Good morning! Today we have for you:
It’s not summer without ratatouilleHere’s the irony of peak summer vegetables like eggplant, zucchini and peppers: They taste best when slowly cooked, so their juices caramelize and their flesh condenses. But long, slow cooking means many hours with the oven on, which is exactly what you don’t want in the throes of an August heat wave. And yet, every summer, I make ratatouille. I can’t help myself. The olive oil-imbued richness, the herbal perfume, the combination of velvety eggplant, slivers of soft pepper and saucy tomatoes is enough of a reward to justify a sweaty hour or two on a Sunday afternoon. Ratatouille recipes abound, but my go-to is one I learned several years ago from a fashionable Parisian, who roasts her vegetables separately on sheet pans before combining them. She also seeds her tomatoes, which, if that’s just one step too many, you can skip. But don’t skip serving this with a torn baguette, some Provençal goat cheese and your favorite bottle of rosé or another festive, chilled beverage. Featured Recipe RatatouilleTwo ratatouille twists and one for the grillSheet-pan ratatouille with crispy chickpeas: Sometimes I cheat and make a streamlined ratatouille with all the vegetables roasted together on one pan. It’s quicker, easier and very satisfying, especially when topped with crunchy spiced chickpeas. One-pot ratatouille pasta: Or follow Vivian Chan-Tam’s lead and turn your ratatouille ingredients into a speedy, colorful pasta. Grilled summer vegetables with tahini dressing: And if you just can’t bear turning on the stove, use your grill to make this lovely David Tanis recipe. It stars the same ratatouille combination of eggplant, zucchini, peppers and tomatoes, all topped with a yogurt-tahini dressing that doesn’t stint on the garlic. For a limited time, you can enjoy free access to the recipes in this newsletter in our app. Download it on your iOS or Android device and create a free account to get started. Reading and eatingWhile on vacation last month, I finished reading Iris Murdoch’s “The Sea, the Sea.” It’s a novel about a self-involved theater director who leaves London to try retirement in an isolated coastal community riven by sea monsters, ghosts from his past and has a food market steps from the shore that sells only frozen fish. Our charming but erratic narrator, Charles Arrowby, loves describing the simple things he puts together for his meals: a kidney bean salad with “good olive oil”; sliced (never mashed) bananas and cream; hard biscuits and Wensleydale cheese; the occasional tin of olives, corned beef or sardines. More than once, he extols the virtues of boiled onions. I can practically taste them — sweet, soft enough to squish with a spoon, enriched with a little butter or olive oil and sprinkled with coarse bits of salt; onions that are good enough to be the star of the meal. The same can be said of a panful of caramelized onions, which would also be wonderful strewn over ratatouille (or stuffed into grilled cheese sandwiches, layered into a savory galette or stirred into dip). However you use them, Ali Slagle’s caramelized onions are a streamlined take, ready in just 40 minutes.
What are you reading? Let me know at hellomelissa@nytimes.com. I’m always looking for my next great read. That’s all for now. I’ll be back tomorrow.
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