http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/17/dining/no-recipe-recipes-for-tomato-season.html 2016-09-07 06:59:47 No-Recipe Recipes for Tomato Season When you’ve got peak-of-the-season tomatoes, following explicit directions may not be necessary. === Sam Sifton emails readers of Cooking f You should see the pile of tomatoes on my counter here in Atlanta. Peppers, too. We found a guy with a big Southern backyard garden who lives alone and starts drinking at about 4 p.m. Guess who’s our new best friend? (We’re visiting for the produce, not the alcohol.) Anyway, here we are on a Wednesday in August, and I can’t think of a better time to cook without a recipe. Or, as I’ve heard Sam Sifton call it, “the narrative recipe.” But he went to Harvard. I barely avoided getting kicked out of Michigan State. As I type this, I’ve got a stainless steel bowl on the counter into which I’ve grated some tomatoes (you can chop them, too), some slivers from a couple of fat cloves of garlic and more olive oil than you would think is reasonable. I’ve added a few serious splashes of red wine vinegar and salt and pepper. When it comes time to eat, I’ll boil some spaghetti and toss it right into that bowl along with a lot of chopped herbs. (A mix of basil, mint and parsley is good.) Then I’ll crumble on some of the goat cheese feta from Or, you could make a BLT salad as they used to do at One could go deep on salads, like maybe a simple At a minimum, you could just blanch a few vegetables and toss them with a vinaigrette, then serve it with this week’s star recipe, Melissa Clark’s Of course, some people think salads are nothing but rabbit food. (And if you are feeding your actual rabbit actual salad, When I’m looking to add some protein to a summer supper, shellfish is often my move. Anyone who knows me knows I am an arachnophobe, I can’t tolerate store-bought mayonnaise and I am a And for your newsletter dessert, may I suggest a I promised on Monday that we would talk about cooking with children. We’ve run out of time and space, so more on that on Friday. To hold you over, I’m pulling out some of Pete Wells’s greatest hits from back in the day when he wrote the Let us know if you are having trouble with recipes, instructions or our And do add your thoughts to the recipes that you try. Together, we all become better cooks. Follow me on Only two more days until the weekend. Talk then.