Ideal Eating
Call this a U.O.U. and take a few minutes to plan for some pleasurable dining-out time while summer’s still in its prime. It’s a personal process, one that involves a bit of ruminating and selecting, so we’ve got some recommendations to get your thinking off and running.
The Speckled Egg Café: Saturday Supper
Want to know what a true and original voice in cooking tastes like? Then step right up to this one-of-a-kind in Lambertville where the forces in the kitchen rise to every moment in time and redefine seasonality on brave new terms. It’s the newest entry into our canon of Favorites.
Less-traveled, More Adventurous
Invention isn’t the point, though exploration sure is when it comes to the favorite foods of the two weeks just past. Here are many familiar ingredients invigorated by independent thinking.
Peaches + Cukes + Lime
It’s more precious than ever this season. So give one of the Garden State’s top tree-fruit crops a helping hand in the kitchen both to stretch its presence and make certain its point gets across as strongly as ever.
Jersey Fresh Grows
A multimillion-dollar investment by the Wakefern Food Corp. in the Garden State’s marketing and branding program raises not only its stakes but regional awareness of all that’s coming out of our farms. It’s the lift the aging effort needs.
Casdeluna
In the ‘Burg of today, all eats Latin are hotter than asphalt in July. This Venezulean arepas specialist, which also makes a mean cachapa, is exactly where you ought to go, with the latest Stephanie Plum mystery in hand, to read and catch the food beat as orchestrated by restaurateur Mirna Castellanos.
TSP: High Summer’s Triumvirate
Tomatoes, squash and peppers can be combined in many and myriad ways, most of them ineluctably lovable. All of us have favorite ways of bringing them together. Because it’s flexible and showcases the way to coax max flavor out of each, this one is ours.
They Have a Dream
Landownership is the biggest obstacle for young people looking to forever-farm in New Jersey. A visionary who reached out to the farmers behind Ramblin’ Sol Farm in Upper Freehold broke down the barriers to make that happen.
Green Olive
The fundamentals of one of the prized cuisines in the Mediterranean vernacular are disgraced at a new Greek restaurant in a charming town that deserves much, much better.
LB’s Lunch Box
A seafood salad sandwich, a taco, an ice cream sandwich and even lemonade: Not exactly unfamiliar eats, but at this seasonal getaway run by chef Joselin Oudemans on Belhaven Lake in the heart of the Pine Barrens they are exalted rather than merely elevated. It’s that style of cooking that lifts LB’s into TPW’s canon of Favorites.
Suiting the Season
Peachy blueberries, watermelon, a veg-dressed noodles dish, calamari and the best-ever shellfish sandwich top the charts of this two-week span. Aren’t they all what you want to eat right now?
Spiced Watermelon
Is it a hand-held salad? A refreshing hors d’oeuvre for an outdoor party? A snack, a light lunch, a treat to bring to the beach or park picnic? A supplement to popcorn on movie night? It’s a favorite, gone jazzy.