FOR A HOT SEPTEMBER NIGHT

A DRINK

Blackberry Martini
You can find this recipe over at Food52 in my Cooking What I Want column.

A DINNER

Heirloom Tomato and Nectarine Salad
Don't toss the ingredients in a bowl. Instead, layer on a large plate or platter. Assemble this salad right before you serve it because once the salt hits the tomatoes and stone fruit, you will have the beginnings of an herbacious summer soup.

Core and slice 4 large heirloom tomatoes. Spread slices out on a platter. Halve and remove pits from 4 ripe nectarines. Thinly slice the fruit and fan out around the tomato slices. Throw down a few handfuls of green leaves (basil, parsley, mint, arugula). 

Use your vegetable peeler to shower down paper-thin sheets of firm cheese (parmesan, piave, asiago, manchego). Sprinkle and splash with coarse salt, olive oil, and gooey balsamic*. 

Some possible additions: Marcona almonds or pine nuts, prosciutto, thinly sliced red onion, grilled peaches, blops of crème fraîche. Just keep on layering until it looks like dinner.

Keep any leftovers and serve over pasta the next day (after removing any brown slices of nectarine).

*Make your own gooey balsamic by reducing down (by half) an inexpensive bottle of balsamic vinegar. Cool. Store as you would any vinegar.

A DESSERT

Nutella Chocolate Pots with Crème Fraîche and Sea Salt
Printable Recipe
Yesterday, I was making chocolate pots, drinking coffee, and engaging in my monthly hormonal horror show: the inhalation of an entire jar of Nutella. But this time I shared. One spoonful for me. One for the chocolate pots. On and on until Bella stopped me with: "Mom. Chill."  You can skip this adulterant and keep things all pure and dark chocolaty. Or play on by adding rum, almond paste, orange zest, or any other favorite flavor. This recipe is very forgiving.

Adapted from Nigella Lawson's recipe for Chocolate Pots.

Makes 10 "pots" (use ramekins or small drinking glasses) that are about 3/8 cup each.

1 pound bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1 cup whole milk

3/8 cup Nutella (or Nocciolata spread)

1 teaspoon vanilla bean extract

2 eggs

crème fraîche

Maldon sea salt

Place chocolate and salt in bowl of a food processor. Pulverize until it's almost as fine as powder.

Pour cream and milk into a medium-sized pot. Heat until it's just under the boil. Turn off the heat. Pour into a pitcher. Carefully pour hot cream/milk down the food processor tube onto the pulverized chocolate. Add Nutella. Let sit for 1 minute. Process for 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides. Add vanilla extract and eggs. Process for another 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides. Pulse a few times. Make sure it's smooth. Pour mixture into a pitcher. Pour into 10 small pots (ramekins or small drinking glasses). Refrigerate for at least 2 hours. 

Take out of the fridge about 30 minutes before serving. Top with a teaspoon of crème fraîche and a pinch of Maldon sea salt.

A SONG
"I Don't Recall" by Lavender Diamond
Listen over and over again while doing the dishes.

SO CLOSE YOU CAN FEEL IT

Dream that you forgot to study for your college statistics final.

Wake up to radio news of more tornadoes.

Poke, yank, drag your kids out of bed.

Stare blankly into the fridge.

Calculate that today is approximately the 1,620th day of making school lunches.

Feel totally uninspired.

Find your son asleep on the dog bed.

Marionette him up, whisper into his ear one week till summer one week till summer one week till summer, quadruple-kiss his delicious neck, rudder his body towards the kitchen.

Notice the time.

Abort the kitchen.

Yell out don't worry about your beds or your teeth just put on some clothes and let's get in the car.

Feed your kids a very special in-transit breakfast of BBQ chips, fruit rope, and Altoids.

See the relief in your daughter's eyes when you pull up just in time for drop-off.

Go to the market to buy breakfast cereal, school lunch items, and vegetables.

Walk out of the market with red wine, anchovies, six of your favorite cheeses, apricots, and cherries.

Re-enter the messy zone.

Ignore the dishes.

Make your bed.

Make your son's bed.

Make your daughter's bed.

Ignore the dishes.

Perform a floor-to-ceiling purge of the pantry.

Pick a dozen of the yellow flowers that shoot up every June and remind you of the day your son was born.

Ignore the dishes.

Regret never having written your son's birth story.

Sigh out he's six he's six he's six oh how could he be six.

Almost cry.

Add insult to injury by trying on all of your bathing suits.

Clear your desk to clear your head.

Blaze through dozens of emails to make sure you haven't missed out on a teacher gift, a birthday party, a memory book, a let's-do-soccer-in-the-fall push, a trophy presentation, a we're-done-with-kindergarten party.

Rant we are ruining our children with all of these celebrations and making them feel too special and we need to let them be ordinary once in a while.

Distract yourself by thinking about what you're going to do with the apricots and cherries.

Feel the magnetic pull of your kitchen.

Realize when you bite into a firm apricot and then a lackluster cherry that you've jumped the gun a bit on summer.

Broil half of the fruit with olive oil, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, thyme, and ricotta.

Bake the remaining fruit into an apricot, cherry, and brown-butter crisp.

Groove to the extractive and color-enhancing properties of salt, sugar, and heat as they transform the apricots into tart and fluffy pillows and the cherries into a sticky sweet jam.

Rejoice that it's not even noon and fuck yeah the beds are made, the pantry is summer-ready, dinner and dessert are cooked.

Blast some music.

Do the dishes.

Do the dishes.

Do the dishes.

Sit back down at your desk.

Sip your coffee.

Float your way back to that sunny Saturday morning in 2007.

Remember your daughter holding your gaze, gripping your hands, swaying right along with you during those first few contractions, repeating you can do it mama you can do it mama you can do it mama.

Smile.

Write the story of your son's birth.

BROILED APRICOTS AND CHERRIES WITH RICOTTA AND THYME
printable recipe
serves 4-6 as a side dish

12-15 apricots

15-20 cherries

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

2 tablespoons olive oil

2 teaspoons balsamic vinegar (thick if you have it)
4 sprigs fresh thyme

3/4 cup ricotta or fresh goat cheese (or both!)
1/3 cup chopped parsley

Preheat broiler to high.

Halve and pit the apricots. Halve and pit the cherries (use a cherry pitter for a bit less of a mess). Place fruit in a baking dish. Sprinkle with salt, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and thyme. Toss to coat. Broil (not too close to the flame) until tender, gooey, juicy, and just starting to brown, maybe even blacken along the edges (about 15 minutes). Remove from the oven and tuck spoonfuls of cheese around the cooked fruit. Broil again until cheese just starts to brown. Garnish with chopped parsley. Serve immediately with grilled bread and  a green salad. 

APRICOT AND CHERRY BROWN-BUTTER CRISP WITH VANILLA-LEMON SUGAR
printable recipe
serves 4-6
If you have any extra vanilla-lemon sugar, it's delicious dissolved into warm milk (says my daughter).

for the vanilla lemon sugar:

4 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 teaspoon lemon zest

seeds scraped out from 1/2 vanilla bean

for the fruit:

12-15 apricots

15-20 cherries

for the crisp topping:

1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup rolled oats (not quick cooking)
1/2 cup finely chopped walnuts
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

6 tablespoons unsalted butter
4 tablespoons brown sugar

To make the vanilla lemon sugar: In a food processor, pulverize the sugar, lemon zest, and vanilla bean seeds for 30 seconds. Set aside.

Halve and pit the apricots. Halve and pit the cherries (use a cherry pitter for a bit less of a mess). Place fruit in a baking dish (it's okay if it overlaps a bit). Sprinkle 2-4 tablespoons of the vanilla lemon sugar all over the fruit (up to you how sweet you want to go). Let it sit for at least 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Toss together flour, oats, walnuts, and salt. Set aside.

In a medium-sized pot, melt the butter. Let it foam up a bit and then settle back down. Watch carefully. Remove from heat just as the milk solids start to brown at the bottom of the pot. Stir in brown sugar. Add the flour/oat/nut mixture. Mix until just combined.  

Distribute the crisp mixture all over the top of the fruit. Press down firmly. Bits of fruit might poke through a bit. That's okay. Bake until the crisp starts to bubble around the edges and the top is golden brown (about 40 minutes). Serve right away with ice cream, whipped cream, créme fraîche, or yoghurt. It's great for breakfast.