This purée is something between hummus and a blended version of the curry chickpea sauté I make with alarming frequency. It was actually born of the latter when, driving home from work, I contemplated making “the usual” and wondered how I could spice it up. Not literally, of course, since both versions have plenty of spices in them, but in the sense of making it new.

When I got home, I found that I was out of out of garlic and tomatoes, two crucial ingredients. I found reasonable facsimiles: a jar of minced garlic and another jar of sundried tomatoes in oil. While the pre-chopped garlic saved a little time, the sundried tomatoes changed the whole tenor of the dish, making it sweeter, richer.

When puréed, the spices meld as they couldn’t before, and the whole thing becomes this fantastically potent concoction. I dipped rolled up strips of whole wheat wraps in it, but I think it’d be great with crudités as well.

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One thing I know is that when Martha Stewart tells you to do something, you do it. When Martha says to bring cold water to a simmer and let it stand for exactly twelve minutes, you do it and get perfectly hard-boiled eggs. When Martha says to rim the cake round with frosting before spreading the middle with jam, you do it and get a perfectly filled layer cake. When Martha says to drop cookie dough onto a baking sheet with a small ice cream scoop, you do it and get perfectly round cookies.

So if you want perfect ricotta cheesecake, you should probably follow the recipe in Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook instead. However, if you don’t mind flouting authority a little, you might want to give this one a try. My cake, baked for my dad’s birthday about two weeks ago, caters to his predilection for chocolate. I wasn’t in the mood (nor did I have the time) to make the traditional birthday cake, the ricotta cheesecake caught my eye.

Ricotta cheesecake, unlike New York cheesecake, has no cream cheese, very little flour, and the bulk of its volume is made up of whipped egg whites. It has a light, fluffy texture and a tangy flavor liberated of that tongue-coating gloppiness that New York cheesecake can have. While it doesn’t have a graham cracker crust, it does form its own cakey crust in the oven, which gives it a pleasant textural contrast.

I followed Martha’s recipe pretty faithfully, substituting cake flour for all purpose only because I was out of the latter. I added cocoa powder with the other dry ingredients and folded in chocolate chips with the egg whites. Together with the orange zest, the chocolate produced one of those great rich, fruity flavors. Ricotta cheesecake doesn’t quite last as long as New York, but luckily and conveniently, it had disappeared within just a few days.

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“As long as it’s talking with you, talk of the weather will do.”

- Built to Spill, “The Weather”

I know, I know, I know. The weather is boring. I might as well talk about my health. But apparently it’s decided to bypass spring entirely and skip to summer. Days are long and sunny, nights retain that shadow of warmth. Jackets are brought just in case and then never used. The twilight shimmers with gold dust. Et cetera.

This year’s inaugeral cookout was a copycat affair. I’ve never been to Bouchon Bakery, but I read about their fancypants sliders on A Hamburger Today. The burgers, according to Ed Levine, are “three [Wagyu] sliders on house-made brioche buns with a pinch of sea salt on top [whose] condiments included ricotta cheese, a schmear of garlic aïoli, and tomato marmalade.” I read that and decided, I can do that.

Ricotta was easily purchased and tomato jam easily made, but no preparation could turn my 90% lean ground beef into Wagyu. I was able to make my peace with this though, and while I knew it really should have been only 80% lean, the small patties were plenty juicy. There was no way in hell that I’d churn out brioche just for some casual grilling, but some store-bought dinner rolls did nicely. I skipped the aïoli entirely, but when assembled, they were plenty impressive without.

I served my sliders alongside a smoky grilled corn salad and a more conventional green salad with avocado. The corn salad was as simple as it was good: corn and red pepper charred by the grill and brightened with citrus and cilantro. It was a hit.

Also a hit were my bitty burgers. My biggest complaint is that because of their size and the briskness of the evening, they went ice cold in a matter of minutes. Even cold, though, they were delicious. The creaminess of the ricotta, unlike that of a more conventional cheeseburger, was not temperature dependent, and the tomato jam, when applied liberally, provided a sweet, acidic highlight to the bite. We discovered they were even better bunless, with the salt crust bringing out the meatiness of the slider patty. Imitation Bouchon is certainly not for the everyday, but it was worth the effort and worth, perhaps, seeking out the original.

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