What Are You Eating This Summer?
Plus supporting vegan kids, new fav gardening overalls, and a little Indigo Girls magic.
Friday Thread: What’s Your Summer Comfort Food?
Today’s thread comes by request from reader Penelope:
Can we (so royal) have a Friday thread about summer food? It’s the season for abandon on many fronts and that includes food. Memories, plans, tips, recipes would all be enjoyable.
I was just thinking last night how I forget about strawberry shortcake all year long, but have now eaten it twice in one week (once with strawberries from
’s garden because my crop is stupidly eensy this year). I am NOT MAD ABOUT THIS. Well I am mad about my own strawberry patch because most years my kids foraging for those is a Peak Summer Food Memory…but our blueberries are almost ripe so hopefully I get a do over.I’ve also hit on my perfect/easy summer dinner formula: Grilled chicken thighs or skirt steak plus some form of pasta salad. It comes together so fast (grilling takes about the same time as boiling the pasta water), and pasta salads are easy to deconstruct into elements my kids will eat.
And obviously, we are eating all the ice cream at home (in the bowls), and at our favorite local ice cream spots.
Your turn! (As always, remember we don’t food shame here — your favorite summer foods don’t have to be homemade or fruit-containing to count!)
One More Week for the Reader Survey & Giveaway!
I’ve been doing a bad job reminding y’all about this but the reader survey is still collecting responses through the end of June. If you haven’t filled it out yet, we’d love to know what you think! Everybody who completes the survey will be entered in our Two Years of Burnt Toast Giveaway! We’ll choose two winners (for two years!) at random on July 1.
Your prize: Signed copies of BOTH of my books, your pick of any book featured on the Burnt Toast Podcast, a box of the world’s best brownie mix, and some fun Fat Talk swag. Fill the survey out here!
Links & Recs
Turns out “food deserts” don’t exist and fancy supermarkets aren’t the solution.
An utterly wild tale of an influencer turned MLM/wellness guru who wants to sell us on “the quantum.”
I get so many questions about how to be an anti-diet vegan and since I’m not a vegan, I honestly do not know! But
has a great piece about gentle nutrition for vegan kids, which I learned a lot from.3 million kids are going to have less (or more expensive) childcare thanks to yet another pandemic safety net expiring. So we figured out what programs work to alleviate child poverty and now we know we just… don’t want to, I guess? (NYT gift link)
’s round up of fibroid stories is a master class in body literacy.Am both gardening and living in these v comfy overall shorts. (I have the 18.)
Bridget Everett in this photoshoot, enough said.
Book Update
All the love to Jamie Green for including FAT TALK in NPR’s Science Friday’s Best Summer Books of 2023.
But the legit high point of my entire book tour arrived last weekend in this DM. Lucy Wainwright Roche! A goddess in her own right! Speaking of my book in the same air the Indigo Girls breathed! I’m still not over it and I plan to never be over it.
Well, I live in Tuscany (which is basically like a pizza oven 2 miles from the sun in the summer), so gelato a day is the only way to survive until September (if not more! Or anything frozen - granita, frozen yogurt, ice cream. I just bought some new popsicle moulds so I can freeze things at home too because honestly a gelato a day x 2 kids x every day all summer long adds up!). Too hot now for coffee (my survival tool) too so I'm drinking caffe shakerato, which is espresso shaken with ice until frothy - so refreshing - and any form of it in granita/gelato form is most welcome. Aside from that, raw tomato sauce for pasta is one of my summer musts - you don't need to cook the tomato so that's one less pot to clean. Just chop up some tomatoes in a bowl, add salt, some basil, olive oil and grate a garlic clove in there, toss it all around and then add the hot, freshly boiled pasta to it and eat it warm. Abundant Parmesan or fresh mozzarella on top if you like.
Shall we also make subthread for those of us in the southern hemisphere? I am looking forward to an oat milk flat white drunk on a chilly weekend morning at the playground. Almond croissant too please.