What I Cooked and Ate This Month: Fennel Pasta, Lemony Madeleines, Focaccia Sandwiches

A diary of the dishes defining my June

Jun 16, 2025

Hello and happy Monday! I just got back to Brooklyn after a balmy weekend in Florida, celebrating my cousin Levi’s marriage to Kearsten, the newest member of the Hummon family. It was a joyous few days, full of sweaty dancing, cold Coronas with lime, sandy feet, pool plunges, and, most importantly, toasting to Levi and Kearsten’s love.

I’m taking today off to unpack, do laundry, and recalibrate before heading back to work tomorrow — which reminds me of

Sandy Sanchez

’s latest post, in which she endorses taking PTO on a random weekday. When I worked as a line cook, I (mostly) loved that my days off were midweek, because it meant that when the rest of the city was working, I was free: to roam uncrowded museums, snag hard-to-get reservations, or just exist without any social pressure, because no one else was free to hang out anyway. Now that I work a 9-to-5, I still love the idea of taking the occasional weekday off to care for myself (I know this isn’t possible for everyone — hi, teacher parents!).

For today’s Dish, I’m sharing some favorite things I’ve cooked and/or eaten over the past month or so — a list that includes caramelized fennel pasta, brown butter-lemon madeleines, and not one, not two, but three excellent sandwiches. This edition is for the gluten-friendly among us.

Cooking & Eating, June 2025

French Toast & Ice Water
Marjory Sweet is a food person I’ve followed on Instagram for many years despite having never met — one of those people you stumble across through mutual follows and stick with because you like their taste. We clearly share a palate (sometimes you can just tell), and I’ve often cooked something inspired by her posts or her charming recipe book, Farm Lunch, which she self-published in 2020.

Case in point: French toast and ice water, a combo she once declared the perfect farm breakfast (see here). Although mine wasn’t eaten in a field but rather in my Brooklyn apartment, I loved the contrast of squidgy French toast with warm maple syrup and a glass of bracingly cold ice water.

Through Instagram, I learned that Marjory JUST co-opened a café in Maine called Café Grazie (great name), and I’m now fighting the urge to flee north and work there. Instagram is the worst, but I love it for introducing me to creative people making beautiful food, books, art, cafés (!), and so on.

French toast & ice water, consumed while still in pajamas

Sunday Lunch at Crevette
Sometimes, when I want something to look forward to, I browse Resy and make reservations for a random future date, figuring I’ll sort out who’s coming later. This Sunday lunch at Crevette was one of those reservations — made complete thanks to Teo, our friend Ethan, and my brother Malcolm’s last-minute visit.

To me, nothing feels more luxurious than a long Sunday lunch as the main event of the day, and this was exactly that. Crevette is the closest thing to The French Riviera you’ll get in Manhattan, particularly on a sun-soaked Sunday like the day we went, when the doors are flung open to the street.

One of the joys of group dining is getting to try more of the menu, which we did. I loved the crab agnolotti with peas and green garlic, the epic merguez-frites sandwich, the petit aïoli with fresh spring vegetables, and the lemon sorbet with bites of juicy white peach. And I was glad to be dining with fellow food enthusiasts who ooh-ed and aah-ed alongside me. See my friend

Sylvie Florman

’s Crevette write-up here, and my round-up of Sunday lunch spots here — to which I would absolutely add Crevette, if I could.

Caramelized Fennel Pasta & Garlicky Kale
Teo made this pasta (a Carolina Gelen recipe via NYT Cooking) for me and my brother, and I was delighted by its simplicity. The sauce consists of thinly sliced fennel, cooked down in butter until deeply golden and soft, then deglazed with white wine.

It reminds me of Marcella Hazan’s “smothered cabbage” recipe, where cabbage and onion are cooked down until they become something entirely different — sweet, soft, golden. I like to toss that cabbage mixture with pasta, just like Gelen does with fennel.

To go with Teo’s pasta, I blanched and drained some Tuscan kale, then sautéed it in olive oil with more frizzled shallots and garlic than you think is appropriate, plus just enough salt to keep you going back for more.

Brown Butter-Lemon Madeleines
I’ve been wanting to make madeleines for a while, but unfortunately, they require a special madeleine tin. Walking home the other day, Teo and I ducked into Tarzian West, a houseware store in Park Slope, and I finally bought one.

For my first attempt, I riffed on this recipe by

Odette Williams

, browning the butter until nutty and speckled and dipping each madeleine in a tart lemon glaze post-bake. I was so pleased with how they turned out, and they disappeared from the counter within a day, which is always a good sign.

Left: Caramelized Fennel Pasta & Garlicky Kale; Right: Brown Butter-Lemon Madeleines

Roasted Cauliflower-Green Tahini Sandwich
This accidentally vegan sandwich was born of odds and ends in the fridge: a recipe for weirdness, greatness, or both. I roasted cauliflower with olive oil and salt, thinly sliced a couple radishes, and blended a sauce with tahini, raw garlic, cilantro stems, salt, crushed chili, and just enough water to transform into a creamy, spreadable sauce.

I used store-bought focaccia, sliced and layered with the green tahini, cauliflower, radishes, and a few sprigs of fresh herbs.

Prosciutto-Burrata-Radicchio Sandwich
While we’re on the subject of focaccia sandwiches: I stopped by the Tin Building for a quick work lunch and ordered a spectacular — if overpriced — focaccia sandwich. It came stuffed with prosciutto, burrata, a spicy sauce (maybe Calabrian chili-based?), and a layer of radicchio.

The revelation was the radicchio: its bitterness cut through the richness of the cheese and meat and kept the sandwich from tipping into excess. No photos, sadly, so you’ll have to use your imagination for this one.

Schnitzel & Half Glasses of Wine at Café Brume
Teo and I spontaneously went out for dinner on a recent rainy night, and were lucky enough to grab a table at Café Brume, a new restaurant in Brooklyn Heights on Montague Street. After a wet walk there, we were seated at a candlelit table by the window, set with a yellow-checkered tablecloth; the gray, rain-soaked backdrop of New York made our table feel even more luminous.

Inside, Café Brume feels like an elegant Swiss ski lodge, with dark exposed wood and a soaring ceiling. The Alpine-inspired menu matches the vibe, with high-elevation wines and refined dishes like steelhead trout with beurre blanc and trout toe, and spaghetti alla chitarra with crispy duck liver. Even the homiest options have a sophisticated touch, like the wienerschnitzel, served with an anchovy fillet and a lemon half.

I loved that the full by-the-glass wine list is available in half pours. Two half pours later, and I already knew the once-unfamiliar list a little better.