Seasonal

August

Keep the meal. Change the season.

Peppers reach their sweetest now. Figs don't wait. Nectarines need almost nothing. The basket changes. The meals stay. Your kitchen starts to taste like August.

The meals

Your usual meals, wearing August.

Keep what you already make. Add what's ripe.

Rice bowl → Roasted peppers, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, torn basil. The pepper does the work.
Pasta → Cherry tomatoes burst in olive oil. Basil after the heat. Still no jar. Still August.
Tacos → Peppers, jalapeño, cherry tomato, cotija, lime. Brighter than it has any right to be.
Yogurt → Sliced figs or nectarines, a little honey. Breakfast becomes the moment.
Chicken → Zucchini, peppers, charred pepper sauce alongside. The sauce is why you made extra.
Field Notes

Charring a pepper

The same dry cast-iron pan from July works — but peppers take longer and need to steam afterward. Char them on all sides until the skin is mostly blackened. Drop them into a bowl, cover tight, and leave them for 15 minutes. The skin will slip off cleanly. What's underneath is something the raw pepper never hinted at.

Figs and time.

A ripe fig goes from perfect to past-peak in about 24 hours. Buy them the day you plan to eat them, or the day before. If they're already splitting at the base, eat them today. This isn't a problem — it's the season telling you something.

You don't need to salt eggplant.

Salting was right for older varieties, which were genuinely bitter. Modern cultivars have had that bred out. What actually matters is high heat. A crowded pan steams; a hot, uncrowded pan chars. Give it room, leave it alone, and it becomes something worth eating.

August at the fish counter.

Yellowtail is still running. White sea bass is having its best weeks. Pacific swordfish shows up at some counters. The question from last month still applies: not 'Do you have salmon?' but 'What came in today?' In August, the honest answer is often better than what you planned.

House Flavor

Charred Pepper Sauce

One jar. A week of flavor.

  • Spoon it over a rice bowl.
  • Drizzle alongside chicken or fish.
  • Stir into scrambled eggs.
  • Thin it for pasta.
→ Make one jar
The drink

North Park Cooler

One drink. Make it as long as watermelon is around.

Watermelon, basil, lime, sparkling water

→ Make the drink
The weekend meal

Fig, prosciutto, burrata, and arugula.

One meal should feel like the reason you went shopping. In August, this is it.

Figs, burrata, prosciutto, arugula

→ Make the weekend meal