What to Cook This July — The Corn Salad That Tasted Like Summer

Ordinary summer week, which is a phrase I'm using as a category of grace rather than a dismissal. The ordinary summer weeks are when I notice the most: the light at six PM in July, the way the city smells different in the heat, the particular sound of our street through the apartment windows at night when the air is still. I'm twenty-six years old and married and living in Southie four blocks from where Sean D. has always lived and six blocks from where I grew up, and this geography that once felt like limitation now feels like a choice I am actively making and glad to make.

Sean D. and I have been cooking together more since the wedding, which is partly because we have a kitchen we share and partly because cooking together turns out to be one of the better versions of spending time together: the parallel occupation of space with a shared purpose. He is improving. He still cannot handle more than one thing at once on the stove, but he has learned to make the salad while I manage the main, and he has learned to not give unsolicited opinions about the main until he has tasted it, and we are building a collaborative kitchen practice the way you build any practice: through repetition and the willingness to occasionally burn things.

I got a note from Grace this week — the patient I'd given the ginger broth recipe to in June. She'd been discharged to an outpatient oncologist and she sent a card to the floor addressed to "Kate, the nurse who gave me the soup recipe." She said she'd been making it every few days. She said it was the thing that tasted right when nothing else did. I read the card at the nurses' station and thought about what it means to have a recipe that is a form of care. It means that the care goes on after you leave the room. It travels with the person. That is a remarkable thing about food.

Made a summer corn salad this week — grilled corn off the cob with cherry tomatoes, cucumber, feta, lime dressing — because it is July and the corn is the best corn of the year and it would be wrong not to use it. Sean D. ate two bowls and said, "This is summer in a bowl." Yes. That is exactly what it is.

The corn salad at the end of that week — the one Sean D. ate two bowls of and called summer in a bowl — is the kind of recipe that earns its place in a rotation not because it’s complicated but because it is exactly right for its moment. It’s what July asks for: something bright and fresh that lets the ingredients do the work. Grace’s card was still on my mind when I made it, and I kept thinking about how a recipe can carry care forward past the moment you made it — this one does that too, in its own lighter way.

What to Cook This July: Summer Corn Salad with Feta and Lime

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 10 min | Total Time: 25 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 4 ears fresh corn, husked
• 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
• 1 medium cucumber, diced (about 1 cup)
• 1/2 cup crumbled feta cheese
• 1/4 cup red onion, thinly sliced
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro or flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
• 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice (about 2 limes)
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• Pinch of red pepper flakes (optional)

Instructions

1. Grill the corn. Preheat a grill or grill pan over medium-high heat. Place the husked ears of corn directly on the grates and cook, turning every 2–3 minutes, until lightly charred in spots on all sides, about 8–10 minutes total. Remove and let cool enough to handle.
2. Cut the kernels. Stand each ear upright on a cutting board and use a sharp knife to slice the kernels off the cob from top to bottom, rotating as you go. Transfer kernels to a large mixing bowl.
3. Make the lime dressing. In a small bowl, whisk together the lime juice, olive oil, cumin, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes if using.
4. Combine the salad. Add the cherry tomatoes, cucumber, red onion, and cilantro to the bowl with the corn. Pour the dressing over the top and toss gently to combine.
5. Add the feta. Scatter the crumbled feta over the salad and fold in gently so it doesn’t break down completely. Taste and adjust salt and lime as needed.
6. Rest and serve. Let the salad sit for 5 minutes before serving so the flavors can come together. Serve at room temperature or slightly chilled. Best the day it’s made.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 220 | Protein: 7g | Fat: 11g | Carbs: 27g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 340mg