Cooks Without Borders wins a Webby Award, the 'Internet's highest honor'

Cooks Without Borders has been named the People’s Voice Best Personal Blog/Website in the 26th Annual Webby Awards Internet Celebration. Hailed as the “Internet’s highest honor” by The New York Times, The Webby Awards, presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS), is the leading international awards organization honoring excellence on the Internet. IADAS, which nominates and selects The Webby Award Winners, is comprised of Internet industry experts including Arlan Hamilton, Founder and Managing Partner, Backstage Capital; Ziwe Fumudoh, Comedian & Writer; Quinta Brunson, Writer, Director and Actor; Felecia Hatcher, CEO, Black Ambition, Sridhar Ramaswamy; Co-Founder & CEO, Neeva; David Droga; Founder and Chairman, Droga5, R/GA; Kerstin Emhoff, Co-Founder & CEO, PRETTYBIRD; Dan Pfeiffer, Co-Host, Pod Save America and Werner Vogels, VP & CTO Amazon.

This was the second Webby nomination for Cooks Without Borders, the international cooking website founded by Leslie Brenner in 2016. Webby judges make five nominations in each category, then go on to select the winner. Simultaneously, the public is invited to vote for a People’s Voice winner among the five nominees. This year Kyrie Irving’s personal blog won the juried prize.

“Cooks Without Borders has set the standard for innovation and creativity on the Internet,” said Claire Graves, Executive Director of The Webby Awards. “This award is a testament to the skill, ingenuity, and vision of its creators.”

“I’m absolutely gobsmacked that we have won the People’s Voice Webby,” said Brenner. “Humblest thanks to the judges for nominating Cooks Without Borders, and congratulations to Kyrie Irving and his team. I’m over-the-moon grateful to our readers for turning out in such great numbers to vote for us.”

Cooks Without Borders will be honored at the 26th Annual Webby Awards in New York City on May 16th, hosted by Roy Wood Jr.

Learn more about Cooks Without Borders.

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Our Moussaka for the Ages makes a delicious centerpiece for Greek Orthodox Easter

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Moussaka for the Ages from Cooks Without Borders

By Leslie Brenner

With its extravagant layers of lamb-y sauce, tender eggplant and potato, and luscious cheesy bechamel, a great moussaka is hard to resist anytime. And if you’re celebrating Greek Orthodox Easter, we can’t think of any more delicious way.

We gave the dish a makeover 16 months ago, and our Moussaka for the Ages has become a Cooks Without Borders readers’ favorite.

READ: “Moussaka, a spectacular dish with a curious history, gets a magnificent (and long overdue!) makeover”

We happen to think it’s stupendous, and it’s also easier and less messy to put together than most versions of moussaka, as we roast rather than fry the eggplant slices.

Here’s the recipe. Whether it’s for Easter or just a lovely Sunday supper, do enjoy!

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From Kimchi to Cured Magret, 7 cooking projects with delicious dividends for spring

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Quick Bok Choy and Radish Kimchi, ready to go into jars

By Leslie Brenner

Paradoxically, the best way to instant gratification is planning ahead — at least when it comes to cooking.

Stock your fridge with home-made goodies like tangy pickles or cured fish or meats, and you’ve got a world of sophisticated nibbles at your fingertips. Set a quart of salted yogurt to drip through cheesecloth overnight, and you’ve got luxuriously rich labneh — which you can drizzle with honey for a wonderful breakfast, or slick with olive oil and decorate with herbs and raw vegetables for a superb lunch. Rub a salt cure on a duck breast and a couple weeks later you’ve got a magnificent example of charcuterie.

The idea is to cook when you’re in the mood (maybe during the weekend), and then reap the rewards when you’re not. Most of these project involve more time than work — the secret ingredient in fermented, pickled and cured foods is time. And the dividends? Delicious ingredients that can add instant intense flavor to you dishes and your life.

Here are some favorite ways to make that happen.

Make quick pickles

In our recent review of The Arabesque Table by Reem Kassis, we included a recipe for Turmeric and Fenugreek Quick Pickles. You can also make quick pickles with an Italian-American or Mexican vibe.

Zanahorias Escabeches — the Mexican quick-pickled carrots that I call Taquería Carrots (because in my hometown, they’re ubiquitous in taquerías) — are a treat with tacos or without.

We love Alex Guarnaschelli’s Giardiniera, too — that’s Italian-American pickled veg, like cauliflower, celery, carrots and olives.

Make kimchi

If you’re a kimchi lover who has never made kimchi, you must! You can start with the Quick Bok Choy and Radish Kimchi shown in the photo at the top of this story (from K Food by Da-Hae and Gareth West) or a slightly more involved but still not-scary mostly napa cabbage Easy Kimchi from Robin Ha’s Cook Korean.

Make fresh cheese

Ever bought paneer from a supermarket to use in saag paneer or other Indian dishes? The commercial paneers we’ve found have been pretty plasticky. It’s actually really fun to make your own, and it’s so much more delicious, with a beautiful, soft texture. We learned how from Maneet Chauhan’s terrific book, Chaat.

Rub something on fish or poultry to cure it

Ever hear chefs talking about shio koji, as in koji-rubbed this or that?

Shio Koji is a fermented salt you can make from dried rice koji (which is a kind of inoculated rice).

Rubbed into just about any kind of meat, poultry or fish a day or two before you cook the protein, it deepens flavor and adds umami.

We love to keep a big jar of shio koji in the fridge to rub on salmon fillets, as shown above. Coat them on a Sunday, and Monday or Tuesday you can have a delicious salmon dinner in no time flat. Instructions for making the Shio Koji come at the end of our recipe for Koji Marinated Salmon from Sonoko Sakai’s wonderful Japanese Home Cooking.

Cover a duck breast in salt, let it sit 12 hours, wipe it off, season it with freshly ground black pepper, wrap it in a towel and let sit in the fridge two or three weeks. Voilà! Cured magret — an amazing treat to enjoy with an apéritif or sliced onto a salad. It’s from Camille Fourmont’s charming La Buvette cookbook, co-authored by Cooks Without Borders’ friend Kate Leahy.

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Cookbooks We Love: Reem Kassis' 'The Arabesque Table' offers irresistible spins on Levantine tradition

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By Leslie Brenner

The Arabesque Table: Contemporary Recipes from the Arab World by Reem Kassis; photographs by Dan Perez; 2021, Phaidon, $39.95.

Backgrounder

Born and raised in Jerusalem, Reem Kassis — who now lives in Pennsylvania, and lived in four other countries in between — is a former McKinsey consultant with two undergraduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, an MBA from Wharton and an MSc in social psychology from the London School of Economics. Following the birth of her first of two daughters, she stepped back from her 10-year career and decided to follow her “real passion” — cooking, food and food history. Her first cookbook, The Palestinian Table (2017), wove recipes from her family together with Palestinian culture and history. It won the British Guild of Food Writers First Book Award and was nominated for a James Beard Award.

Kassis’ aim with The Arabesque Table, as she explains in its introduction, was to write about and express in recipes “the evolving and cross-cultural Arab table.”

Why we love it

Kassis has created a fabulously rich collection of recipes and stories that manage to do three things at once. First, they ground us in the culinary traditions of the Arab world — particularly the Fertile Crescent (a.k.a. the Levant or the Middle East). Second, they paint an evocative picture of her Jerusalem childhood through food and her family traditions. And third, they give us a delicious collection of recipes that have her own very personal stamp.

Relatively new to the world of food-writing and professional cookery as Kassis may be, she has a great palate and a wonderful creative instincts. Her recipes respect and pay tribute to the flavors, ingredients and vibe of the Levant, but she’s not afraid to take liberties and risks — often to delightful effect. Many of these dishes will become permanent fixtures in my repertoire. Impressive!

For instance: a magnificent mega-mezza

Not a traditional dish, this roasted eggplant salad on a cushion of tahini is Kassis’ invention — combining elements of mutabal (roasted eggplant dip with tahini) and bitinjan al rahib (“monk’s eggplant” — roasted eggplant with fresh vegetables). As a result, it’s kind of like everything you want in a mezze assortment but all on one plate. The eggplant salad part, which has a gorgeous zing from just the right amount of pomegrante molasses, has pops of salty-meaty umami flavor from sliced green olives; walnuts add complexity and a bit of crunch. The tahini sauce is a creamy, rich foil. Swipe a piece of warm pita through it and you’re transported to everywhere you ever wanted to visit in the Levant.

And an elegant main you can make in a flash

I love this dish of shrimp sautéed with artichoke hearts, turmeric and garlic, enriched with a splash of half-and-half and brightened with slices of fresh lemon — with the salty undertone of preserved lemon. And once you have the shrimps peeled and deveined, it comes together nearly as quickly as you can read that sentence. (Seriously, you can have it to the table in 15 minutes.) In fact, I’ve made it twice in two weeks.

This goes great with that

If you’re a fan of fresh fava beans, but don’t enjoy spending the time peeling every single one, you’ll be glad to know that the bags of frozen ones (already peeled!) you can buy in well stocked Middle Eastern groceries are nearly as good. Or maybe you already knew. In any case, Kassis reminds us — and offers her original take on a Levantine classic. In the traditional version, made with fresh favas, the skins are left on, and the beans are chopped then cooked in “a generous amount of oil” to the point of very soft, then flavored with garlic and coriander.

Kassis prefers them bright green and free of skins — and having tasted favas in their skins, I agree. She most often makes this using frozen favas, and again: agreed. The dish is easy, delicious and I’ve already made it thrice.

Gotta try this!

Every comprehensive Middle-Eastern cookbook offers instructions on making labneh (or labaneh), the thick, creamy fresh yogurt-cheese that’s ubiquitous in the region. But somehow I’d never tried it till Kassis sung its praises. You don’t need a recipe; just stir together a quart of full-fat yogurt (regular, not Greek) with a teaspoon (or a little more) of salt, pour it into a cheesecloth-lined sieve set over a bowl, and let it drain overnight. In the morning, you have labneh. Add honey or jam, scoop it up with toasted bread, and you have breakfast. Or wait till noon, drizzle it with olive oil and sumac and call it lunch. More to come on that in a future story, but try it now; it’s delicious — definitely greater than the sum of its simple parts.

But wait — give us some pickles

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention this very simple and quick pickle set-up. The brine — just vinegar, curry powder, turmeric, ground fenugreek, salt and water — makes delicious cauliflower and carrot pickles you can enjoy in a couple hours. They get even better as they sit, and you can also throw in cabbage, green beans, turnips or other veg. Keep one or two jars, give another as a gift.

RECIPE: Turmeric and Fenugreek Quick Pickles

A very minor suggestion

I tested a total of 7 recipes from The Arabesque Table. For the most part, they worked great, and tasted great. Out of those there’s only one I’ll probably not make again, not because I didn’t enjoy it, but because it more labor-intensive than its result warranted. And only one had a significant problem I had to fix in our adaptation (the tahini sauce for the eggplant dip was liquid when directions were followed closely, rather than spreadable).

But I do have a general note: If you purchase the book (and you should if you love these flavors!), be sure to taste the dishes at key points and adjust the seasoning. That’s an instruction that was left of out all the recipes, as far as I can see, and obviously it’s always super important.

Still Wanna Make

So many things! Fire-Roasted Eggplant and Tomato Mutabal. Spiced Kebabs with Preserved Lemon Dill Yogurt. Seafood Stew with Preserved Lemon, Apricots and Olives. Mustard Greens with Labaneh (now that I know how to make lebaneh!). Sujuk — Spicy Cured Sausage. Makmoora — which is a chicken pot pie spun from a 10th-century recipe. Chicken breasts stuffed with pistachios, radish greens and sumac. Lemon Rosemary Semolina Cake.

Thank you, Ms. Kassis, for what promises to be some delicious future adventures.


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The 'queen of all gumbos' is a beloved New Orleans tradition in the days leading up to Easter

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Gumbo des Herbes, prepared from a recipe adapted from ‘The Dooky Chase Cookbook’ by Leah Chase

By Leslie Brenner

If you think of gumbo as a seafood-happy soupy stew punctuated with (and thickened by) okra, you’re absolutely right. In fact the word “gumbo” comes from gombo, which means “okra” in several west African languages.

But seafood gumbo is just one iteration of the dish, and gumbos don’t always include okra.  In fact, the “queen of all gumbos” — the one that New Orleans residents look forward to eating just once a year at the legendary Dooky Chase’s Restaurant — has neither okra nor any seafood in its long list of ingredients.

That one day — Holy Thursday in the Catholic calendar, which is always the Thursday before Easter — is coming right up this week. That’s when gumbo-loving New Orleaneans will be taking their seats at Dooky Chase’s, founded in 1941 by Emily and Dooky Chase, Sr., to enjoy a bowl of its famous Gumbo des Herbes. It’s the most celebrated version of the dish more broadly known as gumbo z’herbes.

The one served at the restaurant is thickly verdant, packed with nine kinds of greens, along with smoked ham, two kinds of sausage, beef brisket, veal brisket, onions, garlic and more.

Dooky Chase’s is “completely booked for dining in” on Thursday, says Tracie Griffin, granddaughter of Leah Chase — the matriarch who headed the Chase family and its restaurant until she died three years ago at age 96. “But take-out is available.” If you happen to be in the New Orleans area and want to partake, you can call the restaurant to pre-order.

Next best thing: Cook up a pot at home

If you’re not in NOLA, you can still enjoy the tradition. Invite your friends and family, help yourself to Dooky Chase’s recipe below, and cook up a big, delicious pot. Chef Edgar “Dooky” Chase IV generously shared with us the recipe from The Dooky Chase Cookbook, by his grandmother, Leah Chase.

Want to learn more about gumbo z’herbes and its history? Last year, Chloé Landrieu-Murphy wrote a fascinating story about it. As she explained, it’s an important dish in the region for Catholics who abstain from meat during Lent — the 40 days of reflection leading up to Easter.

READ: “In celebration of gumbo z’herbes, a gloriously green, soul-nourishing Louisiana Lenten tradition”

For that reason, there are myriad versions of vegan gumbo z’herbes — and Landrieu-Murphy created a fabulous one for us.

Chloé Landrieu-Murphy’s Vegan Gumbo Z’herbes

‘Jubilee’ Gumbo Z’herbes

We’ve also got an excellent recipe adapted from Toni Tipton-Martin’s marvelous book Jubilee: Recipes from Two Centuries of African American Cooking.

Whether you’re vegan or omnivorous, Catholic, atheist or a food lover of any faith, do consider diving into a bowl of the queen of all gumbos. You’ll be glad you did.

RECIPE: Dooky Chase’s Gumbo des Herbes

RECIPE: Chloe’s Vegan Gumbo Z’herbes

RECIPE: ‘Jubilee’ Gumbo Z’herbes

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Duck season? Rabbit season? Maybe — but dessert-wise, it's . . . Pavlova season!

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By Leslie Brenner

One evening fifteeen years ago, when I was living in Los Angeles, my friend Jenni wowed me at dinner with a magnificent dessert: a cloud-like pouf of meringue, crunchy on the outside and soft-chewy in the center, topped with a glorious mess of berries snuggled on a cushion of whipped cream and scattered with toasted chopped pistachios.

My spring and summer desserts would never be the same.

The dessert, called a Pavlova, has a down-under pedigree, invented about a hundred years ago, either in Australia or New Zealand (it’s unclear which), where it first showed up laden with strawberries, kiwis and passion fruit. It was named for the Russian prima ballerina Anna Pavlovna Pavlova, who visited both countries in the 1920s. My friend Jenni, born and raised in South Africa, had fallen in love with the dessert there as a young girl.

When Jenni feted us with one back in 2007, Pavlovas were something you’d usually only see in restaurants (if you saw one at all) and probably mostly on the coasts, in New York, San Francisco or L.A. But those restaurant versions were small, smooth, perfect and formal-looking — nothing like that wild, craggy, irresistible mess I fell in love with at Jenni’s.

The cake that launched the Ottolenghi empire

Since then, Pavlovas’ popularity has grown — fueled in no small part by London chef Yotam Ottolenghi, whose 2017 cookbook Sweet (co-authored by Helen Goh) features on its cover a magnificent full-sized cinnamon version slathered with praline cream and covered with gorgeous slices of ripe figs and pistachios. Sweet!

In fact, spectacular lofty Pavlovas were essential in launching Ottolenghi’s restaurant and global cookbook empire. For his first professional kitchen job, as the Israeli-born chef tells us in the introduction to Sweet, he spent much of his time whipping egg whites for vanilla soufflés. And then, he writes:

“I ended up making my name on egg whites, sugar and lots and lots of air. The famously giant Ottolenghi meringues, which have adorned our windows for many years, have become our trademark.”

When it comes to busy home cooks, Pavlovas have a wealth of advantages. Surprisingly easy to make, they’re not only impressive and dramatic, but also forgiving — as their vibe is abundantly fruity and disheveled. Perfection is not required, nor even recommended.

Whipped meringue disc, ready to go into the oven

The Pavlova’s foundation is a thick disc of meringue — which you make by beating egg whites and sugar until stiff, spreading on a parchment-lined baking sheet, and baking slowly. As it cools, it becomes crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. Use that time to macerate fruit. Whip some cream, slather it on the meringue, top with fruit, add enhancements like nuts (if desired), and voilà.

The baked meringue disc: Don’t worry; it’s not supposed to be perfect! The crags and crannies will catch the whipped cream and fruit juice.

Pavlovas are adaptable — make them full-size, individual, or anything in-between, and top them with whatever fruit is available and great-looking. You can flavor the meringue with extracts, liqueurs, spices or chocolate, or play with their texture by using brown sugar (as Ottolenghi does in his cinnamon-flavored fig and pistachio Pavlova).

This time of year, as strawberries are coming into season (no doubt they’re already resplendently displayed in Southern California on the beloved Harry’s Berries stand at Santa Monica Farmer’s Market), I like to make simple small ones featuring the juicy red fruit. (Happy spring!)

For the one shown here, I macerated the berries in orange liqueur and used them to adorn individually sized meringues. Want to dress them up a little more? Sprinkle on a little citrus zest and finish with toasted sliced almonds. They’re just the thing for spring holidays, like Easter or Mother’s Day. And if you’re looking for a flour-free dessert for Passover, look no further! (Which means yes, they’re gluten-free.)

Of course a full-on assortment of berries — blackberries, raspberries, strawbs and blueberries, as shown in the photo at top on a full-size Pavlova — is wonderful, too.

In summer, once stone fruits come into play, peaches, plums and apricots dance delightfully atop meringues. Or they can even get rolled up into them, as in this inventive spin by the Pavlova master himself, Ottolenghi.

To achieve that one, you make a meringue that’s rectangular rather than round. Spread a filling of whipped cream, berries, peaches and toasted sliced almonds on top, and roll it up. Yes, it probably sounds crazy if you’ve ever made meringues, but it works. Then more fruit goes on top, with a dusting of powdered sugar. Served in slices, it’s crazy good.

One of the glorious things about Pavlova season is that it’s luxuriously long. Late summer and fall, you could make make Ottolenghi’s sliced fig number. Or mix it up with late-season plums, or persimmons, or some roasted grapes. Toasted walnuts would be lovely on that.

But for now, we have spring, with all its delicious possibility. My recommendation for making most of the season? Get all messy with meringues and fruit and treat yourself (and friends and family, of course!) to one.

RECIPE: Strawberry Pavlovas

RECIPE: Berry Pavlova with Pistachios

RECIPE: Showstopper Rolled Pavlova with Peaches and Blackberries

READ: “Make this showstopper summer dessert: Rolled Pavlova with Peaches and Blackberries, from Ottolenghi’s ‘Sweet’”

Read: “Messy, gorgeous and dramatic: The berry Pavlova is a spring-into-summer stunner”

FIND: More Cooks Without Borders desserts

Cooks Without Borders is nominated for a Webby Award!

By Leslie Brenner

We are thrilled to announce that Cooks Without Borders has been nominated for Best Personal Blog/Website in the 26th Annual Webby Awards.

In case you’re not familiar with it, the Webby — presented by the International Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences (IADAS) — is the “Internet’s highest honor,” as The New York Times described it. It is the second Webby nomination for CWB. Cooks Without Borders is honored to be included in a group of excellent nominees in its category: Kyrie Irving; Esoteric.Codes; Just Curious; and Anywhere We Roam.

The judges will name a winner on Tuesday, April 26, 2022 in New York City. Fueling our excitement is the knowledge that The Webby Awards received more than 14,300 entries from all 50 states and 70 countries worldwide this year, so being nominated in such an important category really bowls us over. Thank you to the judges — and to you, our readers, for keeping us inspired.

As a nominee, we are also eligible to win a Webby People’s Voice Award, which is voted online by fans across the globe. If you enjoy what we do here at Cooks Without Borders, please vote for us! You’ll need to sign up for an account to cast your ballot and support us, but it just takes a minute (and then you can vote in other categories, as well). Your support would mean the world to us. Voting will end on April 21.

Many thanks.

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Spring's dynamic duo — grilled butterflied leg of lamb and asparagus — make a marvelous (and portable!) feast

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By Leslie Brenner

In my corner of planet earth, we’ve arrived at the point in spring when the evenings are starting to stay warm enough to kindle thoughts of grilling — of sharing a glass of rosé out on the patio with friends, of nibbling dips and chips and such and taking in the intoxicating aroma of something delectable cooking over the coals.

And so yesterday, with our patio not yet exactly fit for prime time, I proposed bringing a ready-to-go grilling party to friends who had just moved into a new house. A butterflied leg of lamb and asparagus would be the base offering, along with a bottle of French rosé. Not a hard sell — you should try it some time!

It was so easy to put together — and turned to to be so delicious — that it sparked an “aha” moment: Rosy slices of flavorful grilled lamb and tender spears of lightly charred asparagus love to be the life of the spring party. The combo isn’t only great for instigating BYO-main course dinner invitations; it’s also the delightfully low-stress solution for Easter dinner or lunch, breaking a Ramadan fast, or (in a matter of weeks) setting the table for Mother's Day.

Asparagus and spring onions, cooked on the grill

Prepping for the event is shockingly quick. Procure a boneless leg of lamb: The first one I saw was 2.8 pounds, large enough to serve 6. A smaller one would be sufficient for four. Grab some fresh herbs — our marinade recipe calls for mint and cilantro, but you could swap either for parsley, rosemary, thyme, oregano or marjoram, or use a combo. You probably have everything else (red wine vinegar, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper) on hand. And grab a bunch or two of asparagus: a pound and a half is perfect for four, two pounds for six.

This time of year, you might also find spring onions — the ones that look like scallions, but with much bigger bulbs on the bottom. Yesterday I found both red and white ones. These are fantastic thrown on that grill as well — as are garlic scapes, if you’re lucky enough to find them.

Once you’re home with the booty, make a marinade: Chop the herbs, toss in a bowl with pressed garlic, vinegar, salt and pepper, whisk in olive oil. Unwrap the lamb, removing any strings holding it in shape, and flatten it as much as possible. If it doesn’t lay flat, feel free to slash with a knife here and there, keeping it all in one piece: You want a shape that will cook relatively evenly on the grill. Don’t worry, though, if it’s much thicker in places — it’ll still be great.

Place the lamb in a shallow bowl, coat it on both sides with the marinade and transfer it to a large zipper bag. (Alternatively, you can put the lamb in the bag, pour in the marinade, zip it up (pushing out the air first), then massage it a bit so it’s completely covered in marinade. Leave it like that for at least two hours (refrigerating for all but the last hour), and it’s ready to cook. Heat the grill, wipe off the marinade and cook on both sides — it’s quicker than you might think: 12 to 22 minutes total (depending on the heat of the grill) will get you lamb that’s medium-rare where thickest and medium where thinnest.

RECIPE: Grilled Butterflied Leg of Lamb

You should have enough room on the grill to throw on the asparagus — which needs nothing more than olive oil and salt before going on. (For my portable feast, I trimmed off their woody bottoms and placed them in a zipper bag with about two teaspoons of oil and about a quarter teaspoon of salt, zipped it up, rolled the spears around a bit to coat, and transported them just so.) Ditto the spring onions: Trim the tops, slice them in half, creating a flat surface on the bulbs, and give them the same oil-and-salt treatment. If you’re not transporting them, you can put the asparagus (and spring onions if using) on a sheet pan, drizzle with oil, sprinkle with salt, and let them sit till you’re ready to grill.

As for timing, you can grill the asparagus at the same time as the lamb, cooking till the spears are as tender as you like them (I like them tender, and take them off when they’re floppy with picked up with tongs). Spring onions or garlic scapes will be perfect once they’re a bit charred, and both are fine served room temp. Want them hot? Grill the veg once you’ve pulled off the lamb to rest 10 minutes.

Slice the lamb, arrange on a platter surrounded by the asparagus, pour any collected juices over the lamb, and your feast is ready.

And it’s delicious just like that. Want to make a few more things?

This Tangy Green Everything Sauce — packed with mint, parsley, dill and shallots — is pretty dreamy with the lamb.

And so is its oregano-forward cousin, chimichurri. Both can be made ahead, and they’re easy to transport in a jar.

Yesterday, prepping the lamb, asparagus and spring onions was so quick that I remembered some red potatoes I had in the pantry, I boiled them up and threw together a quick (and super portable!) French-accented potato salad. While the potatoes cooked, I whisked together red wine vinegar, a goodly dollop of whole-grain mustard, salt and olive oil, then added a spoonful of mayo, thinly sliced shallots, roughly chopped parsley and black pepper. When the potatoes were cooked, I sliced them in their jackets and tossed them with the sauce: delicious.

A bit more involved, our Best Potato Salad Ever is great with this, too. (Find more potato salad recipes here.) All potato salads are portable as can be — ideal for stress-free at-home entertaining, or we’ll-bring-it-all personal pop-up dinners.

For dessert, the arrival of strawberry season makes it easy to keep it simple: Stem the berries (halving or quartering if they’re large), sprinkle with a little sugar or toss in Grand Marnier or other orange liqueur, let macerate an hour or two and serve just like that. Or with ice cream.

Strawberry Pavlova

If it’s a fancier feast, you can make Strawberry Pavlovas: These are great for Easter, Mother’s Day or Passover celebrations (they’re flour-free!). Again, everything can be made ahead — just assemble them on the spot.

So that’s the blueprint: As simple or extended as you like.

Happy spring!

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