Good morning. The Kentucky Derby is on Saturday, the primary since final season’s spectacularly unhappy and troublesome outing. I’m about nearly as good of a handicapper as I’m a coronary heart surgeon, however right here’s my wager: Fierceness, skilled by the horseman Todd Pletcher and ridden by the four-time Derby winner John Velazquez. I’ll tip my mint julep to that crew initially of the race and, if I’m not celebrating a few minutes later, I’ll nonetheless be consuming maple-pecan bourbon balls for the win.
That’s all sooner or later, although, the place every thing is seashells and balloons, a dream to carry onto till it shatters, my very own little sequel to “Uncut Gems.” Within the meantime, there’s dinner to make right here on the finish of the week: tuna puttanesca (above), spiced brininess with caper pops and olive depth, fiery as you want.
There are a few wonderful particulars in Lidey Heuck’s recipe for the dish. She makes use of shallots to boost the garlic punch beneath the salt and tang, and he or she doesn’t stint on the anchovies. I like a full half dozen myself, in addition to jarred tuna in oil if I can discover it, for the chunkiness it brings to the sauce.
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Tuna Puttanesca
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Will I begin Saturday with my recipe for sourdough waffles, made with a number of the starter that sits, deep in chilly slumber, in a jar in my fridge? I’ll, as a result of I’ll begin them after I’m carried out cleansing up the puttanesca. The in a single day resting of the sponge — unfed starter, buttermilk, sugar and flour — brings massive taste and ethereal rise each time. (No starter? No downside: Melissa Clark’s recipe for traditional waffles delivers the products.)
For lunch: Eric Kim’s crispy wonton hen salad, which I typically make with torn-apart leftover roast hen or, in a pinch, a rotisserie fowl from the heated cupboard on the grocery store. Not on weekends, although: After I’m carried out with the waffles, I’ll put a complete hen right into a pot of simply barely simmering water, cowl it and cook dinner it for about an hour, then flip off the warmth and permit it to poach, undisturbed, for an additional. This results in hen meat of wonderful silkiness, together with a superb inventory it can save you to be used later within the week.
If Fierceness comes via, it’ll be off to the neighborhood spot for dinner: a salamandered rib-eye on the bone, crusted darkish and buttery above its uncommon inside, with golden fries and béarnaise sauce, some big-budget Napa cabernet sauvignon. If not, and extra most likely, it’ll be a mushroom pasta stir-fry from Hetty Lui McKinnon, the sauce doubled in accordance with my household’s style and need.
On Sunday: berries for breakfast, with yogurt and the smallest drizzle of maple syrup on high, adopted by a visit to the banh mi spot for lunch and a session on the sofa with an advance copy of Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s new novel, “Lengthy Island Compromise.” Then maybe a wee nap prematurely of getting ready dinner, which might be my tackle the recipe for galbijjim that the Los Angeles chef Roy Choi discovered from his mother. The leftovers might be killer tucked into heat tortillas subsequent week.
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Now, it has nothing to do with spiced cherries or rumors of the season’s first rhubarb, however I raced via Dennis Lehane’s newest novel, “Small Mercies,” marveling at his capacity to stability violence and hatred with love and hope. Somebody will need to make it a film, and that might be a troublesome undertaking certainly.
You need to learn, as effectively, Sarah Hepola’s profile, in Texas Month-to-month, of the Navarro School cheer coach Monica Aldama, whose life was scrambled by the Netflix sequence that introduced her and her athletes fame.
Right here’s David Remnick, in The New Yorker, on Jerry Seinfeld, the scholar of comedy.
Lastly, take a hearken to Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Nation: “Dance within the Desert,” stay in California a number of months in the past. Play that loud when you’re cooking and I’ll see you on Sunday.
