It's a dip! It's a spread! It's a snack!

This fava bean-garlic scape chevre is all I want to eat in the heatwave other than fruit

It’s only fitting, given the state of things, to immediately follow a newsletter about June gloom with a sweltering heat wave.

I just spent 10 days in Kingston, consulting on the opening of The Six Bells Hotel in Rosendale. A restaurant opening, of any kind, is a wild ride. I had forgotten how especially thrilling—and also jolting—it can be to throw myself into a project that, for me, ends so abruptly while it continues on for the rest of a permanent team. There is so much pressure and joy and excitement in bringing a new project into the world. And while there’s a lot of relief in handing the baby off to its rightful parent, there’s also a hole left by the people and place I become so invested in while I’m there. Given that I was also staying on the other side of the river, it really felt like a double life for a time. And just as plane travel can eclipse the experience of a trip by landing you abruptly back into reality, so too did my drive back to my corner of the valley.

I leave my house for 10 days regularly in the winter and return to little change. But I’m so rarely gone for more than a few days at a time in the spring and summer, and it was remarkable to see the transformation of my yard, my garden, and the feeling of my home.

While in Kingston, I found myself completely detached from my house—immersed in the work I was doing and in an alternate life for myself and Frankie (my pup). We went for evening walks through the small upstate city and enjoyed pop-ins to open restaurants and bars after work for a snack and a glass of wine (a simple pleasure mostly absent from life in my part of the Hudson Valley). So when it was time to return home—while very ready for my bed and to wake up not in a basement apartment—I was unsure how it would feel to re-enter my “real life.” And let me tell you, the portal of my heatwave drive home was transformative. I stopped for produce at MX Morningstar and loaded up on summer veggies that had emerged while I was distracted in the world of Six Bells country cooking. I waltzed through my front door with a newfound appreciation for my charming old house. I clipped flowers that had popped up in my garden and got straight to staking the tomatoes that had flopped over with growth. I smothered my cat, Blossom. I was so comforted to load my fridge with my haul from the farmstand and fill jars of flowers from the yard to adorn each room. (For someone always on the go, I really love to nest.) And for the first time in two weeks, I was desperate to cook food that was just for me.

The only problem? It was so hot that I barely wanted to eat anything cooked—let alone turn on any flame beneath a pan.

My compromise—and what my body always craves this time of year—is snack food instead of a meal. So with the garlic scapes graciously left for me by my cat sitter, the favas and summer onions I scored at the market, and some Ardith Mae chèvre, I pulled together the dreamiest of snacks. The best part? It can take the place of a soft cheese on a cheese board, serve as a dip enjoyed by the river with a family-size bag of Cape Cods (where this batch ended up), or be spread on toast with some fresh onion for a light lunch—making it a perfect food for these scorching days, second only to raw fruit.

My one caveat: it does require a little bit of cooking—but it’s quick, and I promise, worth it. Plus, there are few tasks more nostalgic and meditative for me than shelling fresh beans or favas. So head to your porch with a beverage of choice (mine was coffee, given the time of day) and start shucking. Then pack up this spread and head to the water!