It's Time for Outdoor Potatoes

New York Times

25-05-2025

Good morning. The sun was up in the bluest of skies, the air soft and atmospheric pressure high, and all I wanted to do was loll on the grass in picnic repose, eating fried chicken sandwiches and a lemony potato salad with mint (above). That salad's a new thrill for me, the antithesis of the mayo-lashed potatoes I generally make for outdoor eating, light and refreshing, excellent alongside the crisp chicken and pillowy biscuits.
You could set up that very meal for yourself right now, and deliver it to a blanket in late afternoon, when the sea breeze kicks in to ruffle the treetops in the park or garden. You can sit beneath them (or above them on a fire escape or roof!) in quiet satisfaction, knowing you've made something delicious, that it will provide pleasure and sustenance in equal measure, and that — if you're lucky — there's no work in the morning, only another day of rest and reflection.
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Would you like an Arnold Palmer with your meal? I would, and a rhubarb pound cake for dessert. This is American exceptionalism in flavor form.
As for the rest of the week. …
It's Memorial Day. Beneath the bunting I'll serve, among other things, Bert Greene's recipe for the green dip he sold at his store in Amagansett, on Long Island, in the early 1970s, with a ton of iced vegetables. In his cookbook, he wrote that someone once half-jokingly offered him a thousand dollars for the recipe. 'Nobly, I refused the stunning stipend,' he wrote, 'and now, with open heart, I pass it on to you — absolutely gratis!'
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