Ritzy Crab Dip, Chapli Burgers and Cold Noodles With Tomatoes

Good morning. A very long time ago, the novelist Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings came up with a great recipe for crab Newburg, based on the lobster version once served at Delmonico’s in New York. It’s a highlight of “Cross Creek Cookery,” her memoir of cooking life in backcountry Florida before World War II: a shockingly rich amalgam of crab and cream and sherry, best served over toast points or in a puff pastry shell. It is high-WASP nursery food, not terribly difficult to prepare, an old-school preparation that is like a black-tie version of this excellent baked crab dip (above).

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Baked Crab Dip With Old Bay and Ritz Crackers

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But the other evening, having picked through a half-dozen steamed blue crabs I scored from my friend Derr, I couldn’t bring myself to assemble the rest of the ingredients — not for the Newburg nor for the dip. Picking crab is hard work! Instead, I made a pot of cheese grits, heated my crab in foaming butter, spooned the meat over the cereal and dusted the whole thing with Old Bay seasoning. This was a no-recipe recipe, I suppose, and easily as good as the Newburg. Maybe you could follow my lead and make that this weekend yourself?

Grilled baby back ribs are a weekend wonder, too. As is creamed corn. As are these chapli burgers from Samin Nosrat. Cold noodles with tomatoes? They make for a delicious, easy weekend dinner. Follow with this lovely tomato and peach salad with whipped goat cheese.

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Now, it’s about as far as you can get from tahini and lamb, but you should read Amanda Petrusich’s thoughtful New Yorker interview with P.J. Harvey.

Closer to home, in The Guardian, Tom Lamont has a fascinating look at the closure of fish and chip shops across the United Kingdom. A representative passage: “Whether styled as chippy, chippie, chippery, chipper, fishery, fish bar or fish restaurant, whether given cheerful punning titles (the Haddock Paddock, the Plaice to Be) or rootsier names that acknowledged their founders (Jimmy’s, George’s, Low’s, Long’s), these shops proliferated through the 20th century, carpeting the land from the northernmost — Frankie’s, up in Shetland — all the way to the Smugglers, down on the tapering tip of Cornwall. The fundamental cooking method is always the same.”

Here’s a new poem from Cynthia Zarin in The New York Review of Books, “At Putney.”

Finally, here’s a new one from Big Thief, “Vampire Empire.” Crab-picking music! I’ll see you on Sunday.