The Long Table
Weekend Gathering No. 4 — July 17 - 19
This week isn’t about one showstopper dish. It’s about a long table, a full weekend, and the particular joy of feeding people without making it a production — cornhole in the yard, corn on the stove, and a door that never really closes.
Farm Stand Report
The farm stand this week was a profusion of color — every flower in full bloom before I even got to the produce. On the vegetable side, I steered clear of leafy greens; there’s a bacterial concern going around right now, and it’s not worth the risk. Corn, though, was in glorious abundance, both yellow and white, and I stocked up — some for tonight’s table, some tucked away in the freezer, and some earmarked for a recipe idea I’m developing (more on that soon). Husking it at home, I was struck all over again by how indescribable the smell of fresh corn is — I couldn’t get enough of it. It got me thinking: fresh basil and fresh white corn might just be summer in a bottle. A candle, a perfume — something to file away for later.
The Weekend Menu
A shore-house weekend — family and friends coming as they are, from a cornhole battle, a Little League game, in from the beach, or off a too-hot-to-move nap. Paper plates, buffet-style, nothing formal.
Friday Evening — Welcome to the Weekend
Caprese Salad with Balsamic Reduction
Grilled Sausage and Peppers
Good bread
Cold beer or lemonade
Saturday Morning
Store-bought muffins and bagels
Assorted flavored cream cheeses and jams
Big seasonal fruit salad bowl
Saturday — The Backyard Buffet
Grilled Sausage and Peppers
Italian Garden Macaroni Salad — the “loaves and fishes” salad
Fresh Jersey Corn Salad
Dessert Sideboard
Watermelon and cantaloupe
Lemon squares
Brownies
Apple oat bars
Zucchini Black Forest Cupcakes
Sunday Brunch — The Summer Garden Frittata & Croissant Board
Garden Vegetable & Diced Mozzarella Frittata
Split croissants with prosciutto, fig jam, and honey
Big seasonal fruit salad bowl — cantaloupe, watermelon, fresh berries, sweet cherries (cantaloupe always takes me back — a first boyfriend, a local eatery, cantaloupe sundaes every summer)
Sunday Dinner — The Centerpiece
Lemon, Corn & Zucchini Oven Risotto — this issue’s featured recipe
Set it all up family-style on the counter or island with a stack of plates and a big pot of coffee. Let everyone drift in, fill a plate, and head out to the patio or the couch on their own schedule.
Featured Recipe: Lemon, Corn & Zucchini Oven Risotto
Serves 4
Ingredients
2 tbsp butter
1 small onion, finely diced
2 garlic cloves, minced
1½ cups Arborio rice
½ cup dry white wine
4 cups warm chicken or vegetable broth
1 cup fresh corn kernels (2 ears)
1 medium zucchini, halved and sliced into half-moons
Zest and juice of 1 lemon
½ cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
Salt, pepper, fresh basil to finish
Instructions
Preheat oven to 375°F. In a Dutch oven over medium heat, melt butter and cook onion 4 minutes until soft. Add garlic, cook 1 minute.
Add rice and toast 2 minutes, stirring, until slightly translucent at the edges. Add wine and stir until absorbed.
Add warm broth, corn, zucchini, lemon zest, salt and pepper. Stir once. Cover tightly and transfer to oven. Bake 25 minutes without opening the lid.
Remove from oven. Stir in parmesan and lemon juice. The risotto will look slightly soupy — that’s right. Let it sit uncovered 2 minutes and it will come together perfectly. Top with torn fresh basil and a drizzle of olive oil.
Nonna’s Note: The key to oven risotto is toasting the rice first — two minutes in the pot with butter and a little onion until the grains smell slightly nutty. That step is the same as traditional risotto and it matters just as much here. Don’t skip it. Everything else, the oven handles.
Shoppable List — Lemon, Corn & Zucchini Oven Risotto
Arborio rice
Fresh corn (2 ears) or frozen kernels
1 medium zucchini
1 lemon
Parmigiano-Reggiano
Fresh basil
Cookbook tie-in: If this risotto is calling your name, you’ll find its tomato cousin — Tomato Risotto with Basil Oil — in Red, Ripe & Ready: The Jersey Tomato Cookbook*, launching next week.
Nonna’s Notebook
Summer at my parents’ house meant one thing on the calendar every few weeks: a backyard barbecue. Not fancy. No charred meat, no pig on a spit — just my father at the grill, timing hamburgers and hot dogs down to the minute like it was a science he’d personally perfected, which, as far as he was concerned, it was.
The tables went outside. Paper plates, because nothing needed to break and even less needed to be washed. And the same handful of dishes showed up every time, because they didn’t need improving: a big bowl of Babs’ potato salad, deviled eggs made the way everyone made them in the fifties — dry mustard, Hellmann’s, a dusting of paprika on top — and corn on the cob. There might have been something else on the table some weeks. I honestly don’t remember. Those three were the ones that mattered.
Dessert was ice pops, handed out straight from the freezer, no plate required. Easy, effortless, or at the very least, made ahead — which in my family has always amounted to the same thing.
The kids ran the yard all afternoon — I have a whole vision of a slip and slide out there somewhere, grass stains and shrieking. And the grown-ups gravitated between the patio and the kitchen, the screen door swinging open and shut at will, all day, whoever needed something inside or wanted to see what was happening out back. Nobody ever really settled in one place.
But that same “there’s always room” instinct showed up at his table indoors, too, not just in the backyard. If more people showed up for a dinner than the table was set for — and more people always showed up than the table was set for — my father had a whole procedure for it. Add the leaf, pull out the folding chairs, set another place. No hesitation, no recalculating whether there was enough. There was always enough. He’d take his seat at the head of the table once everyone was settled, and before a single plate got passed, he’d say the same four words: and bless all here. Not a long grace. Just that. Whoever was sitting there that day was included in it, family or not.
That’s the whole memory, really — a yard that stretched to fit whoever wandered in, a table that stretched the same way indoors, and a blessing that never asked who belonged there before it welcomed them in.
Around the House
We’ve had heat waves elbowing in on thunderstorms this week — a little early for true dog days, but nobody told the weather that. I’m not fighting it. I’m using it.
Mornings, I’m out the door with the dog before the sun’s fully up, before the pavement turns into something you wouldn’t want bare paws on. It’s the best part of the day and I’m not sharing it with anyone. Afternoons get handed over to my grandkids on the days I’ve got them, and to a reading list I actually built on purpose this year — categories and all, because “whatever’s on the nightstand” wasn’t cutting it anymore:
The page-turner — a thriller or mystery
A high-quality beach read or contemporary fiction
Transportive historical fiction
A biography of a fascinating historical figure
A smart finance or wealth-building book
A deep-dive history book
A current bestseller
Right now I’m tearing through The Other Alcott by Elise Hooper for the historical fiction slot — it pulls the spotlight off Louisa May Alcott and hands it to her overlooked younger sister, May, and it’s better for it.
That’s the update. No big projects this week, no ambitious plans — just early mornings, good company, and a book I can’t put down. Some weeks, that’s the whole win.
Weekend Kitchen Planner
Wednesday — Shop the farm stand: corn, zucchini, lemon, tomatoes, cherries, mozzarella. Grab croissants, prosciutto, bagels, muffins, cream cheese, and jam while you’re out.
Thursday — Make the macaroni salad and vinaigrette — it improves sitting overnight. Bake the dessert sideboard items (lemon squares, brownies, apple oat bars).
Friday — Assemble the caprese. Prep sausage and peppers for the grill.
Saturday — Grill sausage and peppers, make the corn salad, set out the dessert sideboard and buffet. Sauté the frittata vegetables in the evening for Sunday.
Sunday — Bake the frittata (or reheat if made Saturday night). Toast the rice and start the oven risotto in the afternoon for a Sunday dinner centerpiece.
Worth Keeping
“There was always enough.” — On tables that stretch to fit whoever shows up.
Before You Go
When I was younger, the house had to be in perfect order before anyone walked in — even family, even for a quick cup of coffee. Unannounced guests sent me into a small panic. I pictured them judging the housekeeping, never mind that I was too busy raising kids to care about it myself. That was where my energy went, and it should have been.
These days, the state of the house barely registers. I’m always ready for a cup of coffee, dishes in the sink or not. What I want is the company, the conversation, whoever shows up and however long they stay.
I’m fairly sure nobody actually remembers what my house looked like on any given afternoon. But I’d bet they remember the conversation.
See you next Friday. Bring your appetite.
— The Jersey Nonna