A Summery Grain Bowl That Doesn’t Bore Me

Every week, Bon Appetit associate editor Christina Chaey writes about what she's cooking right now. Pro tip: If you sign up for the newsletter, you'll get the scoop before everyone else.

Dear Healthyish friends,

After weeks of feeling like every routine I’d established in my life had been completely upended, I’m slowly starting to once again prioritize the things that bring me peace. I’ve begun cooking again, something I found unimaginable a few short weeks ago but that I find I’m throwing myself into with joy and renewed creative energy. And I’m starting to make my beloved trips to the farmers market (with a mask on, of course). In the last month or so, the sugar snap peas and asparagus of early summer have bowed out to the heavy cherries and zucchini—a reminder that if I want in on the goods, my oversize tote bag and I have to hit the stalls now before those, too, disappear.

Of course, the problem with “buying what looks good” at the farmers market is that in the peak of summer, everything looks good. The adorable palm-size pattypan squash. The heirloom tomatoes about to burst at their seams. The STONE FRUIT. It’s not until I get home and start unpacking the herbs, three kinds of lettuce, radishes, carrots, and scallions (and that’s all for a party of one, FYI) that I realize I just might have overdone it...again.

In my panicked (but thrilling!) race to eat my bounty before it goes bad, the first step is to wash, dry, and properly store everything I can. I know lettuce technically lasts longer when you leave the whole head unwashed and uncut. But you know what I’m not reaching for when I’m raiding the fridge in search of a meal? That gritty head of lettuce. But when I open the fridge to neat piles of prepped produce, it’s easy to instantly visualize all the things I’m excited to cook in the week ahead: the kale and lentil salad, the broccoli-and-bacon fried rice, and so on.

With these building blocks ready to go, turning a fridge full of seemingly random vegetables into a satisfying meal becomes a 10-minute task for the rest of the week. This was critical when I used to pack my lunch in the rushed mornings before biking to the office. Now that I’ve been working from home and the novelty of cooking lunch every day has worn off, I’ve found myself relying on quick meals that don’t require turning on the stove in the middle of the day.