Welcome. If it’s tomato season where you are, it’s a good weekend to make Melissa Clark’s easy tomato sandwich, which she recommends eating over the sink (to catch the juices). In fact, we’ve got a whole slew of tomato recipes to put your market haul to good, delicious use. What are you waiting for?
The Olympics are on, of course, if you’re sticking close to home. If you’re longing to get out, “small travel” to a town nearby might satisfy your wanderlust. The writer Alexander Lobrano has a lovely account of a brief jaunt he took just 45 miles from his home. He writes:
What the Covid years have taught me again is that any journey, no matter how brief or local, is a success if it provokes and feeds my curiosity, and that yes, for me it will always be wonderful to just go, anywhere.
I love the idea of taking a little vacation to a spot nearby. Of course, for Lobrano, 45 miles away is a resort on the Mediterranean; most of us are not quite so geographically blessed. But he insists that he got the same thrill taking the subway to Rockaway Beach when he lived in New York City.
Maybe your destination is a few exits down the highway to a town you’ve driven through for years but never actually visited. Maybe it’s that train or bus stop that’s only ever been a conductor’s announcement on your commute. You could check it out this weekend.
P.S.
Tell us.
How are you leading a full and cultured life, at home and away from home, these days? Tell us about it: athome@nytimes.com. Include your full name and location and we might feature your story in a future newsletter. We’re At Home and Away. We’ll read every letter sent. More ideas for how to pass the time this weekend appear below. See you next week.
