Last summer, in what feels like an eternity ago, I visited a friend in London. We spent the days roaming the city, eating goat cheese and lox on baguette, and browsing through second-hand bookstores. In one of these bookstores, I spotted Luisa Weiss’s My Berlin Kitchen. Although my next flight was on EasyJet (which has notoriously terrible limits on carry-on luggage), I knew I had to buy the memoir – and somehow fit it into my already overly-full backpack.  

This summer I pulled out the memoir to reread it, and one recipe stuck out: a potato salad with herring and beets. I don’t know what drew me to this, since I was never a huge herring fan. But the recipe kept calling to the Eastern European Jew in me, so one day I grabbed some beets and decided to make it. And I’m so glad I did. This salad is perfect for a hot summer day: filling, yet summery, sweet and a little salty, with just the right amout of crunch. Every time it has been above 90 degrees this summer, I find myself craving this potato salad. For the herring skeptics out there, it’s really good without the herring. But if you eat fish, please try it with the herring. I don’t think that you’ll regret it.