By the Slice (White pizza with pancetta and arugula)

While I, in a robotic devotion to efficiency, could be quite content to eat the same meal most days, Aaron demands variety. Except with pizza. Aaron, and perhaps most of the free world, will always be happy to have pizza. We once made mostly pizza for dinner for a few months as a "diet," because it was easy to standardize, control portions, and could be spun into infinite variations. One key element was to always pair with a salad, though who doesn't remembering arguing that pizza was a balanced meal in grade school? This particular pizza, white pizza with pancetta and arugula, has both. 

One-stop shop

Sweet and Savory (Roast pork, pears, and root vegetables)

When my sister sent me half a dozen perfectly ripened pears and my sister-in-law gifted me with a jar of her fresh and local Lucky Bee Farm honey, I knew I had to make something special. I started out wanting to make a honey-sweetened pear upside-down cake, but Aaron invoked our agreement from a few months ago-"honey, stop baking"-and requested something savory, instead. Sweet and savory can be an excellent combination: there's honey in my beef teriyaki and in the barbecue sauce we slather on chicken, but the ultimate sweet meat is always, in my opinion, pork. Something about the pig's omnivorous diet and the practice of finishing meats with specific feeds to affect their flavor gives pork an inherent, unmistakable sweetness. Given a spicy rub of chili, garlic, and fennel, rounded out with some extra-hearty heft from a side of root vegetables, and topped off with a drizzle of honey Dijon gravy, this is a quick weeknight supper dressed to impress.

Impressive?

Pigging Out (Herb-Crusted Pork Loin)

Pork is a slightly neglected and unappreciated meat in the U.S. Coming in third behind chicken and beef, it can be easy to overlook. Bacon aside, Aaron and I were never huge pork eaters, but when his sister Sarah and her husband Seth started raising and butchering their own hogs, we suddenly had a lot more pork on the menu. The other white meat has a lot to recommend it. It's easy to cook and features a mild, sweet flavor that's more distinctive than chicken and readily lends itself to all sorts of permutations, though they often feature fruit, sugar, and spices to play off the natural sweetness of the meat. To welcome the Spring green leaves, I chose to employ a melange of fresh herbs and a sprinkle of lavender blossoms for extra floral goodness. The end result is a tender, flavorful pork loin perfumed like fresh Spring.

Of course, now it's summer, but you get the idea

Taking it Slow (Pork Carnitas)

One of the things people tend not to realize about working in a bakery is that it is hot. Those cheerful, toasty ovens feel like blast furnaces on days when it's already over 90 in the shade. The never-ending quest for cool leads us to all manner of salads, ices, and chilled soups, but there's still something inherently more cheering and satisfying about warm food. The trick, then, is to produce a hot meal without raising the temperature of your kitchen, and for that the slow cooker is a hero once again. Throw in the ingredients and they can gently braise all day as your house remains marvelously cool.

Marvelous

Sunday Supper (Roasted Pork Loin with Fennel, Apples, and Onions)

Growing up my family was fairly lax and permissive. My sisters and I understood that to incur our parents disappointment was a very bad thing, and we typically knew it was best to toe the line. So, to say that family dinners were a strict tradition would be to overdo it, but until soccer practices, drama rehearsals, choir recitals, et all dominated the evening, we almost always had dinner together at home.

Tradition