It’s Friday. Looking for something to switch up your weekend, or to give you an excuse to relax a little? That’s what the Weekend Reset is for. Each week we’ll pull together five things to get your weekend started. Could be something to read or watch, something to eat or listen to, or even something to do. Enjoy the weekend fellas.
Read: An Everlasting Meal
I have always been a recipe-driven cook. This book — truly one of the most remarkable pieces of food-writing I’ve ever read — is changing that. The Everlasting Meal is as much a philosophical approach to food as it a cookbook. Written in stark, simple, gorgeously wrought prose, Adler has taught me how to simplify my approach to cooking — and how to eke deliciousness out of every single part of the food I buy. On some level, the approach is simple: Buy fresh vegetables, produce, meat at a good local market. Heat up a pot of water, or an oven, or a pan, maybe with some olive oil and salt. Cook — making sure vegetables are genuinely cooked through. (None of this crisp-tender business, thank you very much.) Leaves from broccoli and cauliflower get sautéed with beet greens and carrot tops and garlic and olive oil and turned into salads or toppings for toast with ricotta; cauliflower cores and broccoli stems and vegetable scraps get chopped and boiled and turned into a fresh, vegetal pesto; onion scraps and chicken bones are turned into stock, to which roast vegetables are added in order to make soup. An incredible, instructive read.
GO TO: A Farmer’s Market
I went to my favorite Farmer’s Market last weekend for the first time in months — and it was a magical experience. While there’s never a bad time to go to the local Farmer’s Market, now is an ESPECIALLY good time: we’re in peak spring. Fresh green things are poking out of the earth, and my gosh, once you eat local, farm-grown spring English peas or green beans or asparagus or fava beans, you’re never going to want to go back to the supermarket frozen stuff. Find a local farmer’s market — look for vegetables that are bright green, or poke around and ask vendors what’s good this week or in season. Pick up some free-range chicken or duck eggs — when you get these at the market, they’re multicolored and perfectly imperfect, and will have darker, eggier yolks rich in fat and nutrients. Or grab some locally raised beef or pork. (For those of you who live in the northeast — look for ramps, a seasonal allium that’s only available for six-ish weeks per year.) Trust me on this one: your tummy will thank you. Photo by ja ma on Unsplash.
IMPROVISE: A Meal
So you’ve got some great produce and eggs and maybe some meat from your local farmer’s market or from the grocery store or wherever. Great. Maybe you, like me, bought WAY more vegetables than you should have. That’s okay. When you get home, trim, cut, and roast or boil all of those veggies. Cooking all of them in one go simplifies the process and fills your fridge with fresh cooked vegetables which can be used in any number of ways. If you bought meat or chicken — roast or cook that, too. Make a meal of it that night — and throw the leftovers in the fridge. Roast veggies + leftover meat + eggs + some really good crusty bread is the perfect combination of ingredients for a week’s worth of incredible meals. On Monday, toast some bread in olive oil in a skillet, rub it with some garlic, and serve it with cold boiled broccoli and a fried egg; on Wednesday, chop up some leftover chicken and sauté it in oil with some cabbage and a smashed clove of garlic or three; on Friday, make a salad with leftover chopped up meat and roast veggies and fresh greens and herbs. If you’re looking for more ideas, The Everlasting Meal, above, is full of them. There’s something deeply liberating about being able to turn leftovers and scraps into a delicious, brand-new meal every day of the week.
LISTEN: Daddy’s Home
St. Vincent is perhaps the closest thing our era has to a David Bowie — a rock-and-roll chameleon who’s equally comfortable playing the roll of ingenue, alien, and dominatrix, an artist whose music jumps from crunchy Zeppelin-influenced guitar rock to Jack Antonoff produced pop to heavy metal between albums and sometimes even within one record. If early singles and the album’s marketing are any indication, expect Daddy’s Home to be a return to St. Vincent’s 70’s rock side. Early reviews have been through the roof. Out today.
WATCH: Hacks
It’s official: We’ve arrived at peak Jean Smart. Smart’s flawless, deadpan wit, already on display on Sunday evenings in HBO’s Mare of Easttown (in which she plays Kate Winslet’s mother), is now the at the center of HBO’s new comedy, Hacks. Smart plays a fading comedy legend — think Joan Rivers — who has an increasingly irrelevant residency at a Vegas comedy club. But then Smart’s character is partnered with a young comedy writer as a means of resuscitating both of their careers. Reviews have been gangbusters — this looks to be the funniest HBO Max original series yet. Episodes drop weekly on HBO Max.
About the author: Michael Robin is an LA-based television writer and tutoring company co-Founder. When he’s not working away on his latest pilot script, you can find him scuba diving, hosting Shabbat dinners, or goofing off with his goldendoodle, Biggie Lebowski.