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MEAL PLAN REMIX

Lessons from Julia Child's Kitchen

As much as we love meal planning, we may be doing it backward. That’s the opinion of Makenna Held, who runs the Courageous Cooking School out of Julia Child’s former summer home in Provence, France, and who just wrote a new cookbook, Mostly French. “I plan from the place of seasonality, rather than a strict grocery list based on specific recipes,” she says.

In other words, she sees what’s available and what looks good, and then plans her meals. Of course, she’s often shopping in quaint European markets where options can vary, but you can follow her lead in regular grocery stores too. Buy what’s fresh and build meals around that. No to barely red strawberries and limp Swiss chard! Yes to stalky asparagus and snappy snap peas!

LINE OF DEFENSE

Saline for the Win