Good Salad With Ssamjang Dressing

salads are making me a better chef

Welcome back to EGT Thursdays. I’ll start with some updates and general housekeepking before we get into it (yuh).

If you haven’t heard on Instagram , this here newsletter is going behind a paywall for the rest of 2024. The reason being is that writing a book, being a freelancer and paying for the services of others (whilst trying to afford living on this planet) is difficult to do on a book advance and sparse paid partnerships alone. After taxes, debts, squirrling away for the creation of the book itself and my agent’s cut, there isn’t much left to behold. That’s the not so fabulous part of being “funemployed” — a term I adopted from my pookie Kimberly Drew.

I adore what I do — don’t get me wrong. It’s just that every penny counts these days so I have to make some big boy choices. I thank yall in advance for feeling me. That being said, I’ll make it easy for you to upgrade your subscription here:

Next order of business. I don’t think I’ve ever formally announced here that I have an Instagram broadcast channel called The Swamp. That’s where I’ll announce events like pop ups, panels etc first. There’s also the occasional recipe and BTS photos of the makings of the book. Something like being on my close friends but not quite my finsta. We have fun over there.

And finally, ya’ll know by now that I’m a NYT Cooking contributor. It’s a mf dream job honestly. And it ain’t happen overnight haha. I recently had some summer recipes publish so I’ll link ‘em here instead of making you search.

Roasted Okra with Shrimp and Tomatoes

Pimento Cheese and Tomato Sandwiches

Salt and Pepper Zucchini

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im all about the leafless salad these days

Working for NYT Cooking is making me a better, more in tune chef and for that we should ALL be grateful — especially you good folks who reap the ultimate benefit. Testing other cooks recipes means flavor, texture, composition and ease lives at the forefront of my food motivated mind. I’m consistently bookmarking little tidbits of info and naturally intergrating them into my own practice. I love it.

Yeah this salad is rather simple, but of course, that’s the appeal of it. The combination of commonplace produce ( persian cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, snap peas), dairy (olive oil seared paneer) and a savory sweet dressing (ssamjang, honey, apple cider vin) interlaced with a change of shape and texture, yields the kinda dish that makes someone say “ooooh, I’ll try doing that as well”.

btw, I picked up the cucumber smashing from

Ali Slagle

who writes 40 Ingredients Forever. I’m sure she didn’t event it, but testing one of her recipes aided in the birth of this one.