The Spring of Whipped Ricotta & 3 Books I Love

It’s Holy Week in the Christian church and Passover in the Jewish community, so the city is abuzz with preparation and celebration. I’ve said before that living on the campus of an Episcopal seminary is sort of like living right inside the church calendar, in a very good way—the sidewalk was scattered with palm branches Sunday, and after the Good Friday gathering, the bronze chapel doors will swing shut for the only time all year, open again on Easter morning. From Friday night until Easter morning, the chapel becomes a tomb—what a tactile, physical, haunting reminder of those interminable hours between crucifixion and resurrection!

Our Easter celebration, in terms of gathering and family and friends, shifts a bit from year to year, and this year, I’ve got my fingers crossed for sunshine and warm enough air for an Easter Sunday afternoon on the patio—not a big formal meal, but maybe a glass of something sparkling and a bite of something delicious…and maybe a Cadbury Crème Egg if I’m lucky. :)

That’s what we did our first year here—an afternoon patio gathering and an egg hunt on the courtyard lawn for the kids, and we were basically pinching ourselves all day because it was so sunny and lovely. We did a similar thing in 2021—one of the first real gatherings post-quarantine, and that felt very nearly magical, after so much isolation and fear. We attempted a similar thing last year, but to be honest, it was really really cold and all the pastors and priests were tired from so many services, and I was in a book-launch haze of anxiety and exhaustion, and well, they can’t all be gems. (That’s actually one of my core hospitality principles: they can’t all be gems. Not every gathering has that magic, and that’s okay—shake it off, keep gathering. More on this in coming months.)

All that to say, I’m sharing this recipe (not really even a recipe—this delicious idea) for whipped ricotta on toast, because you might find yourself gathering up a little circle of friends this weekend, or you might need one plate of something delicious to put out before the big meal on Sunday, or you might just pop it in your back pocket for the next springtime happy hour or girls’ night or whatever.

You know I go through phases with things I love to eat—two summers ago was Street Corn Summer, and last summer was The Summer of Oysters. See also the enduring “I can Buffalo that” phase.

Here’s an early prediction: I’m feeling like this is going to be The Spring of Whipped Ricotta and Mortadella with Pistachios (more on the mortadella later).

Several of my favorite restaurants serve a great version of whipped ricotta—Kyndi and I had a very memorable meal at Locanda Verde three years ago…it was memorable because it was March 14, 2020, and the next day, at least for us here in New York, everything changed, so for us that meal has now been imbued with all the “last meal of the before times” intensity, sitting across the table from one another, categorically unable to predict how much all our lives would change in coming days and weeks and months. And maybe because of our strong memories of that meal and maybe just because it’s so good in its own right, we kept talking about the whipped ricotta from that meal—theirs is a sheep’s milk ricotta, and that day they served it with orange zest, thyme and olive oil.

Lilia, Missy Robbins’ perfect pasta spot in Williamsburg, serves theirs on toast and the ricotta is piped like a pastry, pillowy and pretty.

Cookshop, my favorite neighborhood spot, serves theirs with lemon zest and a truly fantastic focaccia with rosemary, and the last time I was there, the sweetest thing happened. When I asked the server to box up my leftover pizza, she tucked a couple little containers of the whipped ricotta into the bag for me, because she’d noticed that I’d been dipping my pizza crusts into it, long after we’d finished the focaccia—isn’t that the most thoughtful thing? It made my night.

Here’s why the whipping matters: ricotta out of the tub can be a little grainy, but when you buzz it up in the food processor or blender for a couple minutes, it gets all light and silky--I do it about a cup at a time with an immersion blender in a tall quart-sized deli container, and after a couple minutes it gets so glossy and perfect.

You can keep it super simple—a drizzle of olive oil, a few cracks of sea salt and black pepper. You could add some citrus juice and zest—lemon or orange. Drizzle with honey and chili flakes, or hot honey. You could serve it alongside fig jam or prosciutto and balsamic.

Last Friday I made a batch with the juice and zest of a couple clementines, a tablespoon or so honey, and some chili flakes, and for a dinner party here earlier this week, I made it with lemon juice and zest and a little olive oil, and the photo above is how I served it, with crackers, fig jam, prosciutto, blackberries and cashews. You can spoon it onto toasts ahead or time or let people dip—I like it both ways.

So there you go—not even a recipe, just a delicious idea that I’m going to keep on repeat all through the spring…

April is always a great month for books, and here are three you’ll love:

You know that Laura Tremaine and I have been friends since we were teenagers, and I’m cheering on her new book The Life Council so hard: it’s wise and practical and vulnerable, and it 100% inspired me to rethink some of my ideas about friendship, in such good ways.

Curtis Sittenfeld is an all-time favorite of mine, and Romantic Comedy is a pure delight. Here’s a inside glimpse into my week: after hosting/co-hosting 3 gatherings in 5 days, yesterday morning I ignored the dishes and a writing deadline and snuggled up with this book. I read it in one sitting and loved every page.

And Maggie Smith’s wonderful memoir You Could Make This Place Beautiful comes out next week, and it is just as beautiful as you’d expect. I especially loved how she wrote about what to tell and what not to, about how to tell a difficult story, and about how the practice of writing helps us discover what’s actually happening in us and around us. Those are things I grappled with in a thousand tricky ways in my last book, and it was fascinating to read how another writer figured their way through. It’s a gorgeous, haunting book.

Side note: when I linked to I Guess I Haven’t Learned that Yet, I noticed that the hardcover is less than $8 on Amazon right now, which is crazy low, especially for a hardcover—I have no idea why, & no idea how long that will be the case, but there you go! :)

Wishing you and yours a lovely week and weekend—we’ll be spring-breaking next week, so it will be quiet here as we soak up some family time, but I’ll be back with another little letter the next week.

One note about these Substack letters: I’ve turned off the comments, and that’s by design—I just can’t manage another set of comments in my life :)—but if there are topics you’d like me to write about in this space, please feel free to leave a comment on the Instagram or Facebook posts where I link to them…I’m just feeling my way through this new format, and I’m happy to hear what connects most with you.

Thanks for reading!