With all due respect to the Gershwin Brothers and DuBose Heyward, they must have been high when they wrote, “Summertime, and the living is easy.”
‘Cause it ain’t.
Even when people lived very close to the land, in previous centuries, summer was no golden hazed, idealized dream world of fried catfish, starry nights, and summer breezes.
If you laid around in the summer instead of working your non-air-conditioned fingers to the sweaty bone come winter time you and your family would likely starve. The summer is time for tending the fields, harvesting and canning, and killing, butchering, and smoking.
A vacation traffic jam III Painting by Hilde Goossens
Nowadays we bustle around taking the kids to camp or intersession care. At work we’re either filling in for vacationing co-workers or getting ahead for and/or catching up from our own vacation. It’s hot, the traffic’s a mess, and tempers are short. We’re horrifying ourselves shopping for a bathing suit, aggravating ourselves by returning said bathing suit, or giving up and getting no bathing suit at all.
I am not even joking a little bit when I say I am over the summer already and impatiently awaiting the State Fair and sweater weather (the feelings may be exacerbated slightly by these hellish, fury-provoking flashes of heat I’ve been experiencing lately).
This week’s newly revamped summer recipe can be eaten for breakfast, as a snack, or dessert. It contains seasonal fruit, and it’s vegetarian, but can be made vegan, gluten-free, keto or paleo.
It’s chia pudding. Chia seeds are small pips which swell and soften when mixed with liquid. It’s similar to tapioca pudding but is so much quicker, easier, and healthier.
I’ll give you a quick basic recipe, then break down ingredients so you can make substitutions and create something that is uniquely yours, tailored to the tastes of you and your family.
Summer Chia Seed Pudding
1 ½ cups milk
2/3 cup whole chia seeds
3 tablespoons liquid sweetener
½ teaspoon extract or flavoring of your choice
pinch of kosher salt
1 cup berries
Garnish and topping
Directions
Place berries in bowl and mash almost completely with potato masher.
Put milk, chia seeds, sweetener, flavoring and salt into bowl with berries. Stir ingredients together. You’ll feel the seeds start to absorb the liquid and swell.
Cover and refrigerate for three hours or overnight, until seeds have swollen and softened to the consistency of tapioca. 4 servings.
Milk-use anything from whole milk to fat-free; white, buttermilk, chocolate, or strawberry. Don’t use anything thicker than whole because it will become greasy cement. You can also use nut milk, coconut water, or fruit juice—cook’s choice.
Chia seeds-you can find them everywhere. Buy black or white ones, organic or conventionally grown, it doesn’t make any difference.
Liquid sweetener-Honey, maple syrup, agave, corn syrup. If it’s sweet and you can pour it from bottle, you can use it.
Berries-they’re needed here because they add extra liquid to the pudding. But another very juicy fruit works such as very ripe peaches, citrus fruits, or even tomatoes.
Mix-ins and toppings-I love toasted pecans and dried cherries. But what about salted peanuts and dried banana? Or chocolate chips and biscotti pieces? Or pomegranate seeds and pistachios?
Service-Ladle it into jars and sprinkle on toppings. Then grab and go from the fridge or stick them in a cooler for road trips. Or layer it (unset) into parfait glasses with cookies or pound cake for a dessert trifle.
The whole idea of this chia pudding is that it’s stress-free and open to a multitude of interpretations.
And while summer may be anything but easy, this cool creamy treat truly is.
Not an actual depiction of an actual summer.
Thanks for your time.
Every year, the week before Memorial Day, she has a couple different crews come out. One is to spruce up the landscaping, and make sure the yard is clean and the bushes and trees are trimmed and neat. Another bunch wash and paint the outdoor furniture. And, a third team does maintenance on, and fills the pool.
Unfortunately, the neighbor and I only have a wave hello, comment on the weather kind of relationship, so I’ve never actually been invited to one of these Memorial Day pool parties. But I’ve thought about them, and in my mind, they’re potlucks.
The sweet is a cool, creamy lime/pear jello recipe that has been a family favorite for literally, decades. It’s named after that seventies toy/curiosity, Slime. The savory is a new pasta salad based on one from a new local grocery store, Sprouts. It has no mayo, so it’s perfect for an outdoor dining (Look Ma, no salmonella!).
Prepare a large box of lime Jello according to package directions. When cooled, but not set, pour into a blender along with one 15 oz can of pears, drained, and one 8 oz block of cream cheese, softened. Blend until completely smooth. Pour into mixing bowl and fold in one packet of Dream Whip (Whipped topping mix found in the baking aisle. Can substitute thawed, 8 oz tub of Cool Whip) which you’ve made according to directions. Let set for at least four hours before eating. I consider it a dessert, but there are folks who call it salad. So…
You can use angel hair or spaghetti, then break it into approximately 2-inch pieces. Or, in the Latin food section of your grocer is something called fideo; it’s short pieces of angel hair pasta. And, it runs between 33 and 50 cents a bag.
Juice and zest of 1 large lemon (about ¼ cup)
Whisk together lemon juice and zest, oil, sugar, salt and pepper. Taste for seasoning, and re-season, if necessary. Fold in tomato, garlic, and capers. Cover and refrigerate for 6-24 hours before using.
A couple hours before service cook one 7.05-ounce or 200-gram bag of fideo in heavily salted wateruntil al dente (around 6-8 minutes). Strain and cool completely.
‘Tis the season for road trips. I enjoy traveling to new and interesting places or well-loved homes away from home. But I really hate flying these days; it’s unpleasant in a multitude of ways. And, I’m not great sitting in cars for long stretches, but I’m working on that.
But, for me, being there makes my body anxious and cranky. Unfamiliar water makes my skin break out. It’s almost impossible to get a good night’s sleep. And, after a few days, my body starts to rebel if I’m not eating right.
My goal is to have a balance of carbs for energy, protein to keep me feeling full longer, and healthy fats, with fruits, veggies, and whole grains to keep my engine from seizing up. I want as flavorful and nutritious bang for my caloric buck as possible.
Those pre-packed snack boxes have the right idea, but usually are full of sugars, sodium, unnecessary fats, and chemicals. When it’s packed at home, it can be tailored to your own tastes. Mix something like semi-hard cheese, whole grain crackers, a hard-cooked egg, some grape tomatoes, and dried blueberries.
At Mickey D’s, breakfast is now served all day. The oatmeal is around 300 calories if you get it made without dairy; which is often just a container of their coffee creamer dumped in. There are whole grains, fresh apples, and dried fruit. The yogurt parfait is also a not horrible bite. It’s only 210 calories and has fresh berries and low-fat granola.
Sheetz, with their War and Peace-sized, fully customizable menu can also be an option. Their breads include whole-grain options, the meat can be grilled, and they have crispy greens to dress them. I made a tasty loaded rice and bean bowl with vegetables and guacamole for only 300 calories. You can build a salad for yourself—just ask for the dressing on the side.
Panera’s showing up along many highways, and they have a commitment to providing clean healthy food. Their green passion smoothie is 200 calories and full of fresh fruit and greens. They’ve introduced a new spinach salad full of good stuff that is very similar to their old spinach salad which I loved and have sorely missed.
*The title is a song from that classic road trip film, The Muppet Movie.
Here’s my opening line.
When this has happened in the past, and I’ve fretted about it to Petey, he’s suggested the opening line seen above. I always laugh, thank him, and tell him I’ll keep it in my back pocket (Care & Feeding of Husbands-Chapter 1.).
I do though, have some crazy weather facts about the Lapland region of Sweden that I discovered while doing research for this piece.
Furniture Store Swedish Meatballs
¼ teaspoons freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped 
Serve with a simple starch like egg noodles or mashed potatoes and a dollop of jam. You can also serve on toasted and buttered bread like a split baguette or Texas toast.
Thanks for your time.
I’ll explain: (Spoiler alert: it concerns food.)
The recipe calls for a full teaspoon of salt. Most frosting recipes, if they do contain salt it’s barley more than a pinch. In our frosting, you can actually taste the salt, but in most delicious way. For years I’ve been enjoying the current flavor “It” girl of sweet-salty mashups. I’ve been trendy since elementary school and didn’t even know it.
The sweet in this cozy collab brought an unexpected touch of culinary sophistication to the meal. It’s lingonberry jam, which next to Abba and Ikea itself, is Sweden’s most famous export. They have it in the same vessel in which they put mustard and ketchup to dress hot dogs at Costco’s snack bar. 
It’s red, with the translucent sheen of a perfect pigeon-blood ruby, studded with shards of fruit. It’s sweet, with a sourness level comparable to Boysenberry. The flavor’s as if cherry and cranberry made a baby. I like it. I brought home an Ikea-bought jar and have already had a lingonberry and sun butter sandwich on my homemade sourdough—the sandwich’s a keeper. I’m trying it on biscuits next.
I’m a little embarrassed to admit it, but I loved everything, including the desserts we shared. They have a crispy confection with almond toffee and drenched with milk chocolate ganache called a Daim torte and a treat with layered cream and cake, covered with marzipan that tasted just like bubblegum.
Don’t care, doesn’t matter. I wasn’t a wife and mother of indeterminate heritage eating an early dinner over-looking a parking lot in Charlotte North Carolina.
Thanks for your time.
My brilliant idea kind of all started when I inadvertently found a new treat for my Whirlpool-sized pooch, Crowley.
On the other hand, freeze-dried fruit is completely desiccated. The process is known as lyophilization. Think the crispy, crumbly Styrofoam-like food sold in camping and survival stores and used by NASA and the military. What I had scored on the sale shelf was freeze-dried peaches.
They were like the taste of every peach I’d ever eaten. Every can of fruit cocktail, every bowl of cobbler, every Hostess fruit pie had combined to create this huge peach punch to my taste buds. One bite was my limit.
Which is brilliant, because you get buckets of taste and also as a bonus, it becomes a gorgeous heliotrope color.
Instead of plain jam added to the frosting, I added only two tablespoons of jam, and also a couple tablespoons of finely crushed strawberries. It lowered the amount of liquid I needed to use, and made the frosting less likely to get soft and run if the cake was in a warm environment. I also added a couple tablespoons of the crushed berries to the cake crumbs that I pressed into the sides of the cake. This turned the crumbs a really pretty, springy shade of pink; almost Barbie-ville.
Compound butter. Last week I talked about flavored butter and encouraged imagination and experimentation. So, imagine making a fruit compound butter. What about apples and cinnamon? For those of you with death defying taste buds, how about habañero/mango? Here’s one: An Elvis; freeze-dried bananas, finely chopped peanuts, and crushed crispy bacon.
Thanks for your time.
When the rich and famous are interviewed, very often they say the best thing about fame is the people they meet.
Trucks full of money? Oh no.
But people? Yeah, sure.
Just about five years ago, I was in line at Costco, and met the sweetest couple, Victoria and Jefe. They were Puerto Ricans and wonderful cooks of the island’s cuisine. I went to their house for a cooking lesson for the column, and we became friends.
They very much remind me of my parents, whose own generosity is legendary. Once they took me under their wing and decided to be my Caribbean God Parents, they went all in. We meet for coffees and I almost have to wrestle Jefe to let me pay once in a while. Every holiday that rolls around I have an adorable greeting note and gif in my email. They shower me with tons of homemade Puerto Rican foods and extravagant gifts.
So, as often as I can, I make food gifts for them. They’ve had my famous five-chocolate brownies, my brown butter chocolate chips cookies, and my mom’s magically addictive Christmas cookies.
It’s what is known as a compound butter. It can be one of your most versatile ingredients in the kitchen. The butter I made for Jefe and Victoria can be used on toast. But it would also go great on carrots, sweet potatoes, anything with warm sweetish flavors. Schmear it all over a ham biscuit.
I’ll give you the recipe for the butter. But what I’d like to have happen is for your imagination to be inspired. Use the butter on something new. Even something as simple as tweaking the proportions of the recipe I give you. Get in your kitchen and mad scientist some new butters.
A compound butter is kind of like Me
Take these butter ideas and run with them. Use the flavors that you and your family love. Then put the butter on all kinds of interesting foods.
My feelings toward spring are the very definition of bittersweet.
On the other hand, we get dogwood blossoms, and my April birthday, which brings with it obscenely frosted Dewey’s birthday cake.
Cake:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour two 8 or 9-inch round tins.
Carefully spoon batter into prepared cake pans and bake for 25-35 minutes. Start checking after about 22 minutes and remove from oven as soon as toothpick comes out clean, but moist. Cool in pan 5 minutes and then turn out onto cooling rack to finish cooling completely.
3 1-pound boxes powdered sugar
Dump all ingredients except the jam into mixer. Beat ingredients at low until it starts to come together. Put water in at this point, a bit at a time. Once it gets to creamy frosting and piping consistency, let it go on medium-high for 4 minutes. 
1-pint fresh strawberries
Frost with about half the remaining frosting. Smooth it as much as you can. Gently press the cake crumbs around the sides of the cake until it’s fully covered. 
Using a large star tip, put a border around the top and bottom of the cake. Place stars around the top in a decorative manner and top each with chocolate-coated strawberries. Cover and refrigerate at least six hours or overnight before service.
Thanks for your time.
This is the column I never wanted to write.
Because of having exacting standards for potato salad, there are very, very few store-bought or restaurant made varieties that I like. I can really only think of four.
Which was both a bummer and an opportunity. An opportunity because I was still looking for a topic for this week’s column. The same hand that slapped the potato salad-laden fork out of my mouth also handed me something about which to write. I decided to do some online investigation to make Pearl’s at home.
Two things I then knew for sure: the salad was made with russets, and it contained both mustard and relish, so I have to walk back that abomination thing, and the no mustard recipe was a fraud.
4 pounds russet potatoes cooked in boiling salted water until fork-tender
When the potatoes are barely cool enough to handle, peel. Cut all except one into cubes. Chop reserved spud and put into dressing bowl and give it a smoosh until it’s chunky/mashed. Add relish, onion, mustard, honey, mayo, and sour cream. Stir together until well combined. Season and reseason, if necessary.
Add still warm potatoes and eggs. Mix until everything’s coated. Season, cover and refrigerate for an hour. Serves 6-8.
Thanks for your time.
Although I have a deep and abiding love for it, I have a complicated relationship with Costco.
I often venture into that house-sized refrigerator where the keep their veggies and come out bearing a giant amount of this or that. Frequently, it’s their button mushrooms, that come in like a forty- or fifty-pound box.
What do we do with it now?
The other new, but really important ingredient was mushroom stock. I always discard the stems when I use mushrooms, but this time I tossed them into a pot with 2 cups of chicken stock, a handful of dried mushrooms, and a couple bay leaves. I then boiled it until it reduced by half, then strained it.
½ cup + 3 tablespoons butter, divided
Melt 3 tablespoons of butter in large, heavy pot. Add mushrooms, onion, thyme and rosemary. Season, then stir to coat. Turn to medium, cover and cook until the water’s released from veg. Uncover and cook until the liquid’s cooked out, and mushrooms start to brown. Pour in wine and cook until dry. Remove veg and set aside.
Preheat oven to 350. Add vegetables and noodles to pot. Stir until everything’s coated and veg are evenly distributed. Taste for seasoning and re-season, if necessary. Pour into greased casserole dish. Cover with parchment, then foil.
When I told him what we were having for dinner, he asked, “Isn’t this mushroom stuff just like something you’ve made before?”
bull city mom 