Summer Goals You Can Eat 

This is my summer of fried: Once I’ve dialed in my copycat Raising Cane’s sauce recipe (I’m close), I’ll take on their chicken fingers. After that, it’s Fried Pickle City. Even though I no longer get three months off every year, I’ve learned that summer is a cool time to up the game on a method or recipe I’ve wanted to shift from “just all right” to “awesome.”

Griddle a Badass Smashburger

“The perfect fat ratio for a smashburger is 80/20 beef.” That’s according to Andy Atkins, whose backyard-burger pandemic project — which he started with his friend Cody Driggers — grew into two Bad Luck Burger Club locations and a mobile truck. “Any leaner than 80/20 and you won’t get the super crispy Maillard chemical reaction” — that’s the chemical reaction between amino acids that makes browned food taste so good. 

Form 2-ounce patties of grocery store beef — you don’t have to get fancy — while your flattop griddle or cast-iron skillet heats to 400 degrees. Set the patties on the dry cooktop and use a large, heavyweight spatula (BLBC uses a Sasquash press from Burger Iron) for a one-time smash. 

“If you keep smashing, you’re gonna smash all the juice out,” says Atkins, the former lead vocalist for metalcore band A Plea for Purging. He uses a swirling motion to work his way to the outside of the patty, pressing the edges down so they adhere to the cooking surface so much he has to scrape up the crispy, lacy edges. 

“It’s not a chip all the way through,” he says. “It’s still juicy in the center.” 

Now season the patties. If you do it beforehand, Atkins says the seasoning breaks down the fat. Then flip and add two slices of cheese. 

“I get it — you like cheddar or Havarti or whatever,” Atkins says. “But if we’re talking a classic smashburger, it’s two slices of American cheese.” 

Layer two of those patties on a potato roll that you’ve brushed with oil or butter and toasted for texture. Add your toppings — dill pickles, diced caramelized onion, whatever — and your own special sauce. 

“You gotta make a burger sauce, dude,” Atkins tells me. “Most everybody’s sauce uses yellow, red and white. This is where you can get creative. Every single bite you take, you want a little bit of the patty, cheese, bun, onion, pickle and sauce.”

Mix Your Own Drink of Summer

“Drinking is such a time-and-place thing,” says Ryan Barrentine, beverage director of The Fox Bar & Cocktail Club, when I ask if the drink of summer is a myth. “If you’re on the coast, it might be a spritz. If you’re in southern Spain, maybe vermouth on ice. The drink of summer is personal, but most people lean on whatever is light and easy drinking.”

Take a cue from The Fox and approach your own drink of summer through a culinary lens, work in a local element, and name it something that sounds relaxing or mysterious — like the Dreamgirl, which has a “light, spritzy, vermouth and aperitif vibe with a subtle cherry note.” 

Barrentine suggests building the cocktail in a tall, slim glass like a Collins. Use whatever you have at home or search out cool glassware from a thrift store or locally owned shop like Thunder Moon Collective. 

The Fox version starts with Carpano Bianco vermouth infused with fresh cherries for 24 hours, plus a light and bitter aperitif like Aperitivo Cappelletti — about an ounce of each. Can’t wait? Mix a quarter-ounce of the syrup from Luxardo cherries with vermouth right in the glass — using a jigger or shot glass to measure. Add a hefty splash of hop water from Nashville small-batch sparkling water brand Maypop and top with ice. No shaking or stirring needed. Garnish with a few vermouth-soaked cherries on a skewer or a lemon-wheel-plus-cherry combo. 

“Drinks like this are perfect for summer, because you can throttle them for the time of day,” Barrentine says. “Keep it low ABV if it’s lunch, or add an ounce of gin if it’s later in the evening.”

Make At-Home Ceviche Less Intimidating

I have no problem buying raw fish at the grocery store and cooking it at home, but ceviche feels different. I’ve long considered it a restaurant-only dish because the fish is cured with citrus and not cooked with heat — I don’t trust big-box fish for that kind of thing. 

Jennifer Cline and her husband Jerry created Aloha Fish Company to cure Nashville’s frozen-fish phobia.

“Fresh fish eases people’s minds,” says Cline, who missed having access to it after moving from Hawaii to Nashville. “Restaurants can have fresh fish flown in, but normal folks can’t. If I didn’t know the origin of the fish and when it was caught, I wouldn’t make ceviche from frozen fish that’s been defrosted.” 

Start by squeezing enough lemons and limes to submerge the fish in. Then dice ono (wahoo), shutome (Hawaiian swordfish), halibut or a combination — Cline says lean white fish works best — into half-inch cubes, allowing for 4 to 6 ounces per person for an appetizer, and mix in the citrus juice. This is when the acid in the citrus tightens the proteins in the fish, making it opaque and firm. 

“Let it sit in the fridge for 30 minutes or an hour, but not overnight — otherwise the fish ends up getting too tough,” Cline says. 

Now calibrate the ceviche to your taste: Dice or thinly slice vegetables and fruit (sweet onions, cucumbers, jalapeños, tomatoes, mango, pineapple), add minced garlic, salt and pepper, and serve with tortilla or plantain chips. Want more sweet than tang? Use Cara Cara oranges or grapefruit to cure the fish, or throw in diced avocado or a little sugar to finish.

Create Pro-Level Ice Cream

At work, executive pastry chef Katie Fair makes Butcher & Bee’s “seasonal scoop” — currently strawberry sorbet with balsamic blueberries and shredded halva — on industrial equipment. At home, a countertop Cuisinart ice cream machine does the trick for a dessert she admits is both simple and temperamental. 

For a deep dive into the science behind sugar and fat, Fair recommends the cookbook Hello, My Name Is Ice Cream by Dana Cree. For a basic but thorough approach, use popular recipe outlets like Bon Appetit and NYT Cooking. 

For the base of Philadelphia-style ice cream — as opposed to a custard, which has egg yolks — buy quality milk, cream, sugar and milk powder, an emulsifier you can find at the grocery store. For a nice texture, Fair recommends inverted sugars like corn syrup or glucose syrup, which is similar to corn syrup but has less water and is available for purchase online. Using both granulated and inverted sugar results in the best final product. 

Heat the dairy, add the sugar and emulsifier and heat again. Add flavor — maybe citrus zest, tea or cinnamon — then strain and chill it. 

“Chilling can make or break an ice cream,” Fair says. “After you make it, cool it down as fast as possible and let it sit in the fridge overnight. The flavor will improve, the texture will improve, everything will be better.”

When you remove the base from the fridge, Fair advises having a sense of urgency. 

“Don’t let anything melt or warm up. It’s super important for the final texture of your ice cream. If your base is warm, the emulsion will split, meaning the fat and water will separate. It’ll feel broken on your tongue, like icy or fatty bits.”

Churn the base, adding mix-ins like chocolate chips, biscuit pieces or peaches at the end of the cycle, or when you’re transferring it to an airtight container. 

“Once you get the hang of it, get creative with your base,” Fair says. “Infuse your dairy with popcorn. Ice cream has limitless possibilities.”

Host a Low-Key Gathering

You want to have people over but the house isn’t in tip-top shape. Or you can’t afford food and drinks. Or you don’t have the time to make that dessert you saw on Insta — the one where you turn brownie bites and Mike and Ikes into a miniature edible grill. 

No one cares. Just set a table. 

“Sometimes I’ll put folding chairs and a table in my front yard and set it with a red-and-white tablecloth,” says Kristen Cudd, director of Hester & Cook’s Nashville retail shops. “When my neighbors see it, they know that at 6 p.m. they’re welcome to bring their dinner over and eat with my husband and me. The first time two people came. The next time it was a full table. I didn’t spend a dime.” 

Something as simple as a table runner and matching placemats creates a story on the table that inspires guests to sit and stay awhile. 

Themes make it easy to focus your efforts: Buy tomato sauce in pretty cans at the grocery, use them to make a big bowl of pasta and turn the cans into centerpiece vases with herbs or fresh flowers. 

“I love the layered bean dip from a restaurant near my house, but it doesn’t transfer well from takeout container to serving bowl, so I took a Pyrex dish and asked them to build the dip in that,” Cudd says. “You’re not cheating because you didn’t make everything on the table.”