Summer corn, nectarine and haloumi salad with fried zucchini, herbs and za-tar: jump to recipe here.

A record low single recipe here in 2023 – at least the bar for improvement is low. It’s not that I didn’t cook, but the cycle of study, exams and work meant time and motivation for recipe development and photos was missing. The rise of Instagram reels and Tiktok has resulted in a decline in traditional food blogging as it was when I started: many of my favourite bloggers have stopped all together, or switched medium to cookbooks, videos or pure social media content. 

I’m not quite ready to give it up yet. Food remains both a huge way to show love (dinner parties and birthday cakes are IN for 2024) and a creative outlet, and combining those here in this format of words + photo + recipe is the only way I can continue to squeeze it into life in a more permanent way than disappearing moments within a deep phone scroll. Maybe an optimistic statement – only time will tell whether this holds me slightly more accountable! 

This is the first of what will (hopefully) be a series of my favourite meals for weeknights or work lunches or dinner parties – mostly, for food with friends. It’s a summer corn, nectarine and haloumi salad, a favourite in the ‘fruit in salad’ category. The most important thing is perfectly ripe, juicy and sweet but not bruised or floury stone fruit. Nectarines or peaches ideally. Gooey haloumi fried at the last minute, smoky charred corn, fried zucchini for heft, lots of herbs and a lemon-y olive dressing make it a salad that can do it all: barbecue, pot luck, work lunch or quick dinner. Variants have been on repeat around here- use peaches and tomatoes if that’s what you’ve got, swap the haloumi for feta or a ball of burrata, use basil and shaved parmesan and add walnuts or pinenuts for a more Italian take.

If you’re looking for more summer recipe inspiration, here are my standouts for 2023: 

• Charred eggplant, tomato, tahini by Eden Grinshpan. Always a hit. See also her incredible roast sweet potatoes with sunflower seed and basil gremolata– we love a whole roast sweet potato moment.
• Ottolenghi’s fusion eggplant caponata with silken tofu – a classic in our lives at least. 
• My work lunches on repeat: lemon-y asparagus risoni salad (skip the salmon and use smoked instead for even more speed), zucchini soba noodles with miso salmon, corn or mango slaw with peanut tofu. 
• Ricotta gnudi with cherry tomato sauce: the friends dinner or date dinner you never knew you needed- mostly for the way you can get all cleaned up while it finishes off in the oven. And the mandatory sourdough for moping it up. 

And just because reading has made a post exam comeback, my favourite reads of 2023:

• Lola in the Mirror, Trent Dalton: the only one that for me has come close to Boy Swallows Universe (or surpassed?!).
• Birnham Wood, Eleanor Catton: writing like The Luminaries, but a environmental thriller set in small town New Zealand. Creepy and I loved it. 
• Demon Copperhead, Barbara Kingsolver. 10/10
• Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, Gabrielle Zevin: don’t let the initial gaming chapters put you off if you’re not a gaming person!
• Good Material, Dolly Alderton: not my favourite in the first half, but Dolly Alderton realllyyy has a way with words and that second half made it worth it. 
• Crushing, Genevieve Novak: contemporary Melbourne 20s/30s life in a novel. Almost a Sally Rooney-esque feel. 
• Love and Virtue, Diana Reed.

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