The Case for the End-of-Summer Dinner
Wagyu tartare, with summer garden herbs
August has a feeling the other months do not. Everyone senses it, even if no one says it out loud. The light starts coming in at a lower angle in the evening, it’s glorious at 7:30pm. The tomatoes are at their absolute peak, and you know it will not last. There is a sweetness to the month and a small ache underneath it, because summer is showing you its best week right as it begins to think about leaving. Chefs love this month.
I love cooking in August for exactly that reason. People gather with a little more intention now. They feel the clock of back to school. The backyard dinners, the long tables on the porch, the last warm nights with the doors thrown open. There is an urgency to gather before the season turns, and it makes for some of the warmest evenings I cook all year.
How it shows up on the plate
Right now I am searing diver scallops and basting them in brown butter with sweet summer corn and toasted hazelnut, the corn so good it barely needs the butter. I am rolling chicken ballotine around a truffle mousse, setting it over celeriac and a crisp pommes pavé. To finish, figs and honey with a soft panna cotta, a little fennel, and a splash of red verjus to keep it from turning too sweet. These are August dishes in the truest sense. In two months the corn is gone and the figs are a memory, and the menu will have moved on with the season.
If there is a dinner you have been meaning to host, this is the month for it. Not because anything is wrong with September, but because August gives you that deeper summer flavor.The peak of the garden and the tail end of the long evenings, at the same time, for just a few weeks.
I would love to cook one of those nights for you before the season turns. And if you simply want more of these, they live in our newsletter at .
Chef Francis Pascal