings ready to go, meals and snacks are as simple as throwing a few simple ingredients together. Case in point: this beet avocado salad with scallions from It’s All Good. Salads are an easy way to use up whatever produce you have—just douse it in a great dressing.

When the need for inspiration strikes, I’ve been going to Ina Garten, Chef Ludo, and NYT Cooking for ideas. The meat subscription boxes from Cream Co. are so good, as is my local butcher, Belcampo. My friend Christopher Kronner started a company called May Day Seafood that we love.

We’ve been trying to support local LA restaurants as much as possible. We picked up takeout from Bavel last weekend—it was a complete meal, which was such a treat. They create family-size menus every week. Tonight we ordered KBBQ from The Korean BBQ Kit, which has everything you need to make it at home. Trois Mec’s Big Mec burger kit is also a favorite. Dear John’s is doing these cool TV dinners that you can pick up from Röckenwagner Bakery & Market, and the takeout from Giorgio Baldi and Broad Street Oyster Company is a mainstay. We’ve been frequenting Felix for pasta kits and The Window at American Beauty for perfect burgers.

While it’s hard to capture the feeling of going out for a nice dinner when you’re stuck at home, Social Studies has a two-person quarantine kit that is so sweet—and for every kit purchased, they’re donating to hospitality workers in New York. It makes having date night at home feel special.