Good morning. I have a fun story in The Times this week about kombucha, a drink that I’ve been making for a while now, ever since I was given a Scoby — a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast that ferments sugared tea and creates the drink — by a former West Coast bud-trimmer who turned in her shears for a life of social justice in the East.
Of course there’s a recipe (above) to go along with the prose, and you can get on it this weekend if you can find a Scoby of your own. (Which you can! You don’t even need to know any hippies. Just use your computer to search “kombucha baby for sale near me.” You’ll be up and running in no time.) Soundtrack: Judy Roderick, “Woman Blue (I Know You Rider).”
Make something grow this weekend, anyway, if you can. The freaks were onto something with that, the connection between humanity and the natural world. So! It’s the first day of summer, and you could set yourself up for no-knead bread tonight. You could get going on a sourdough starter. You could make yogurt. Or kimchi. You should definitely make a lot of this long-fermented pan pizza dough for a pizza party on Sunday night.
Leaving aside living organisms, I’d be game for slow-cooker chicken tacos on Saturday night, flavored with chipotle and honey. Though if you’d prefer flank steak teriyaki, I could manage that instead.
Or you could have a platter of grilled hamburgers, very ’50s dad-style, to eat alongside a case of Schaefer as the Mets play the Cubbies on Saturday afternoon? That would be fun, with ice cream sandwiches for dessert?
No? Here are some mushrooms on toast. Not as punishment! They’re delicious.
There are thousands of other recipes to cook this weekend waiting for you on NYT Cooking — at least once you’ve taken out a subscription to our site and apps. So go browse around a while and see what appeals: Cheese straws, maybe. Aperol granita. Zucchini salad for all?
You can find yet more inspiration on our Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube pages. (I’m out there as well: @samsifton.) Or, if something goes awry with your cooking or with our instructions, you can reach out to us directly: cookingcare@nytimes.com. We will get back to you.
Now, it’s a towering long fly ball from cookies and cream, but I’m reading the new Neal Stephenson novel, “Fall; Or, Dodge in Hell.” And so you should be!
Here’s the new one from the Brooklyn indie band Tuff Sunshine, “We Seal Every Deal With a Kiss.” Play loud.
You’re running out of time to see “Thumbs Up for the Mothership,” Dawn DeDeaux and Lonnie Holley’s exhibition at MASS MoCA. It closes at the end of July. Get up to the Berkshires.
Finally, it’s early yet to be calling something song of the summer, but these kids at an Atlanta pool singing “Old Town Road” for a couple of cops on horseback is a pretty compelling argument in favor of giving the nod to Lil Nas X. See you on Sunday!
