Go for the gold: Great Zukes!

July 26, 2021

Linda Xiao for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Hadas Smirnoff.

Great Zukes!

By Sam Sifton

Good morning. We're not quite at the point where people are locking their cars to keep neighbors from loading the front seats down with their surplus zucchini. But there's a fair amount of squash out there right now, and we're cooking our fair share.

I like the looks of this new recipe for pan-seared zucchini (above), planks of the vegetable seared like steak, then bathed in brown butter with garlic and rosemary. I'm a fan of this recipe for zucchini carpaccio and this one for zucchini frico. I love this olive oil zucchini bread. And of course there's more: We've got loads of zucchini recipes for breakfast, lunch and dinner. (Prep-school dad joke: What's a zucchini's favorite sport? Squash!)

This would be a good week to make basic pesto and slather it onto pork chops, or fold it into pasta, or use it as a sauce for baked salmon. That basil scent is central to summer's best meals. Pesto-filled deviled eggs? A summer minestrone with pesto? Chicken caprese with pesto?

It'd also be nice this week to make these fascinating new burgers from J. Kenji López-Alt, which are thin and crispy and cooked on the grill. (More ideas for the grill: bhatti da murgh, an Indian grilled chicken with whole spices; grilled rosemary pork tenderloin; grilled eggplant salad with yogurt.)

Perhaps this week is the one where I can — and perhaps you can — get out of a breakfast rut (yogurt and strawberry jam, in my case), and discover something new for the first meal of the day: breakfast udon, say; or everyday pancakes; or breakfast bars with oats and coconut.

There are thousands and thousands more recipes waiting for you on New York Times Cooking. (You do need a subscription to access them, it's true. Subscriptions support our work. If you haven't already, I hope you will subscribe today.) Further inspiration awaits you on our YouTube channel and on Instagram. We post news and reviews on Twitter.

And we're like lifeguards sitting high above the digital beach, should you find yourself in a riptide while in the kitchen or on your computer. Just sing out for help: cookingcare@nytimes.com. Someone will get back you. (You can also write to me: foodeditor@nytimes.com. I can't respond to every letter. But I read each one sent.)

Now, it's nothing to do with soft-shell crabs or crisp bibb lettuce, but I've been enjoying Eric Mennel's podcast for Pineapple Street, "Stay Away from Matthew MaGill." It's part investigation, part self-reflection, and I won't even attempt to outline the story: Just listen.

Here's a new poem from Luisa A. Igloria, "Caulbearer," in The Oxford American.

Do read Julia Smith in The London Review of Books, on the British Museum's exhibition "Thomas Becket: Murder and the Making of a Saint."

Finally, would you take a look at this new art gallery experience situation that Hauser & Wirth has put together on a small island off the coast of Spain? It's bonkers! Eat well, and I'll be back on Wednesday.

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