Cool and Fresh: Dive into My No-Cook Tomato Pasta Sauce for Summer!

Recipes for Diana Henry's Strawberry Buttermilk Ice Cream and My No-Cook Tomato Sauce

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Hello Friends,

This week was better. I have the mental bandwidth to process and allow myself to move forward from Vesper’s passing. Thank you for all your positive and sweet notes; your kindness lifted my spirits. I think about my upcoming trip with less guilt. Staying busy helped plenty. I wrapped up another book chapter, picked fruit, pruned the fruit trees, and cooked several new recipes I’m excited to share with you over the next few weeks.

We took a trip to the dog beach in Long Beach with Paddington. He got his feet wet a few times, which makes me think I need to get him more water comfortable. We got doughnuts from Sidecar (I prefer their regular doughnuts to their baked cake-style ones; the latter are too dense for my liking). They currently have a passion fruit pavlova flavor, which was my favorite.

We eat Mexican food often; the splendid and generous use of spices and copious amounts of fresh produce and herbs are why I love it so much, and anytime I get an excuse, I run off to La Cabañita in Glendale, like I did last week. I’ll go as far as to say that it is one of my top spots for Mexican food here, and if I need to wait to get in (they don’t take reservations), I know it will be worth it. (Dolly Parton and Meryl Streep have eaten there a few times; their photos are on a wall with plenty of celebrities.)

La Cabañita

Now that I have a few days left for France, I’m thinking about food, especially French butter. Yes, big fat slabs of creamy sweet butter sprinkled with salt flakes slathered on crusty bread. There are many things to love about French food, but at the risk of sounding basic, I must nervously admit that I idolize their bread and butter.

I’m looking forward to seeing the Olympics, but more importantly, I’m curious to see how I’ll fare on a less-planned trip. I’m going with the flow for most of this vacation and seeing where the cards fall, where we eat, and what we see. Typically, I plan things like a Google Sheets monster; will I panic and succumb? Only time will tell. I did plan one thing out. I get to see my godson on this trip. He wants to bake, and since he’s into dinosaurs right now, I’ve planned and picked out many dinosaur-themed things for our cupcake-baking adventure. I’m very excited about this. (His parents and Michael can clean up after we make a mess. 🤣)

Next week, I’ll be writing to you from France. Have a lovely week!

Nik

My ice cream machine gets as much use as my blender; they get used often. It doesn’t matter if it’s summer or winter; the ice cream maker gets plenty of opportunities to churn and make magic. Every strawberry season, I pull out my copy of Diana Henry’s How to Eat a Peach and make her Strawberry Buttermilk Ice Cream several times. The key here is to macerate the strawberries because that builds the rich, fruity fragrance of the fruit in the ice cream.

This week, I’ve got a delightful and easy “no-cook” tomato sauce with spaghetti recipe for my paid subscribers. Think savory with a hint of sweetness and the rich, fresh flavors of tomatoes cranked up without the need to sit by the stove and stir a pot of sauce on a hot summer day. You’ll still need to boil the pasta, but you can walk away from the stove.