🤩🧁 This recipe beats $10 dotcakes

⚾ Wake up, babe! New Fenway ticket deals just dropped. First up: Women’s Celebration Day on Aug. 5, ft. this adorbs locally designed jersey. Then bookmark Sept. 27 for “Iron Flame” Day for dragon-inspired jerseys from our fave romantasy series.

🚨 LAST CHANCE: THE BDE FLASH SALE ENDS TONIGHT! Lock in your Saturday plans and snag a Best Day Ever ticket for just $15 until 11:59 p.m. tonight! Get tickets here to hang with us on Aug. 1 at PKL Boston and enjoy delish food, bevs, live music, and more. SEE YOU THERE!

👀 What’s on tap today:

Up first…

Girl dinner’s ‘bout to get an upgraaaaade. ‘Cause the Globe just dropped some easy, summer recipes that’ll make you quit your snack plate routine.

Here’s what’s cookin’:

🍑 Caramelized roasted peaches. This one feels wayyyyy too simple to be this good. All you need is brown sugar, salt, nutmeg, and a little ~love~ for the perfect sugary syrup to top these baked and buttered peaches. Brb, getting flashbacks to this “The Summer I Turned Pretty” peach scene …

🍉 ~Cool~ watermelon gazpacho. We need this chilled summer soup STAT. The flavor combo of watermelon, tomatoes, cucumbers, and jalapeño may just blow our salads out of the water… Plus, no cooking is actually needed — just chop, stir, and throw it all in a blender. And don’t forget the mint and feta on top!

🍜 Cold, spicy soba noodles. These noods are earthly, refreshing, and filling. But the real stars here? The smashed cucumbers and chili crisp dressing with soy sauce, sesame oil, vinegar, ginger, and garlic. Pro tip: Peel the cucumbers if they’re not homegrown or from a local farm (in case of cyclospora). Then sprinkle some scallions and cilantro, and … voila! 

🍓 Yogurt parfaits with strawberries and homemade granola. We might’ve just found our new go-to work brekkie. For the granola, you’ll wanna toast the nuts and seeds first, and then bake it with an oat mixture with flax seeds, vanilla, maple syrup, and honey. You can even add in dried fruit! This stash will last you weeks — the perf topping for Greek yogurt and fresh strawbs.

🍪 Tender chocolate chip bars. Imagine: A blondie and a chocolate chip cookie had a baby. The key ingredient here (aside from the chips) is dark brown sugar that gives it that rich caramel-y flavor. Note: This recipe requires a bit of elbow grease for fast whisking, so consider it your arm workout for the day … Balance. <3

🧁 Vanilla dotcake with rainbow sprinkles. Yep, THE viral dotcakes. You can actually make them yourself using ramekins, Mason jars, even coffee mugs. There’s no magic in the batter — just a typical vanilla cake divided among ~10 cups. Ice them with a standard buttercream made with butter and confectioners’ sugar (tbh, you could also just buy frosting), and the best part: dunk the tops into a bowl of nonpareils for a colorful crunchy shell.

🤤 Hungry for more? See more summer recipes. 

🌿🎨 This is your sign to spend your weekend in the Berkshires. Less than a three-hour drive from Boston, MASS MoCA is home to large-scale immersive installations, live performances, and artist studios. It even launched its own record label last fall. Bang on a Can’s LOUD Weekend is the perfect time to visit – bringing together more than 70 adventurous musicians for three days of genre-defying performances across MASS MoCA’s 300,000+ square foot campus, July 30 - August 1. Buy your passes now and point your GPS west. 

⚖️ This local trial will be in the headlines for the next few weeks. The Lindsay Clancy trial just started Monday, where Clancy is charged with three counts of first-degree murder after allegedly killing her three young children in January 2023. While prosecutors argue this was an intentional plan, the defense claims that a mix of postpartum mental health issues — including depression, insomnia, and undiagnosed bipolar disorder, coupled with more than a dozen prescriptions — led to a psychotic break. See more info here. 

🌧️ Hello darkness, my old friend. Get your umbrellas ready, ‘cause it’s about to get real wet this week. We’ll start to see showers tonight and heavy downpours are expected Wednesday. And drivers beware: There may be flash floods on the roads and parking lots before Thursday morning. BTW, temps will be lower than normal, but the humidity won’t lighten up enough to make it feel ~cool~… But dw, we’ll be back to a sunny 80s forecast this weekend.

🥐 Tired: French croissants. Wired: French-Asian croissants. Traditional pastries with Asian flavors like matcha and ube are allllll the rage rn. There’s been a recent wave of French-Asian pâtisseries popping up around town. Think: Fuful, Niveaux, and Lakon, plus bigger chains like Beard Papa’s and Tous les Jours. Why now? Along with Boston’s growing Asian population, we’re seeing younger crowds wanting something new. And we can probably thank social media — I mean, this pastry was kinda born for the gram. 

😋 Now arriving: Big sammies and underground cocktails. All'Antico Vinaio, the viral Florentine sando spot, just opened up another brick-and-mortar downtown. (Thank god, the lines were wayyyyyyy too long at its Back Bay one.) Kelly’s rec: The La Schiacciata Del Boss’ combo of prosciutto, pecorino, and truffle cream is *chef’s kiss*. Then cocktails after work? How ‘bout the sexy new Leopard Lounge in Southie, right underneath Dalia? With the red velvet everything, lavish gold frames, and moody lighting, it’s giving date night.

Emily went swimming in the Charles … on purpose. And spoiler: She’d 100% do it again.

The Charles River Conservancy recently hosted its eighth City Splash event, giving the public the rare chance to swim in the Charles River (and raise awareness to bring back river swimming — we used to do it all the time!). Don’t worry, they tested the water quality ahead of time, so we were good to go.

One jump in, and Emily was sold. The water was a refreshing 77 degrees, she had a gorgeous view of the Pru, and everyone swimming giggled with delight. Honestly, it kinda felt like taking a dip in a pond or lake — just with Boston as the backdrop! The only disappointing part? Remembering we can’t do this every day … sad!

While we’ve come a loooong way since our dirty water days, it would take a major commitment to get the Charles back to regular swimming shape. But if/when that day ever comes, just know, we’ll be there.

Need to see it to believe it? Emily brought her phone into the Charles just for you. <3

— Written by Kelly Chan and Emily Schario

🏊 Thanks for reading! Proof that she didn’t grow a third arm. 

💜 Special shoutout to today’s sponsor, MASS MoCA, for supporting local journalism and giving Bostonians an excuse to get out of the city for a weekend. 

🫄 The results are in: 76% of B-Siders support the new late-term abortion bill. One reader wrote, “Why do we even consider that anyone has a right to control decisions made by an individual and their physician?” Your words, not ours … 

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