Good morning. The Kentucky Derby is on Saturday, the first since last season’s spectacularly sad and difficult outing. I’m about as good of a handicapper as I am a heart surgeon, but here’s my bet: Fierceness, trained by the horseman Todd Pletcher and ridden by the four-time Derby winner John Velazquez. I’ll tip my mint julep to that team at the start of the race and, if I’m not celebrating a couple of minutes later, I’ll still be eating maple-pecan bourbon balls for the win.
That’s all in the future, though, where everything is seashells and balloons, a dream to hold onto until it shatters, my own little sequel to “Uncut Gems.” In the meantime, there’s dinner to make here at the end of the week: tuna puttanesca (above), spiced brininess with caper pops and olive depth, fiery as you like.
There are a couple of excellent details in Lidey Heuck’s recipe for the dish. She uses shallots to enhance the garlic punch beneath the salt and tang, and she doesn’t stint on the anchovies. I like a full half dozen myself, as well as jarred tuna in oil if I can find it, for the chunkiness it brings to the sauce.
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Tuna Puttanesca
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Will I start Saturday with my recipe for sourdough waffles, made with some of the starter that sits, deep in chilly slumber, in a jar in my fridge? I will, because I’ll start them after I’m done cleaning up the puttanesca. The overnight resting of the sponge — unfed starter, buttermilk, sugar and flour — brings big flavor and airy rise every time. (No starter? No problem: Melissa Clark’s recipe for classic waffles delivers the goods.)
For lunch: Eric Kim’s crispy wonton chicken salad, which I generally make with torn-apart leftover roast chicken or, in a pinch, a rotisserie bird from the heated cabinet at the supermarket. Not on weekends, though: After I’m done with the waffles, I’ll put a whole chicken into a pot of just barely simmering water, cover it and cook it for about an hour, then turn off the heat and allow it to poach, undisturbed, for another. This leads to chicken meat of amazing silkiness, along with an excellent stock you can save for use later in the week.
If Fierceness comes through, it’ll be off to the neighborhood spot for dinner: a salamandered rib-eye on the bone, crusted dark and buttery above its rare interior, with golden fries and béarnaise sauce, some big-budget Napa cabernet sauvignon. If not, and more probably, it’ll be a mushroom pasta stir-fry from Hetty Lui McKinnon, the sauce doubled in accordance with my family’s taste and desire.
On Sunday: berries for breakfast, with yogurt and the smallest drizzle of maple syrup on top, followed by a trip to the banh mi spot for lunch and a session on the couch with an advance copy of Taffy Brodesser-Akner’s new novel, “Long Island Compromise.” Then perhaps a wee nap in advance of preparing dinner, which will be my take on the recipe for galbijjim that the Los Angeles chef Roy Choi learned from his mom. The leftovers will be killer tucked into warm tortillas next week.
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Now, it has nothing to do with spiced cherries or rumors of the season’s first rhubarb, but I raced through Dennis Lehane’s latest novel, “Small Mercies,” marveling at his ability to balance violence and hatred with love and hope. Someone will want to make it a movie, and that will be a difficult project indeed.
You should read, as well, Sarah Hepola’s profile, in Texas Monthly, of the Navarro College cheer coach Monica Aldama, whose life was scrambled by the Netflix series that brought her and her athletes fame.
Here’s David Remnick, in The New Yorker, on Jerry Seinfeld, the scholar of comedy.
Finally, take a listen to Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country: “Dance in the Desert,” live in California a few months ago. Play that loud while you’re cooking and I’ll see you on Sunday.
