The Last BLT of Summer

Plus: A Pickling Frenzy, Watermelon Margaritas, Brunch at Damian, and a 25% off newsletter sale!

Hey everyone,

Feast your eyes on the above! Let’s call that “summer’s last hurrah” BLT: my famous basil mayo (made famous this summer in this video), oven-crisped bacon (375 on a rack over a foil-lined cookie sheet for 20 minutes, or until crispy), toasted sourdough, a piece of Bibb lettuce, and the most glorious, juicy, red heirloom tomato from the farmer’s market (the basil in the basil mayo was from there too).

Treat yourself before it’s too late: tomatoes are actually best right now, when they’ve had time to grow and get juicy and deep. Soon the only BLTs you’ll be eating will be pumpkin spice BLTS. (Ew.)

Did you have a good Labor Day? I spent mine laboring over preserved foods!

I made a little list before I went to the farmer’s market on Sunday of things I wanted to pickle and preserve (a lot of it came from the Kachka cookbook): tarragon and strawberries to infuse into vodka, Kirby cucumbers to make pickles, plums to marinate (the wildest recipe: whole plums in with a brine!), and my favorite pickle to make: sweet and sour Fresno chilies. (Click the words for the recipes.)

Here’s a video I made of my journey:

@amateurgourmetI spent Labor Day pickling chilies and cucumbers, marinating plums, and infusing vodka with strawberries and tarragon. Now I can taste summer in the winter! #pickling #preserving #pickles #fyp #chilies #plums #vodka #infusions #preservation #summercooking

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The chilies are already ready to go (they’ll get picklier over time), the tarragon vodka will be done today too , the half-sours tomorrow, the strawberry vodka next week, and the plums in a month. We’re going to eat well this winter.

On Friday night, we went to go celebrate our friend Ryan’s birthday and Ryan requested a frozen drink that could be made with alcohol and without alcohol. I went for watermelon margaritas.

That’s a seventeen pound watermelon (!!) that I cut in half then cut into cubes that I put into the freezer.

When it came time to make the margs, I put the watermelon into a blender with lime juice, a little agave, and some ice for Ryan and for the drinkers, I added lots of tequila. It was a veritable hit.

Meanwhile, Jonathan — Ryan’s main squeeze — cooked us dinner for the first time ever (!) and he did a fabulous job, making Grossy Pelosi’s stuffed shells and a peach panzanella.

Finally, on Saturday, I took Craig — who's already back in New York :( — to Damian for brunch. We’ve been to Enrique Olivera’s other restaurants (Pujol in Mexico City, Cosme in New York) and I went to Damian when it first opened with my friend Ben, so I was excited to go back with Craig.

Things started out a bit rockily with this appetizer of scallop aguachile with coconut:

If you look carefully in there, you’ll see little orange squiggles that turned out to be slivered habanero. I must’ve had a tangle of them on my spoon, because my face was so on fire, I sweated more than the time I faked my haftorah portion at my Bar Mitzvah.

Thankfully, the rest of the meal was truly terrific, especially the quesadilla fritas with epazote:

Check out that texture: the rough masa that formed the tortilla made these some of the best quesadillas I’ve ever had in my life, especially paired with the tomatillo salsa.

And the kouign aman with cajeta for dessert was pure genius:

Loved brunch at Damian, just be careful with the habaneros.

Now for some links!

• Nigel Slater’s beetroot and pomegranate salad seems like a nice transition into fall (The Guardian);

• Alison Brie eats more pasta than I do, and that’s saying a lot (LA Times);

• The Best Fall TV shows about food (Eater);

• What you put into your coffee has as much to do with class as anything else (NYT Book Review).

That’s all for today, folks!

If you missed Thursday’s paid subscriber’s-only newsletter, you missed my sassy seafood stew, peaches and prosciutto, the Bee’s Knees cocktail, and lots of links. Don’t miss the next one!

Here’s a special discount for the end-of-summer. 25% off! Act quick: expires in a week!

Until next time…

Your friend,

Adam