When The Living is Lazy

Summer's got me feeling lazy. Alex Witchel of The New York Times feels the same way. I tend to eat differently in the warmer months (note to self: move to temperate clime when you get older and your metabolism slows more).

One thing I have to have every summer is a plate full of heirloom tomatoes, sliced, slightly salted, and doused with truffle oil (even though truffle oil, it turns out, isn't really truffle oil -- whatever it is or isn't still makes me moan).

A summer-perfect dessert is aged balsamic vinegar over strawberries and vanilla gelato with a toss of salt, like that I had at Bar Veloce recently. Sweet and juicy meets liquid tart, which meets creamy vanilla, then all the juices mingle and seep down into the bottom of the bowl and I pour a dash of muscato right into the bowl and drink it all together. It's a grown up version of a hot fudge sundae. This is good with truffle oil too, but then, isn't everything? (Down on the left is my friend Liz with the sundae and also a Nutella sandwich that came with even more gelato; on the right I'm having a reflective moment with the wine bottle.)

My one attempt at making watermelon martinis a few years ago didn't go over so well, something about not enough juice and too much pulp, but I should try again.

I love Atlas Cafe's frozen yogurt, though I'm neither convinced that it's yogurt, nor sure it's low-fat. They press the yogurt through this anvil-like contraption that does a real good job swirling it with toppings. I've been getting York Peppermint Patties mixed in.

Even cake can seem too heavy in the summer, but not the Sacher-Torte that Dana brought me back from Vienna. Yes, she carried that beautifully boxed and wrapped cake all the way from the Hotel Sacher back to New York for me! Dense and dry (somehow in a good way), the chocolate cake is layered with apricot jam and topped with dark chocolate icing.