The Crock Drop

+ an Early Summer Salad with the Perfect Vinaigrette

It’s summer baby! Trojan Horse of a season — it sounds like vacation, smells like vacation, hell it photographs like vacation, but for those of us with small children it’s twice as much work. Unless you’re in academia (bless you), work continues on as usual, but the kids are out of school. We are bouncing around from upstate to L.A. doing farm camps, art camps, and forest schools, battling ticks (this is the best repellent and smells of musky cedar), and spending as much time in Grandma’s garden as possible.

Before we move on to exciting announcements, and a recipe for the best Summer Green Salad, I want to recognize Juneteenth. As a parent, it’s critical holiday to commemorate, especially in light of the senseless incarceration and human rights violations happening all over our country as we speak. We have a long way to go, but today is an opportunity to talk to your kids about concepts like freedom, hope, prejudice, and racism. We are making Juneteeth flags this afternoon, since, I, like a toddler, do best when I engage with history through making.

A few children’s books to facilitate these conversations:

• "Juneteenth for Mazie" by Floyd Cooper (ages 4–8)

• "Opal Lee and What It Means to Be Free" by Alice Faye Duncan (ages 5–9)

• "The Night Before Freedom: A Juneteenth Story" by Glenda Armand (ages 6–10)

• "Freedom on the Menu" by Carole Boston Weatherford (to connect Juneteenth to the broader civil rights movement)

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In my ongoing pursuit of the platonic ideal of a utensil crock, I took a hard look at the available options: the repurposed tomato can, the ceramic pot, the leaning tower of mixing spoons in a too-small mug. I’m not the only one searching.

I commissioned ceramicists from around the country to make one-of-a-kind crocks—sturdy, sculptural, and ready to relocate to that cozy spot right next to your stovetop.

We’re calling it the CROCK DROP, and it goes live June 26th on my Instagram Shop. Follow along, stretch your trigger finger, and get ready to shop!

Left: One-of-A-Kind crock by Helen Levi. Right: Ceramic tomato can crock Jennifer Langhammer

Each piece is handmade exclusively for the drop.

Featured artists:

• Helen Levi

• Jennifer Langhammer

• Ginny Simms Burchard

• Christian Moses

• Julianne Ahn of Object and Totem

• Jennifer Fiore and Nina Lalli of Monday’s Brooklyn

• Maggie Boyd

• Matt Merkelhess

• Lessa Millet

• Stiliani Moulinos of Noble Plateware

• Erin Girard of Cousin Home

• Doris Jesovitz of Lost Quarry

• Jennifer D’Arbenzio

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This is the early summer salad that a transplant to the East from the West Coast makes when the farmer’s market finally comes alive. It’s manic, it’s greedy, it has all the fresh green things that peak before the temperatures sky rocket. The pickled radish and pickled mustard seeds are somewhat optional, but they bring that extra pop of acidity that makes a big green salad really memorable. (For the pickled mustard seeds, see my previous post.) But of course, no green salad is complete without a delicious dressing.

A quick note on the pumpkin seeds: I’m partial to Styrian pumpkin seeds. They’re not the same as pepitas. You can buy and toast/salt them yourself from Terrasoul, or better yet, get them from Stony Brook Foods.

If you're using regular pepitas for this salad, toss them with some olive oil and toast them in the oven at 300°F for 10-12 minutes. Cool completely before using.

Greedy Green Salad with Shallot Vinaigrette