Good morning. Father’s Day, first day of summer, Bieber on the car radio as neighbors cruise to the beach: It’d be a nice one to cook outside if you can, or to pretend that you’re cooking outside if you can’t. I like these thin-cut, jalapeño-marinated grilled pork chops (above) for the menu, with their vegetal zing and cilantro thrum, topped with a red onion relish. Maybe some mango slaw on the side? That’d be nice.
Of course, you might feel the same way about a pizza from your favorite place, a can of cold beer or glass of lemonade, some Mr. Frosty on the stoop afterward. You don’t have to cook your own food to feel the pleasures of the season. But I think it helps. I think it grounds us. I think cooking regularly, especially after more than a year of cooking regularly, is a good habit to keep.
So make those pork chops or whatever you’d like, and on Monday maybe you could end your day with an orzo salad with peppers and feta, a kind of Basque piperade over the pasta, even better at room temperature than hot from the stove. Make it early in the evening and eat it later on, when the sun has dipped.
For Tuesday’s meal, how about black pepper chicken thighs with mango, rum and cashews? Excellent with rice!
On Wednesday, you could consider roasted salmon with miso rice and ginger-scallion vinaigrette, though if that’s too much preparation for the middle of the week, you wouldn’t go wrong with a simple pasta with mint and Parmesan. (Want to make that pasta luxe? Add some crab meat and paper-thin slices of seeded jalapeño.)
Recall the pleasures of childhood on Thursday, with this ace new recipe for crispy fish with tartar sauce, like something out of a deep fryer but actually cooked in the oven. The tartar sauce goes on the fish before the bread crumbs, which helps them adhere and really flavors the fish. Smashed and fried potatoes to go with, please.
And then on Friday, how about a beer-can chicken, with a classic pasta salad to go with it — or this herby potato salad with smashed olives, or this pickleback slaw?
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And if you’ve got some extra time today and want to spend it on a device, check us out on Instagram, and on Facebook as well. On Twitter, you’ll find links to our news articles. And you should absolutely visit us on YouTube, where Yewande Komolafe recently demonstrated the preparation of Brazilian moqueca, a beautiful seafood stew.
Now, it’s a far cry from yogurt and saffron, but James Ellroy’s latest novel has arrived, “Widespread Panic,†based on the real-life exploits of the Hollywood fixer Freddy Otash, the inspiration for Jake Gittes, Jack Nicholson’s character in the film “Chinatown.†He’s in purgatory and the only way out is confession: “My meshugenah march down memory lane begins NOW.â€
Kurt Andersen has a seven-part podcast rolling out, “Nixon at War,†about Vietnam and the president who oversaw its terrible end. Get started on that.
Here’s Helena Bonham Carter and Gillian Anderson in conversation, in Interview, of course.
Finally, two great reads in The Times: Tejal Rao on the resurgence of Los Angeles’s Chinatown and Priya Krishna on the trailblazing television chef Martin Yan. Enjoy those and I’ll be back on Monday.