A salad & a side for HOT weather

Hello friends, it’s been a while. Technically a few weeks, but I am back to offer up a few thoughts for some cooling and refreshing options for this upcoming holiday weekend celebrating the nation’s 250th under a dome of sweat, humidity and blazing heat. It’s the East Coast’s turn to ride 100F+ waves just as Paris and much of Europe did last week. But before we dive into a *Juicy (with a capital J) watermelon-smashed cucumber salad and a quick and cooling cabbage slaw for paid subscribers, a bit of housekeeping. I took a few weeks pause here for some travel and (letting the cat out of the bag)…to focus more on the cookbook I’m working on, alongside my partner-in-crime graphic designer/creative director, Jacob Lindblad. I’m finally making that leap and taking some ride or die recipes from this little Substack column along with many new and unpublished dishes, cooking foundations, tips and musings and plugging them all into a recipe journal about eating, connection and nature’s rhythms. [Working title] “Cycles: Cooking Through A Year” is targeted to head to the printer by the end of this year and given how much work publishing anything is, I’ve decided to pause this publication and put my head down into recipe testing and writing, food styling and shooting and all the other bits and pieces that come with birthing a book project. Any of you with paid subscriptions (my greatest thanks again), those will go on pause indefinitely until I pick this column back up in full. If the notion of a hardcopy book has piqued your interest, I’ll be sure to come back on here now and again and provide updates on release dates and where the book can be found (if anyone has a great independent / art-focused bookstore in their area, please send it my way so I can add it to our growing list!). Jacob and I have decided to produce this project entirely on our own, no big publishing house, no outside funds, which means more creative control (and scrapiness) and being able to target bookstores, boutiques, magazine shops and more that we love and find some synergy with what the book aims to do…bringing fresh ideas and an interesting creative outlook in the form of a book—to cook with, to read, to mark up with notes, to come back to again and again, year after year.

So stay tuned, and thank you for reading along all this while. Now on to this heated 4th of July weekend.

When it’s this hot out, all I can really think about is ice cold melon, typically of any variety, but watermelon arguably, as the name implies, is incredibly hydrating and extra refreshing. Summer salads with high water content (melon and cucumbers in particular) serve as natural AC for the body and replenish electrolytes and water lost from sweat and energy expenditure, whether you’re walking around a hot city all day or languishing on the beach, your body needs to replenish itself. Enter this easygoing salad which would be an excellent pairing for any bbq or cookout holiday spread. It’s essentially 3 ingredients, (I know that is shocking for most of my recipes) - watermelon, cucumber, a mix of herbs (or one singular), and a nuoc cham dressing. I’ve written about my feverish romance with this punchy Vietnamese lime-fish sauce-garlic dressing I think every single summer since I started this Substack. I can’t, won’t give it up.

There are 3 lip-smacking dressings I consistently crave and come back to every summer:

1. nuoc cham (also known as nuoc mam) for it’s enlivening, lite and refreshing hit of everything I want and need on a hot as* summer day.

2. buttermilk-lemon-chamomile dressing for it’s cooling, creamy qualities - see below in the cabbage slaw and yes, chamomile. If you’re lucky enough to find fresh chamomile buds, this is a great savory use for them. I get mine at the greenmarket here in NYC, but if you’re somewhere surrounded by nature, you might stumble on a windfall. You could always try subbing dry chamomile buds or tea, but I don’t think it’ll have the same impact. And if you’re out in nature, pineapple weed is akin to chamomile in look and flavor. If you’re foraging and unsure, use a plant identifier app so you know what you’re about to pick!

3. a classic fresh oregano-red wine vinaigrette — lite and easy and essential for tomato and peach season.

So I digress, let’s get to the watermelon-cucumber recipe:

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the salad:

1/4 watermelon cut into small-ish chunks or angular slices

2 cucumbers (look for Persian if you can, better flavor and texture)

kosher salt or sea salt to taste

a handful or two of herbs (like Thai basil or purple basil, cilantro, mint)

maybe a bit of bonus green scallion or garlic scape finely sliced (this would of course make it 4 ingredients though)

nuoc cham dressing:

1 garlic clove, minced (or 1 tablespoon green garlic, chopped)

1 - 1 inch piece of ginger, grated

4-5 cilantro sprigs, minced *optional

2 teaspoons (15g or so) palm sugar or regular sugar

1 tablespoon (15g) rice vinegar

2 tablespoons (30g) fish sauce (Red Boat is my typical go-to)

1/4 cup water

juice of 2-3 limes

1/2 small red or green Thai bird chili, finely minced

kosher salt / sea salt to taste

Blend everything in a blender or with a whisk until incorporated. Store extra dressing in the fridge up to a week.

Wash and trim the ends of the cucumbers. Using the handle of a knife *(carefully) crush the cucumber or it’s lightly smashed into craggy pieces. Those crags are the perfect dressing-to-mouth vehicle. Arrange watermelon and cucumber on a plate, lightly sprinkle with salt. Dress with a few spoonfuls of nuoc cham, arrange herbs over top. Finito. Eat, hydrate, rest contently in a mild flavor coma and repeat.

Cabbage Slaw with Buttermilk-Lemon-Chamomile Dressing

I needed to use up some cabbage earlier this week and ripped this recipe on the fly…and it’s utterly delicious. Let it sit (comfortably in the fridge) for a day, and it’ll be even more delicious once all the flavors meld nicely. You could swap the summer squash/zucchini for other crunchy veg you might have lying around (carrot, cucumber, corn, sugar snap peas etc). Use what you have, it will be good. It would be even better with a side of a burger or hot dog or grilled anything over this holiday weekend…

This dressing also does wonders on crisp salad leaves, like little gems or romaine, or roasted vegetables, or really anything you can imagine after tasting it.