Hello there. It’s Sunday, which in Italy means taking the time to make the pasta-filled, multicourse, multigenerational family lunch known as il pranzo di domenica.
This tradition is appealing on so many levels — the slowness of it, the platters of gorgeous Italian food, the glass of wine in the middle of the day followed by a walk and a nap — and I’ve been fantasizing about making such a feast right here in New York.
Maybe you’d like to join me? You could whip up your own pranzo, starting it off with David Tanis’s supremely summery caprese antipasto (above), rich with tomatoes, mozzarella and roasted bell peppers. Then, I’d turn to the pasta-whisperer Colu Henry, with either her lemony zucchini pasta with herbs, or her blond puttanesca with tuna, arugula and capers. For dessert, there’s this easy blackberry jam crostata from my friend Elizabeth Minchilli, who lives in Rome. It’s got a press-in-the-pan cookie crust that takes the fear out of pastry-making. It’s a terrific recipe.
That all could be enough of a feast for a hot summer day. But if you wanted to go all out, you could add this fennel-dusted pork loin, then save the leftovers to make rice noodles with pork, carrots and herbs on Monday night.
Here’s another gift you can give yourself for tomorrow: Spend three and a half minutes this evening to put together Genevieve Ko’s dried fruit-filled overnight oats. Your Monday morning self will thank you.
When she was helming the newsletter last week, my colleague Kim Severson wrote about her family’s enthusiastic commitment to taco Tuesday. If that’s how it goes in your family, too, you could try these BLT Tacos, because in summer, you can never have too many BLTs.
For Wednesday, how about taking a cue from Tejal Rao’s Auntie Sulu by making vermicelli sweet corn usli (also known as upma)? Tejal writes that it’s “savory and satisfying, full of vegetables and delicate fried noodles, and seasoned with coconut and cashews.†It’s an ideal South Indian breakfast that she also recommends for lunch or dinner.
Then on Thursday, you could follow Julia Child to France and make her Provençal potato gratin that’s heavy on the garlic and tomatoes. (It’s also got an entire tin of anchovies! Go Julia!)
