Summer Cookin' Had Me a Blast

Featuring Stone Fruit Salad, Jessie Sheehan's Lemon Blackberry Cake, Artichokes and Aioli, Cherry Tomato Pasta, Pickled Carrots, and a Mexican-Jewish feast.

Hey food friends,

My kitchen has been the place to be this past week. I’ve been cooking up a storm! We’re not into binaries here at The Amateur Gourmet Newsletter, so instead of pitting summer vs. winter in terms of which is the best cooking season, we celebrate both here. Winter’s great for rib-sticking comfort food and summer’s the best because of the ingredientses. (Hat-tip, Teresa Giudice.)

Speaking of ingredientses, on Friday The Flamingo Estate gifted me with a giant box of artichokes and lettuces and zucchini blossoms and eggs and I’ve been playing with them every since, combining them with my own farmer’s market haul of heirloom cherry tomatoes and stone fruits. I mixed the latter in a salad that you can see at the top of this newsletter: nectarines and peaches and cherry tomatoes with chopped red onion, olive oil, white Balsamic, salt, pepper, Feta, and lots of chopped herbs (tarragon, basil, and chives).

But the most beautiful summery thing that I cooked this past week? That would be Jessie Sheehan’s Lemon Blackberry Yogurt Cake from her new cookbook, Snackable Bakes.

OMG, this cake is so dreamy and so easy. Seriously, you make it one bowl: vegetable oil, sugar, lemon zest, eggs, vanilla, flour, yogurt (I used sour cream), lemon juice, and then a bunch of chopped up blackberries. The cake is so moist but also beautiful caramelized and fluffy. I ate it for dessert one night and had it for breakfast the next morning.

Highly recommend!

If you recall my relationship with artichokes, you’ll know that it’s always been rocky. But there were those two globe artichokes in the Flamingo Estate box, so I decided to prepare them the simplest way that I could. I boiled them whole in salted water, along with a few potatoes, and served them with a quick garlic aioli that I made using Kenji Lopez-Alt’s method.

This is such a great trick for a summer lunch: make an aioli and then put things out to dip into it. If it’s Friday (or even if it’s not), serve it with a glass of chilled rose. As far as the artichokes go, I loved them this way: leaf-by-leaf, dipping in aioli (sing that to the tune of “Putting it Together.”) Plus, you can easily cut the choke out when it’s boiled and eat the heart and the stem. Four stars!

Now it’s time to confess something: I’ve gone a little TikTok crazy.

It’s like I’ve been zapped and I finally understand what all the fuss is about. From my perspective, it’s this: moving images and sound are more entertaining and useful when it comes to food than still pictures and captions? (Just a theory.) So what follows are a few TikToks that I made over the past week which should help illuminate these food experiences in a more robust way.

Starting with… this cherry tomato pasta!

How did I make it? What’s in it? Behold this TikTok that shows you the whole thing, step-by-step:

@amateurgourmetA taste of summer in a bowl! Cherry tomato pasta with fresh ricotta and an embarrassment of herbs. #pasta #summercooking #tomatoes #cherrytomato #ricotta #fyp #food #foodtiktok #foodies

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

But wait, there’s more! I also pickled the carrots that came in the Flamingo box.

How did I do it? What was the process? Behold this TikTok that walks you through it:

@amateurgourmetPickled carrots! So easy, so good. (Recipe from Nancy Silverton’s Mozza at Home.) Store in your refrigerator for up to six months. #pickles #carrots #farmersmarket #cooking #pickling #summer #losangeles #fyp 🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

And, finally, I went with my friends Tony and Anthony to Melody Wine Bar on Saturday to eat Mexican-Jewish food prepared by a pop-up called Malli. Check out this chicken liver pâté with stone fruit chamoy, plums, fried allium, and allium matzoh.

What was the rest of the meal like? Watch the TikTok!

@amateurgourmetMexican-Jewish pop-up dinner at Melody Wine Bar! Mind blown. 🤯 #losangeles #mexicanfood #jewishfood #guacamole #liver #pastrami #tacos #paleta

Tiktok failed to load.

Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser

Now for the links that caught my eye this week:

• What are the best Italian cookbooks? (The Guardian);

• Adam Platt retires as the food critic for New York Magazine (Grub Street);

• Want your Alexa do use a dead relative’s voice? Neither do I! (The Washington Post);

• One of my favorite things about living in L.A. is coming back. (Variety);

• The challenges that keep Asian chefs from cooking what they want (Bon Appetit).

That’s all for this week, folks!

See you back here on Thursday….

Your friend,

Adam