The house guests are coming!

Welcome! I’m so happy you’re here. If you aren’t subscribed, consider keeping in touch. I'll send you great recipes and entertaining ideas twice a month. June 21 is the “official” beginning of summer, but it might as well be Memorial Day weekend in East Hampton. Starting on Thursday, crowds from New York stream out of the train station every few hours. There’s bumper-to-bumper traffic in grocery store parking lots, and suddenly no one knows how to drive! I like to keep the weekend low-key and invite just a couple of friends. I don’t think there’s a better way to reconnect than padding around the house in slippers on Sunday morning. The coffee is hot, the weather is warm, and we can all sit in the garden before breakfast and just talk. To make the weekend fun for myself (and a little easier!), I choose recipes that can be made in advance or served at more than one meal. For example, I like to have tea and a homemade Orange Pound Cake waiting for friends when they arrive after their long trip on Friday. Since the recipe makes two cakes, the second one becomes Saturday’s dessert — Raspberry Orange Trifle! The leftover tea goes in the fridge so we have iced tea available all weekend. Another simple way to do this is with a Friday grill night. I’d make grilled salmon and vegetables, with extra of each. Friday’s leftover salmon can become Salmon Cakes for dinner on Saturday, and the grilled vegetables can reappear in Sunday’s Vegetable Frittata. Good planning makes a weekend with house guests so much easier! Ask Ina: “I need to make 3 of your Flag Cake recipes for a large Memorial Day party. Can I triple all the cake and icing ingredients instead of doing the cakes one by one? Should I still decorate it as a flag, even though it’s not the 4th?” We used to make hundreds of Flag Cakes at the Barefoot Contessa store. It’s a huge cake that serves 20 to 25 people, so it’s perfect for a large party. I would make three separate batches of both the cake and the icing. I know it’s extra work, but I haven’t tested tripling the recipe and I wouldn’t want to risk a holiday fiasco. In fact, I’m not sure triple the batter would even fit in my mixer! Just be sure to use an oven thermometer when you’re baking the cake. That’s the best way to ensure your oven temperature is accurate. Regarding your last question, Red, white, and blue are still festive colors for Memorial Day. I’d say you can definitely decorate it like a flag! This Week’s Favorites: I went to The Cook’s Atelier in Beaune, France, with a few friends this week. It’s a family-run French cooking school, culinary boutique, and wine shop. We had a fantastic time! I just ordered a paella cooking set and am researching paella recipes to try this summer. Do you have a favorite paella recipe I should make?

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The house guests are coming!