Whole Cherry Crostata

Plus: July 4th Grilling, Yogurt and Exercise, and Trader Joe's Snacks.

Hey everyone,

Let me start by thanking you all for your lovely, generous outpouring of support after my post last week. If I had any doubts about talking about/revealing my Parkinson’s diagnosis in my newsletter (and on Instagram), the deluge of comments and messages and texts proved that those doubts were totally unfounded.

To know that I have so many people out there rooting for me and who care about my well-being has been healing in and of itself. It’s also super liberating to know that I can mention things as they come up related to Parkinson’s without having to “come out” all over again.

So thanks again for all the love! And now we return to our regular program.

For July 4th, I made this stunning (if I do say so myself) whole cherry crostata using a recipe from Lidia Bastianich:

I made a few changes to her recipe: (1) I used my usual pie dough formula, cutting it in half (so: 1 1/4 cups all-purpose four, 1/2 tablespoon sugar, 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, 1 stick of cold butter cut into cubes, pinch that all together, then add enough ice water to make a dough); (2) I skipped using the cherries in syrup, adding more fresh cherries instead; (3) I didn’t have panko, so I used a heaping tablespoon of cornstarch and a little flour to thicken the filling; (4) I sprinkled the crust with Turbinado sugar.

There’s something so striking about these giant red cherries in the middle of a crostata: it might be the prettiest one I’ve ever made. It also felt appropriate for July fourth for some reason. Martha Washington, eat your heart out.

What else did I make? Well our friends Ryan and Jonathan came over, so I grilled right in front of them (with some backseat grilling commentary from Craig!):

I sent Craig out to get buns and meat from the Meat Hook and unable to bite my tongue (the only thing I don’t bite) I said that the buns that he bought were too healthy (they were whole wheat!) and that he didn’t get enough meat (1 pound for 3 people; I wanted to make 1/2 pound burgers) so he had a bit of a chip on his shoulder when the grilling started.

I went out and bought regular potato buns (the best kind) and an additional 1/2 pound of burger meat, only I would’ve better off sticking to the pound of meat Craig bought. The thing about 1/2 pound pub-style burgers is that it’s hard to get them cooked all the way through without incinerating the outside:

Luckily, it wasn’t my first time at the rodeo, so I knew that if I put the lid on that’d get the meat cooked on the inside. So here’s the finished burger which was scrumptious and possibly still raw on the inside, but in a way that was okay, like steak tartare? It tasted really, really good.

That night we watched The River Wild, a perfect summer movie if you haven’t seen it in a while.

In (additional) health news, I’ve been on a real exercise kick these past nine days. It’s a big motivator to know that high-intensity cardio has been proven to slow the progression of Parkinson’s, if you can get your heart rate up to 80 to 85% of your maximum heart rate, which I’ve been doing on the Peloton listening to show tune mixes…. you can see my playlists on Spotify:

Here am I all schvitzy after a typical 30-minute workout:

And here’s what I’ve been eating for lunch almost every day for the past week: some combination of yogurt (stirred with a little jam), fruit, and a smattering of granola, plus this “yogurt topping” I picked up at SOS Chefs (I have absolutely no idea what’s in it except that it’s black, a little tart, a little spicy, and there’s some kind of nut):

Plums, peaches, cherries, apricots… is there a better time to eat fruit? There is not!

Just in case you think I’m being too healthy, I made a trip to Trader Joe’s the other day (I was in the neighborhood) and picked up some snacks because we generally have nothing to snack on in this house… just cooking ingredients (it’s hard to snack on flour):

The trek mix is the perfect thing to nibble on in the afternoon when I’m feeling peckish. Craig is a fan of pickle chips, so those are for him. The pita chips are for hummus. But the snack that completely wowed us was this one featured on Wirecutter: Tom Yum snack mix.

Imagine if Cheetos didn’t have a cheese powder but, instead, a powder made from Tom Yum soup including lots of lemongrass… that’s what this tastes like and we couldn’t stop eating it. Beware, though: there are little dehydrated Thai chilies in there and Craig had one and almost had smoke coming out of his ears. So buyer beware!

Hey, let’s look at some links:

• Murder by Beef Wellington? It happened in Australia (NYT gift link);

• Deb’s burrata with cherries and pistachios looks like the dreamiest summer salad (Smitten Kitchen);

• Food Person inspired this Substacker to make Coq au Vin! We love to see it (Not Calling Back).

That’s all for today, folks!

See you back here on Thursday….

Your pal,
Adam