The Dinner Bell: What are your signature recipes?

Pride is a virtue, actually

Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of The Bell! My apologies for sending this one day late. A lot going on at the moment!

Besides being the best time of year to get dressed, I think it’s the best time of year to cook and eat. It’s not so hot that you dread turning on the oven, it’s not so cold that you only want soup and cake.

We’ve got apples, we’ve got squashes, we’ve got figs, sweet potatoes, grapes, chicories. And thank goodness too, because I need an exciting food season to soothe my heartbreak that the months of summer produce are over.

I don’t know about you, but when the days get shorter and the air gets crisp, I start thinking about all the recipes I can’t wait to make. Over the last couple of years, though, this has become a ritual that I do at the start of every season, because every season brings its unique food gifts.

Whether it’s fall, winter, spring, or summer, The List is mostly made up of things I’ve made many times, a mix of family traditions and recipes that are just mine—that hopefully I’ll hand down to my children one day—usually with one or two things I’ve never made before sprinkled in.

Peach cobbler, tomato pie, blueberry muffins: family. Lemon meringue pie, summer panzanella salad, summer berry cloud cake, watermelon feta salad: just mine. Tomato jam and focaccia: new to me.

If a recipe makes it onto the list (with the exception of the untested new ones), it’s because I take great pride in making it and serving it to my family and friends. These are the recipes that go beyond “what’s for dinner?” and become an event in themselves. I plan the week around them, I invite people over, I might drive 30 minutes each direction to buy fresh ingredients at the farm shop rather than just going to the grocery store.

The first line of my mom’s blueberry pie recipe that we always make for the Fourth of July at their house reads, “Pride in blueberry pie is one of our sins.” I’d like to put forward that pride in a favorite recipe, one you make over and over, that you look forward to all year long, that you could practically recite from memory, is in no way a sin. It’s mastery of a craft and it’s something to be admired. A virtue, even! Sorry to Dante Alighieri.

When it comes to choosing recipes for a special moment, there’s just so much out there—between cookbooks, food blogs, food magazines, Instagram, etc.—that it can feel paralyzing and hard to discern what’s tried-and-true and what’s just a flash in the pan (pun intended).

So today, I bring you several recipes (excluding family secrets, sorry) that I’ve made many times and that I’d stake my reputation on. They’re safe to make when you’re hosting, safe to make when you need to cheer up a bad day and simply can’t handle a kitchen fail, safe to take to your new neighbors or the friends who just had a baby. Not all of these are appropriately seasonal for right now, but bookmark this post for when the right time of year rolls around.

If you want it to feel even more personal, print these off or write them down in your recipe notebook. I only give my friends the best, and you are my friend.

14 Recipes I take pride in, and you can too

• Ina Garten’s Perfect Roast Chicken

• Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins from this cookbook (make this one if you don’t feel like buying another cookbook. But you should also very much buy that cookbook.)

• Texas Cowboy Bars from this cookbook

• Summer Panzanella Salad from Half Baked Harvest

• Cornbread by Alison Roman

• Skillet Chicken with Crushed Olives and Sumac by Alison Roman, from this cookbook

• Hearty Barley Salad with Broiled Feta and Tomatoes from this cookbook

• Eleven Madison Park Granola from NYT Cooking

• Ultimate Zucchini Bread from Smitten Kitchen

• Eggless Chocolate Banana Bread from 600 Acres

• XL Gougères by Rebekah Pepper from this cookbook (can’t gift these; you have to eat them immediately!)

• Gâteau Salé (Snacking Cake) by Rebekah Pepper, also from this cookbook

• A Very Good Chicken Salad by Skye McAlpine from this cookbook

• Flourless Chocolate, Chestnut, and Rosemary Cake by Skye McAlpine from this cookbook

Let’s make it a recipe exchange among friends! Leave a comment with your tried-and-true signature recipes. I’d love to know what you take pride in cooking.

xx Jane

P.S. This week, there’s no Friday newsletter because I’m sending my big roundup of seasonal recommendations to paid subscribers on Saturday, the Fall Equinox. Be sure to upgrade to paid if you want to receive that and get access to the summer seasonal list and future exclusive content.

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