Purple-Speckled Dragon-Tongue Romano Beans grown by Annabelle Lenderick at La Tercera Farm

Corn, tomatoes, beans, and peppers: the quartet of summer, born in the Americas. None of these need much fussing with, and all four go very well together, in any number of permutations. Steamed green beans with halved cherry tomatoes and silvered red onion, drizzled with olive oil and a splash of balsamic vinegar. Corn salsa with chopped tomatoes, lime, and cilantro, served with black beans on a corn tortilla. Roasted peppers mixed with grilled corn next to sliced flat-iron steak. Fresh shelling beans--cannellini, borlotti, cranberry--tossed with corn and herbs for a sweet summer succotash, far away from winter's bleak frozen-limas-and-canned-corn version. The seed-flecked juices of a fresh tomato salad soaking into an ear of plain boiled corn on the cob, with the insistent perfume of basil and perhaps a dab of garlicky mayonnaise somewhere close by.

My friend Jen McAllister used to write a charmingly delicious food blog, Prepare to Meet Your Bakerina, about her adventures, cooking and otherwise, in a bite-sized apartment in Astoria, Queens. By August, she and her husband, sunk in muggy late-summer torpor and farmers' market overload, were perfectly satisfied with eating what they'd dubbed The Cornbread Thing several nights running. It's a simple composition, but a winning one: a fresh corn relish/salsa, made of cooked corn, chopped tomato, a bit of sweet onion, lime juice, chili powder, salt, and olive oil, left to macerate overnight; a skillet-baked batch of cornbread; some Greek yogurt, plenty of cilantro. The cornbread is cut into wedges and split horizontally, then slathered with Greek yogurt, dolloped with corn relish, and ornamented with sprigs of cilantro. What more do you need?

Well, how about salmon? Local sockeye and king salmon is in its late-summery, coral-colored glory right now, and poaching a slab of fish is even easier than baking a pan of cornbread. I'm enamored of the "shallow poaching" method outlined in The Art of Simple Food by Alice Waters. No need for full submersion: fill a shallow saute pan with just enough liquid (half water, half white wine, or water with a splash of white-wine or champagne vinegar) to come half-way up your fish filets or steaks. Add a few sprigs of tarragon, parsley, thyme, whatever aromatic nice thing you have growing, plus a few thin slices of lemon or lime and a big pinch of salt. Bring to a boil, cut the heat to barely a simmer, and slip the fish into the liquid. Cook, without letting it boil, for about 3 to 4 minutes. Flip the fish over, and cook for another few minutes, until it's just cooked through, and remove. For a nearly instant sauce, reduce the poaching liquid by half, then whisk in some cubes of cold butter. Remove the lemon and herbs, and voila! Beurre blanc without tears.

Or you can skip the buttery action and simply lavish your poached salmon, warm or chilled, with a slightly tweaked version of Jen's corn relish, over a plateful of lightly steamed green beans or, even better, the wonderful purple-speckled dragon-tongue romano beans grown by Annabelle Lenderick at La Tercera Farm.

Recipe: Summer Corn Salsa

Summary: This easy salsa, adapted from a recipe on the blog Prepare to Meet Your Bakerina, makes a wonderful summer topping for poached or grilled fish.

Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 5 minutes
Total time: 15 minutes
Yield: 4 cups

Ingredients
6 ears fresh corn, husked
2 tbsp pure chile powder
a pinch of ground cumin, optional
1 tbsp water
1/2 of a large sweet onion
1 jalapeno, seeded and diced
1 large tomato
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp olive oil
juice of 2 juicy limes
a handful of cilantro or basil leaves, stems removed

Instructions

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Drop in corn, bring back to a boil, then cover and turn off heat. Let stand for 4 minutes, then drain and let corn rest until cool enough to handle.

2. While corn is cooking, stir chile powder into lime juice, and let sit for a few minutes while you dice the tomato and onion. Cut corn off the cob and mix with chile, lime, tomatoes, onion, jalapeno, salt and olive oil. Taste for seasoning.

3. Salsa can be made several hours (or even a day) before serving. Taste and adjust seasoning as needed. Just before serving, add a small handful of roughly chopped cilantro or basil leaves.

This week's culinary tour guide is Sean Timberlake, half of Team Hedonia and the mastermind behind Punk Domestics. As a food blogger for five years running, Sean is known around these parts as the go-to guy for food-related advice. Want to pickle some vegetables? Preserve your grandma's strawberries? Find the perfect place to take your beloved for a very special dinner? He's your guy.

Non-locals might not think to peruse neighborhoods such as the Castro and Noe Valley when looking for distinctive dining experiences, but Sean, a longtime San Francisco resident, has some awesome tips to share on the part of SF lesser known for their edible offerings. Remember: there's more to San Francisco food than the Mission and North Beach!

What are your favorite summer food events? What makes them so special?
I consider the farmers markets each their own discrete events. The produce is ever-changing, and each market has its own strengths. I love the Castro and Noe Valley farmers markets, but for different reasons. Castro's got great bakeries (oh the irony, considering the carb-phobic demographic) and gorgeous fruit (no comment); Noe Valley has Prather Ranch every other week, plus kooky musicians to entertain the kids. Just watch yourself around the stroller bank. It can get tight. 

When the weather heats up, what are your favorite places to eat in San Francisco?
Because we have relatively few places with outdoor seating in San Francisco, they get busy when the weather is favorable, so I often avoid them. But I can be swayed to hang out at The Ramp over a couple of beers, and I've recently become enamored with the new Bluestem Brasserie downtown. Their upstairs balcony is a great spot to watch the world go by. 

Where are your favorite ice cream places in SF? What's your favorite flavor there?
Like everyone, I love both Bi-Rite Creamery and Humphry Slocombe, but I'm still a Mitchell's loyalist, and there's a spot right in my neighborhood, Subs, Inc. in Noe Valley, that carries it. Mostly I'm a purist. I'm really happiest with simple vanilla, or maybe pistachio. But sometimes I like to get adventurous. At Marco Polo out in Parkside, they have some edgier flavors, like black sesame or the infamous durian. I tried the latter once. I've got a broad palate, but even I was not ready to commit to a whole scoop. Yet. 

Is Noe Valley a culinary contender in San Francisco?
Noe Valley can't compete with the Mission, but we have a few gems. Contigo, the Cal-Catalan place on Castro, is our hands-down favorite restaurant in the city, and we are frequent diners at Incanto as well. Firefly still manages to turn out good food after all these years from its dot-com darling days, and Le Zinc has a lovely brunch. I get the brik every time. 

What other little-known neighborhoods are up and coming in the food scene? 
Hayes Valley has a charming food scene, and the Castro is finally coming into its own culinarily, after years as a virtual dining desert. Frances gets all the attention, and it's great, but little L'Ardoise in Duboce Triangle is unjustly overlooked. Starbelly is a crowd pleaser. And since Blackbird came on the scene, we even have honest to god cocktails in the 'Stro. We're not in Kansas anymore! 

Fruit, glorious fruit, now is your time. The farmers' market doesn't come alive until the strawberries and cherries show up, and now with stone fruit season in full, chin-dripping swing, we have months of glory ahead. Perfect timing, then, for Plum Gorgeous, by Romney Steele, subtitled Recipes and Memories from the Orchard.

These recipes are as much inspirations as instructions, of the why-didn't-I-think-of-that variety. Once you read a description like Strawberry, Nasturium, and Cucumber Salad, Heirloom Tomatoes and Peaches with Burrata, or Honey-Baked Figs with Lavender and Wine, you almost don't need to bother with the cups and teaspoons; the idea is enough. Which is how the generous, bohemian-spirited Steele wants you to cook, anyway. Get the adorable but steely-hearted Miette bakery cookbook for your Louboutin-wearing, alpha-domme gal-pal, the one with the pink KitchenAid mixer, unchippable nails and spotless counters. Plum Gorgeous is a little more messy, much more colorful and a lot more forgiving. Starting with great fruit, it would be pretty hard to screw up any of these unfussy, casually delicious dishes, both sweet and savory, all seasoned with a dash of whimsy. The chapters follow the fruit of California's seasons: winter's citrus, spring's berries, the stone fruits of summer and the figs, apples, quinces, grapes, and pears of autumn.

Strawberry, Nasturtium, and Cucumber Salad. Photo: Sara Remington

Leafing through the book, it’s impossible not to be charmed at first sight. Read it cover to cover, though, from chirpy, service-y headnotes to poetic musings, and you might see how the whole thing risks falling into the sugar-coated, envy-making genre I'd call how nice for you. In her previous book, My Nepenthe, Steele told the story of her grandparents, the founders of Big Sur's fabled restaurant Nepenthe, and her family's involvement with the place through the decades. She alluded, gracefully and with the lightest of touches, to the challenges and complications of combining business, family, and the coastal counterculturalism of the 60s and 70s. Here, though, there's almost nothing but sweetness. Not every cookbook needs to be a memoir, especially not one whose ostensible purpose is simply fruit and fun. But without revealing a real story, a backbone of truth, writing that's aiming for a romantic, color-drenched poetry of the senses can end up reading like advertising copy, breathless and aspirational.

The photographs, by Sara Remington (who also shot My Nepenthe), are absolutely gorgeous, ravishingly styled and lit to look perfectly effortless. I wanted to live in the place captured by these photographs, and I also wanted to know if the cute skirt and candy-colored wellies on page 15 came in my size, and if there was express-shipping for polka-dot red dress blowing in the breeze on page 106. Was this a cookbook, or the latest Anthropologie catalog? The more Steele pushes the poetry of the idyllic years she spent raising two children in a mountainside cottage, surrounded by fog, flowers, and fruit trees, the more the reader notices how much she's assiduously sponged out. No sharp edges, no stress, just children spooned in the same bed "warm and tender like new-rising bread." Whispers run throughout: a murmur of returning home to Big Sur both "discontent and comforted by the coziness of home," of “closeness being at once beautiful and a challenge, heartbreaking and poetic.” But what happened? How did she end up, presumably a single mother, in that tiny house? A little more heartbreak explained might have balanced all that honey.

Kumquats and Toasted Couscous with Halloumi. Photo: Sara Remington

Maybe I'm just being crabby, envious of those azure Big Sur mornings and her memories of baking tarts surrounded by the lemon-yellow walls of Henry Miller's kitchen. Or perhaps it was too many lines like this one: "By this time we were drinking wine and nibbling on the last of the kumquat and couscous salad—just photographed for the book—under the shade of a grapefruit tree in the garden as the sun went down, and lavishing spoonfuls of rose petal jam onto toast with runny cheese for dessert." Well, how nice for you. This is the sort of thing that can take a lot of Raspberry Ratafia to swallow. Honestly, I could deal with the grapefruit tree, the sunset, even the kumquats. But did the jam really have to be "lavished?" Wasn’t a spoonful enough?

Of course, no one’s buying cookbook-memoirs called My Trip to Safeway for Another Box of Annie’s Cheddar Bunnies. Every book like this, however based in real experience, is packaging a fantasy where the grapefruit trees are shady, the jam lavishly spread, and the kumquat salad always ready for its close-up. So enjoy the view, whip up the Rhubarb Mustard, Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Moscato Apricots, Plum Blackberry Sorbet, or Tomato-Grape Ricotta Flatbread, and imagine you’re in a cottage overlooking Big Sur. Now where I can find that perfect polka-dot dress?

Plum Blackberry Sorbet. Photo: Sara Remington

It's that time of year again -- the grills are uncovered, fireworks stands [used to] start popping up near busy intersections, and everyone and their mother is digging through cookbooks in search of Fourth of July recipes. This week, kids will be running around with sparklers while mom and dad solidify plans for their annual Independence Day barbecue.

While grilled goodies are usually at the top of everyone's mind on July 4th, there's still the all-important matter of dessert. It seems like every year, someone makes the traditional sheet cake that looks like the American flag. You know the style: It's huge and white with a square of blueberries for the star portion of the flag, and row upon row of strawberries and frosting dollops to make up the stripes. It's a good cake, one that I've eaten and enjoyed countless times. Yes, I said countless. Which means I'm really, really bored with the same old flag cake, which I've been eating for 30-something years.

This year I decided to shake it up a little. I eschewed the white cake for something richer (chocolate! ganache!). Since it's Independence Day I decided to keep the red, white and blue decorations, but I sat down and thought about the best way to go about using these colors without recreating the hackneyed flag design (to you lovers of the flag cake, really, no offense). After a few days of pondering I decided to create a layer cake for a more interesting look, with half of the fruit on the inside of the cake, peeking out the sides.

I think you'll like the end result: A rich, smokey cake with light, colorful accents of summer fruit and whipped cream. Kids will love the headiness of the chocolate, and adults will appreciate the departure from the norm.

A Tower of Chocolate: The Three-Layer Fourth of July Chocolate Cake
Makes: One really thick 9" cake, which will be cut into three layers servings
Prep time: 60 minutes, including decorating
Cook time: 50 minutes

While making this cake, I decided to go the lazy route and used a 9-inch cake pan that's 3-inches deep. I poured all of the batter into one pan and then sliced it into three thinner layers with a cake leveler. There is also a gluten-free version of this Fourth of July cake.

Ingredients

For cake:

• 2 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chopped
• 2 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped
• 6 tablespoons hot coffee
• 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 1/2 cup sugar, divided
• 4 large egg yolks
• 2 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 large egg whites

For decorating:

• 4 cups of whipped cream
• 1 carton fresh strawberries, cleaned, cored, and sliced in half
• 1 handful each of fresh blueberries
• 1 handful each of fresh raspberries
• 1/2 cup chocolate ganache, warmed and ready to pour

Instructions

To bake the cake:
1. Butter single 3-inch deep, 9-inch cake pan, lining the bottom with a round of parchment or wax paper (trust me, this will make your life much easier). Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. Over a double boiler, melt both kinds of chocolates together with the 6 tablespoons of coffee. Stir until smooth, then set aside until the chocolate reaches room temperature.
3. With an electric mixer, beat the butter and 1 1/4 cup of the sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. While beating, slowly drizzle in the melted chocolate, following with the egg yolks one at a time.
4. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
5. Mix half of the sifted dry ingredients into the creamed butter, then add the buttermilk and vanilla. Follow with the rest of the dry ingredients.
6. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until they hold soft peaks. Add the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form.
7. Fold half of the egg whites into the cake batter to lighten it up a bit, then fold in the rest, stopping just when there's no trace of egg white visible. Do not overbeat or you will flatten the batter.
8. Pour the batter into the prepared cake pan with a parchment round in the bottom. Smooth the top of the batter with your finger and bake for about 50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
9. Cool cake completely before decorating.

To decorate the cake
Note: If you're going to slice your cake horizontally, I'd recommend putting it in the refrigerator overnight (or at least a few hours) to firm up before slicing. The firmness of the cake will allow for more effective slicing. I highly recommend the use of a cake leveler, though a serrated knife will work in a pinch.

1. Level your cake by removing the rounded top where it rose in the oven. You can either use a long serrated knife or a cake leveler. I use the leveler, because it's a cheap tool that does the job very well, and it's a lot easier to make straight layers by walking the leveler in a sawing motion, instead of making crooked layers with a serrated knife.
2. If you poured all of your batter into a single 9" pan, cut it into three layers of equal thickness.
3. Place your base layer of cake onto a lazy Susan or other turnable decorating surface. Trust me, this will make your life easier.
4. Scoop whipped cream into a pastry bag, and using a large star tip of your choice, pipe a series of swirls around the edge of the cake, with a large swirl in the middle. It should look like this:

   

5. Decorate each dab of whipped cream by adding a piece of fruit into the middle. Do not add any fruit to the large swirl of whipped cream in the middle.
6. Using the pastry bag, add a small dab of whipped cream between each larger swirl. Top each dab with a blueberry. When you're done, it should look something like this:

   

7. If you have three layers, gently place the middle layer of cake on top of the decorated layer, making sure it's straight. Decorate with whipped cream as you did the first layer, so that they look the same.
8. Place final layer of cake on top of decorated layer. Pour 1/2 cup ganache into the center of the cake, and using an icing spatula gently push the ganache to the edges, allowing it to artfully dribble over the sides. NOTE: You don't want a lot of ganache flowing all over the place. You just want a few drips down the side as an accent.
9. Set the cake in the refrigerator for 20 minutes to solidify the ganache.
10. Decorate the top of the cake with more whipped cream and fruit, like you did the other layers. You can be as creative as you want here, so go all out! When you're done, push more fruit into the visible whipped cream between the layers where it needs a little color. You should have something similar to the photo below.
11. This cake should be put in the fridge overnight to tighten up the whipped cream, which may droop and run in hot weather. Refrigerator until about an hour before serving. If it's especially hot that day, leave it in the fridge until just before you cut it.

Jesse Friedman shows off Almanac's beer. Photo courtesy Damian Fagan.

Almanac Beer Company is one of the newest players in the ever-active San Francisco brewing community. Partners Damian Fagan and Jesse Friedman joined together to form the company, which took several years and culminated in a launch brew that was produced in the summer of 2010 and will be available this month. Jesse is known in the food and drink community for his three-year old blog Beer & Nosh, and he is overseeing the beer production. Damian, an accomplished designer and artist, is in charge of day-to-day operations at Almanac. The two met in their home brewing club, recognized each other's talent, and soon set off on a more serious beer venture.

After a couple years of research and trials, Jesse and Damian settled on what they would like to produce: beers using seasonal ingredients that were local to the Bay Area. "It dawned on us that we should be doing to beer what's being done to food—particularly in the Bay Area," says Damian. They wanted to "design a beer that's on par with the food that we have on our tables."

Sebastopol Berry Farm blackberries. Photo courtesy Jesse Friedman.

For this first beer, dubbed Summer 2010 Blackberry Ale, Jesse and Damian settled on a Belgian-style golden ale that is barrel-aged with four varieties of Sonoma County blackberries (Cherokee, Marion, Ollalie and Boysenberries). The beer was produced last summer and aged in red wine barrels for 11 months before blending. A team of friends and family bottled the beer in late May 2011—309 cases of 750 milliliter bottles—and it is now finishing up. The first time the public can taste it will be a launch party at City Beer Store on June 30 (details below).

The beer that Almanac has produced is dry, crisp and complex and should appeal to those who would normally avoid beers made with fruit. "It's not that we're not fruit beer fans, but we want people to know that it's not a cloyingly, fruity beer," says Damian. It has a plush mouth feel, a fruity nose and a punchy, tart flavor, and I was surprised that it was quite apricoty for being billed as having blackberries. Damian explains that the fruit changes on a molecular level during fermentation. "You start with blackberries, but with fermentation and aging the molecules actually change and mutate, which is why you get hints of other flavors. The blackberry notes came out as apricot and mango. That was a really interesting evolution."

Almanac Summer 2010 Blackberry Ale. Photo by Jennifer Maiser.

The beers are bottle conditioned which means that they go into the bottle uncarbonated, and that natural yeast and sugar is added individually to each bottle, where the final fermentation occurs. Bottle conditioned beers usually have more complexity and can be held on the shelf longer than force-carbonated beers. Bottle conditioned beers also have some variation from bottle to bottle, which means that the beer won't taste the same way twice—a feature that most beer connoisseurs really enjoy.

Of all the steps that it took to get this beer to market, the bottle conditioning was the most stressful part for Jesse and Damian. "Looking at all the hurdles that we had to cross along the way, the only thing that could have spelled disaster for us had been if the beer didn't carbonate," says Damian. The tricky part to bottle conditioning is to be sure that you get carbonation, but not too much. Laughing, Damian said "It was such a sigh of relief when Jesse and I opened the bottles separately and heard the carbonation. And of course, waiting for a few seconds to make sure that the beer didn't come roaring back out of the bottle."

Almanac is a "gypsy brewery," a term that refers to brewers who borrow space or rent at already established breweries to craft their beer. Almanac used space at Drake's Brewing in San Leandro for the Blackberry Ale. They were able to lean on Steve Altimari of Highwater Brewing for advice on this first brew. Altimari also brews out of Drake's.

Damian and Jesse aren't the first Bay Area brewers to attempt a local beer—last year, Thirsty Bear Brewing released a delicious "Locavore Ale" in conjunction with farmer Nigel Walker at Eatwell Farm. They did this using Eatwell's own malted barley and hops grown by Hops-Meister in Clear Lake, California. That may have been the only batch of Locavore Ale, however. The costs were prohibitive, and it required a huge amount of effort to produce the beer. Systems aren't set up for some parts of the beer to be created locally at the moment; Eatwell's barley had to be sent all the way to Colorado to be malted.

Almanac's beer will be available at several events (see below for information), and at a few places around the Bay Area for sale: City Beer Store, Healthy Spirits, Jug Shop and some Whole Foods locations in San Francisco. It will retail for approximately $20 for a 750 milliliter bottle.

What can we expect next from Almanac? "Stone fruit is in season, and we're looking to brew in July. It's looking like it may be a saison with some kind of stone fruit. We both really, really want to brew a saison."

In addition to Almanac's beers, be sure to track down Jesse's delicious, seasonal sodas around San Francisco. You can find them at the Hapa Ramen booth and at the New Taste Market Place. His smoked strawberry vanilla bean soda was one of my favorite sips last month.

Almanac Beer Co. Events

Bottle Release Party at City Beer Store
Thursday, June 30, 6pm - 10pm
1168 Folsom Street (map)
415-503-1033

Healthy Spirits presents Almanac Beer Co. at Fat Angel Food & Libation
Thursday, July 7, 6pm - 10pm
1740 O'Farrell Street (map)
415-525-3013

Shotwell's Bar
Thursday, July 14, 6pm - 10pm
3349 20th Street (map)
415-399-9898

Information:
Almanac Beer Company website
Twitter: @AlmanacBeer
Almanac Beer on Facebook
Almanac Beer photos on Flickr

At long last, our Indian summer has arrived. July, August, even September plodded through dankly chilly, cottony fog, but now, October's pumpkin-and-apple splendor is bursting forth with hot days and mild, even balmy nights. At midday, you might think you're still ankle-deep in August, ice-chunked agua fresca in your hand, shorts cresting your thighs and flip-flops on your feet.

Stroll a few hours closer to sunset, though, and you can feel it: the days are shorter, the nights drawing in. A long wet spring and a lingering cold summer meant everything was slow to arrive this year. Which means we've got the bounty of both summer and fall happening all at once, the vivid reds and oranges of winter squash making a brilliant splash against the sun-painted golds of the Autumn Flame peaches and Emerald Beaut plums.

Normally, my East Coast-bred internal clock is turning towards the deeper, richer foods of autumn by now, the pears and apples, figs and kabocha squash and multi-hued carrots. But this year, there's still a little more precious summer to bask in, a few more strappy sundresses to take out for a spin.

Not to mention more watermelon to enjoy. Seeing huge bins of watermelons sharing curb space with jack o' lanterns is just one of the quirkier joys of our California calendar. Watermelon, zucchini, cucumbers of all shapes, and sweet-fleshed melons are still piled high at Berkeley Bowl and the Temescal and Lakeshore Farmer's Markets. Some are sugary and dripping-luscious, others cool and crisp, but all share a botanical family, the Curcurbitacea, which also includes the vast array of hard-shelled winter squashes, from lumpy-bumpy gourds to acorn squash to Halloween pumpkins. Watermelons and pumpkins, seedy sisters under the skin.

There will be dark months ahead to welcome the comforting starch of the hard squashes. Right now, these last hot days demand something piquant and refreshing, rolling like a breeze over your tongue. Ceviche, gazpacho, lemonade, the tangy brine of seafood. Waiting for the bus on a hot Oakland sidewalk, I think longingly of a salad I had at the now-closed Chickenbone Cafe in Brooklyn on a hot July night. The chef, Zak Pelaccio, who'd trained at the French Laundry, built a crisscross stack of watermelon batons topped with whorls of grilled squid, interspersed with frilled shreds of mint and cilantro, salty bits of feta, and down at the bottom, tiny, tiny sweet-sour cubes of pickled watermelon rind. It was delicious, and also witty: watermelon two ways, both of them unexpected.

And then there was Bangkok melon salad created by John Beardsley when he was the chef at Ponzu in the Tenderloin a decade or so ago, an irresistible mix of honeydew and cantaloupe tossed with fresh ginger, lemongrass, lime, Thai basil and fresh chiles. (Yes, when it comes to deliciousness in all its forms, my palate's memory is a long one, its recall effortless.)

Yes, as cooks in hot climates know, melon goes better with salt and savory than you might think. Think of the Greeks' watermelon-and-feta salads, or the Italians' classic, unbeatable combination of ripe cantaloupe veiled in sheer slices of prosciutto.

What you want with melon is something salty and a little sweet--that proscuitto, for example, or seafood that lies somewhere between silky and bouncy, like shrimp, octopus, scallops, or squid.

Squid is a particularly fine choice here. The locally caught stocks around Monterey Bay replenish themselves easily. Squid is cheap and adapts easily to a host of flavorings and ethnic bents, equally at home in a soy-saucy stir-fry as in a garlicky tomato sauce.

Like I said, squid is inexpensive. Whole, it can run as little as $2/lb; cleaned, $4 or $5/lb. Which kind you buy depends quite frankly on your tolerance for squid eyes, guts, and goo. I vowed, after cleaning my first bowlful of squid sometime back in 1991, that my first time would also be my last. But somehow I came home with a pound of complete squids last night, eyes and all. It's still, shall we say, a visceral process, but possible, if you're really committed to having a hands-on, tentacle-to-tail relationship with your squid. A sharp knife, some loud music, and someone ready to take out the garbage immediately afterwards all helps. Start with about 1 1/2 lbs if you're buying whole squid, to account for all the innards you'll be discarding.

So, here goes: Rinse squid well. If desired, trim off the tentacles (the bits on the top of the head that look like crazy hair) and set aside. There's no real neck to go by, but cut off what passes for a head below the eyes and discard. Reach into the body and pull out the hard, spine-like quill. Starting from the tip, squeeze downward toward the open end like you’re squeezing a tube of toothpaste. Squeeze out whatever's inside, rinsing frequently. Peel off the thin speckled membrane from the body. Trim off the triangular-shaped wings.

Once the body is reduced to a clean, translucent tube, slice it into thin rings. Repeat as needed. Pile rings and tentacles into a colander and rinse thoroughly one more time. (Children with a high gross-out tolerance may find this whole process amusing, and should be put to work immediately.) Pat dry.

If you have a mandoline, use it to make pretty, translucent ribbons of cucumber and radish, and see-through slices of red onion. As for cucumbers, the thin-skinned Armenian or Persian ones are particularly nice, since they tend to be less watery and seedy than your typical waxed-up supermarket cuke. You could also use a few small pickling or Kirby cukes instead.

End of Summer Squid Salad
You can mix and match melons to your taste and visual sensibility. I like some combination of watermelon, honeydew, and cantaloupe, but experiment with whatever you find the most pleasing. You can chill this salad for a few hours before serving, but it's best the day it's made. A mix of lime and lemon juice is fine, if that's what you've got on hand, but don't, under any circumstances, use bottled lemon or lime juice. Not even the organic kind! They all taste like bitter battery acid and will wreck your beautiful salad.

Serves 4

Ingredients:
1 small red onion, peeled and sliced very thin
6 cups mixed melon chunks
1 large or two small cucumbers, peeled if waxed, thinly sliced
a handful of radishes, trimmed and thinly sliced
1 lb cleaned squid, including tentacles if desired, bodies cut into thin rings
2 tsp Thai fish sauce, or to taste
a small handful of chopped roasted, salted peanuts or cashews
1 jalapeno or serrano chile, green or red, sliced very thinly
2 tsp peanut or canola oil
2 or 3 limes
1 tbsp honey, if needed
generous handful of Thai basil, mint, and/or cilantro, or a combination, roughly chopped

Preparation:

1. In a small bowl, cover onion slices with ice water, and set aside.

2. Toss melon, cucumbers, and radish together with juice of 1 lime. Refrigerate.

3. Toss squid with fish sauce, nuts, and chiles.

4. In a wok or saucepan over medium-high heat, heat oil until very hot. Add squid mixture and cook, stirring, until just opaque, firm but not rubbery. This should take less than a minute. Remove from heat and add juice of 1 lime.

6. Drain onions, rinse, and add to melon mixture. Add squid and chopped herbs. Toss and taste for seasoning, adding more lime juice or fish sauce to taste. If it seems too tart, add honey to taste. Divide between plates and serve.

Want to know more about local melons? The Crane family farm, longtime Sonoma melon growers, is offering a tour and tasting on Saturday, Oct. 9th, 2pm-4pm.

I was confused by Morocco before I even left the plane. Looking down at its Mediterranean coastline after a stretch of late-Winter rains, I turned to the friend sitting next to me and said with more than a little disbelief:

"It's green. Is this normal? I didn't think it would be this... green."

I had always imagined Morocco clad in the colors of sand and dust. I'd allowed for certain man-made outbursts of color-- the blood red of the flag, the ornate vibrancy of their pottery and woven goods, but that green caught me completely by surprise. It was like some sort of unexpected welcome gift.

Though exhausted and thoroughly disoriented by travel, I was excited by the prospect of spending the next three weeks in a country about which I knew precious little and, after a good night's sleep, I couldn't wait to find out what other surprises Morocco would show me.

That is, of course, if the Customs official would let me into the damned country. In filling out the line that read "occupation," I wrote "waiter" in what I thought was clear block printing. The man who held the key to my entrance-- the passport stamp-- misread my job. It was as though The Spellbinder from The Adventures of Letterman had changed the "a" in "waiter" to an "r." The official scrutinized me.

"You are a writer? Do you plan to write of your visit to Morocco?" When I told him that I was a waiter, not a writer, and that I did not plan on writing about his country, he seemed skeptical.

"You are a writer who says he will not write?" He then muttered something in French to his partner, who was now looking at my passport. Oh, yes, I thought. French! I can explain to them my situation in French and clear things right up.

"Je n'suis pas ecrivain," I told them. And then I couldn't remember the word for "waiter" in French. "Moi, je... je... j'habite au restaurant." In my bad, nervous French, I told them that I lived in a restaurant, which wasn't too far from the truth.

Whether they believed me or felt sorry for me or both, I will never know. Once I promised them that I was in their country strictly for pleasure and that I would not write about it (or them), the man with the little stamp finally inked my passport.

So here I am, four years later, writing about it. Did they know something I didn't?

As my friends and I piled into the bus that would take us to our hotel, we began to wonder aloud what our guide would be like. We had bought out a tour group excursion and would have said guide all to ourselves. How old was he? What would he look like? Would he be hot? When we got to the hotel, we were all looking for our idealized tour guide-- an attractive 30-something Moroccan man.

And then I noticed that the only person hanging about outside the place was a young blonde woman with a clip board. She introduced herself to us. Her name was Summer. The disappointment of my little group was palpable.

"Her name is Summer? You've got to be (expletive) kidding me," whispered one friend. She was 25, from Southern California. This was her first time leading a group of tourists. It was just her luck to get handed a group of smart-assed gay men ranging in age from 34 to 50.

I knew she was going to be eaten alive. I felt sorry for her. She whisked us off to dinner and a little orientation. We followed, hungry, tired and very skeptical.

When we sat down to dinner, she began the orientation. One of my friends muttered some bitchy remark which she was more than likely meant to overhear. And then, with barely a turn of her head, she countered the attack with something that not only cut the man down to size, but had him laughing at the same time (I wish to g-d I could remember what it was). The mood of the entire room changed in an instant. Within an hour of meeting her, she had all of us eating out of the palm of her hand, which isn't too far from the literal truth, since one eats nearly everything with one's hands in Morocco.

We adored her.

Over the course of those three weeks, she hauled us from souk to souk in cities like Meknes and Fes and Rabat; showed us Roman ruins and attack geese in the still-green hills of Voulibilis; organized a birthday party with magic tricks and Berber musicians in the arid plains of Midelt; allowed us to stop play in the snow of the Atlas Mountains; took us hiking in the Todra Gorge; had us ride mangy, horny camels into the Sahara desert to sleep in the dunes under a full moon; and had us doing about a thousand other fascinating things that would require too much time to write about today.

We were overwhelmed, exhausted, and very, very happy.

My only complaint was that every activity seemed to be fueled by the consumption of tagine, kefta, and "Berber whiskey"-- otherwise known as mint tea. As over-stimulating as our trip had been, the food had become monotonous-- a hand-washing, tea-pouring, couscous-eating bore.

Until, that is, we entered the town of Ouarzazate where we embarked upon one of the most delightful and surreal lunches in my memory. If one considers that Ouarzazate is the center of the Moroccan film industry, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise. A city whose Atlas Film Studios has added footage to such films as Lawrence of Arabia, Gladiator, and Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra makes fantasy it's primary business. But our lunch had very little to do with the movies.

Instead, it had everything to do with a children's book.

"I saw a little French place down the road the last time I was here," Summer said," but it wouldn't be included in the tour price-- it will cost extra." A "civilized" luncheon at a French restaurant in the middle of the High Atlas plateau after days of hiking and sleeping on camel blankets seem appealing. We all agreed that we would pay for Summer's meal, too. We'd pay for anything-- especially if there was wine involved.

There was.

The "little French place" Summer had in mind was a shrine to Antoine de St. Exupéry, author of The Little Prince. My brother had sent me a copy of the book in the original French when I was a boy, hoping that I would someday be able to read it as well has he could. I never could keep up with him. However, that wasn't going to stop me from enjoying my lunch. I marveled at the randomness of finding such a treasure in a place that-- though very Big City to me after spending several days in the wildness of North Africa-- still felt a bit like the middle of nowhere.

As with most mysteries, however, randomness had nothing to do with it. We soon learned from the chef-owner of the restaurant, Jean Pierre, that St. Exupéry was an airmail pilot. His route took him from Marseilles to-- guess where-- Ouarzazate, Morocco. Though the mystery of its placement had been solved, that didn't make it any less marvelous in my eyes.

As we sat down to our lunch we were offered what most of us considered a minor miracle in Morocco-- a cocktail. We lubricated ourselves with gin and tonics and Americanos that were cooled with something even more miraculous, given our location-- fresh ice. In an area known as The Land of 10,000 Casbahs, I felt as if I had found just the right, need-specific oasis out of the other possible 9,999.

And while there was indeed tagine offered by Chef Jean Pierre, it was not of the customary chicken or lamb, but fresh camel. I was hoping one of my friends would order it so that I might try it and be able to honestly say that I had now ridden, smoked, worn, and eaten camel within the space of one week. I would have ordered it myself, but there was something else on the menu that held my attention:

Bastilla. Real bastilla made with real Moroccan pigeon. Of course, I thought that the pigeons caught and prepared for my meal might very well have been from some other country and merely had the misfortune of landing in the wrong spot at the wrong time, but I let that go. I was about to eat them baked with almonds, spices, and eggs into the flaky pastry of my favorite Moroccan dish of all time. And in Morocco, of all places, too. I longed to nearly suffocate myself under it's heavy layer of powdered sugar and cinnamon.

As we ate, I noticed one of the drawings from The Little Prince that hung across from me on the wall:

By the end of the meal, I knew exactly how that serpent boa felt after consuming an elephant. We gorged ourselves that afternoon.

We ate and drank and laughed. We toasted Summer, the Southern California chick who showed us more than our brains could ever process, who mothered us and kicked our asses, taught us how to say "No!" to the annoying street children who were always trying to sell us packets of facial tissue, and gave us an absolutely unforgettable experience.

So, shukran, Summer. Thank you very, very much. You were the nicest, most unexpected gift of all.

Bastilla

To the rest of you, I say bessah'ha, or "to your health." Eat up, habibi. The preparation of this dish is time consuming, but nonetheless simple to prepare. I couldn't find any fresh pigeon here in San Francisco willing to give up the ghost for me, as it were. Not that I'd want any of the locals to-- they all look as though they could use a trip to Lourdes. Chicken works (almost) as well. Give it a shot if you have the time and have your own Bastilla Day celebration.

There are a multitude of variations on the bastilla recipe. This happens to be one that I have culled from several different sources. As long as you've got chicken (or pigeon), turmeric, cinnamon, almonds, egg, and phyllo (Warqa is the dough traditionally used. Good luck finding it, however), you can most likely get away with calling it bastilla.

Serves 6 to 8

Ingredients:

6 to 7 chicken thighs, bone and skin on

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 onion, finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon turmeric

A good pinch of saffron

2 cinnamon sticks

About 1 1/2 cups water

3 whole eggs

1/4 cup currants, soaked in orange blossom water

1 tablespoons orange blossom water

1/2 cup slivered almonds

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons butter

1 box of phyllo pastry (because you will invariable rip several sheet to shreds if you're anything like me.)

Powdered sugar

Powdered cinnamon

1 egg lightly beaten with about a teaspoon of water (for egg wash)

Preparation:

1. In a medium-sized Dutch oven (historically, the Dutch have had no significant political or economic interest in Morocco, so this is a good, neutral vessel), heat olive oil and brown the chicken thighs in two batches over medium high heat. Remove chicken and add onions to cook briefly (but do not brown). Return all of the chicken to your pot, covering the onions. Add enough water to the pot to nearly cover about 3/4 of the chicken (we're braising here, not boiling), then add the cinnamon sticks, powdered ginger, turmeric, and saffron. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to a gentle simmer. Cover and cook for about 45 minutes, periodically rotating the chicken in the liquid.

2. When the chicken is tender enough to separate easily from the bone with a fork, remove and set aside, let cool and shred the meat. Remove cinnamon sticks and discard. Look at your fragrant, onion and chicken fat-dotten liquid. Smell it. There is no reason to do so other than the fact that it just smells really good.

3. Take your three eggs and beat them. Not as harshly as if they had, say, committed adultery, but more roughly than if they had simply snuck a bag of Cheetos before sundown at Ramadan. Gently scramble the eggs with about 1/3 cup of the fragrant chicken liquid. Cook until curdled, but not dry, since they will continue to cook when baked into the pie. Set aside.

4. Preheat your oven to 350ºF.

5. Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a medium sauté pan. Add almonds and fry them until golden brown. Remove, pat with paper towels and toss with a tablespoon of powdered sugar, about 1/4 teaspoon of powdered cinnamon, and 1 teaspoon of orange blossom water. Can you guess what you're going to do with these next? That's correct-- you set them aside.

6. Melt the remaining 1/2 cup of butter. generously brush the inside of a 9" round baking dish or sauté pan. Open box of phyllo pastry and place sheets between two lightly dampened (clean) kitchen towels to prevent their drying out. Fold one sheet of phyllo in half and center it in the pan. Let the overhang do just that-- overhang the sides of the baking dish. Brush with butter. Take another sheet that is folded in half and place it at a 90º angle. Brush with more butter.

7. Add the shredded chicken to the pan, making a good, solid bottom layer. Sprinkle the orange blossom water-soaked currants over the chicken. Next, add the lightly scrambled eggs to cover the chicken, then add the almonds to create a final layer.

8. Fold the overhanging sides of phyllo dough over the filling and brush with butter. Add one more sheet of folded-in-half phyllo over the top. Tuck in the edges to create a smooth top. Brush with butter and then brush that with egg wash.

9. Bake for approximately 25 minutes, or until the pastry has turned golden brown. Remove from the oven. Generously dust with powdered sugar-- enough so that one might choke and cough is one stuck one's nose close enough to the pastry to inhale. Decorate in the geometric pattern of your choice with powdered cinnamon.

10. Serve to people who will look at you and say, "You made this? Wow, I didn't know anyone actually ever made this." If there is someone at your table who tells you he's not really into the sweet-and-savory combination, allow him to remain at your table because you wouldn't dream of insulting a guest in your home, but make a mental note to never invite him over again.

No, I don't have a back 40. Maybe I have a back four like you, a 4x4x4 chunk of concrete back patio in Bernal Heights, ancient cactus in one corner, Wizard-of-Oz cyclone cellar door in the other, a few beat-up chairs, windchimes, and ashtrays filling in the rest. Perfect for a garden! Last summer, my gardening lust didn't get tripped until July, when I came home with high hopes and a couple of leggy tomato plants, only to find myself running a soup kitchen for a hungry neighborhood of whiteflies and aphids. Embarassing for someone with a certificate in ecological horticulture, to say the least.

This year, I put that hard-won CASFS knowledge to use. To wit: pests prey on weak plants, plants growing out of season, deprived of the nutrients they need. A healthy eco-system is one that supports beneficial bugs and pollinators, with a mixed palette of plants and bugs that can overwhelm destructive pests. Food not lawns, sure, but flowers can be just as hard-working as veggies, pumping out the nectar that feeds the bees and wasps, and in the process both enabling plant sex and elbowing out less desirable insects. Bachelor's buttons, borage, sweet alyssum, morning glory, cosmos, sunflowers: they all bloomed and did their part, along with the stunning salpiglossis that was just there to look gorgeous.

So, what was growing in the back four by four? Tomatoes, of course, which no summer gardener can be without, even in too-chilly, too-foggy San Francisco. Not having the willpower of the Zen gardeners at Green Gulch, who bow to the powers of their surrounding cool marine winds and don't even try, I compromised with a couple of cherry tomato plants, a Chadwick Cherry (named after Alan Chadwick, mad genius and founding UCSC gardener) and a Golden Nugget, both birthed from thumb-sized starts from the Free Farmstand. The rest of the veggies came from seeds, thanks to my conviction that unless it's grown from seed, you didn't really earn it and it's not really yours.

Now, I'm not a spiritual person. Planting seeds is the closest thing I get to an expression of faith: you hold these tiny specks, all shapes and colors, and trust that they contain everything to rise into life. You slip them into the dirt, water them every morning, and the day after you've skeptically succumbed to doubt, they pop up, all fresh and new, eager to spin the whole wheel again. Samsara, sure, only it all tastes really, really good.

What I grew, all in containers using just potting soil, encouraging words, and (no, I'm not proud, but I'm honest) the occasional dose of Miracle-Gro, along with size-10 sneakers unashamed to stomp on lettuce-munching caterpillars: French Baby Nantes carrots, which stayed pinkie-sized but were amazingly sweet and crunchy; sugar snap peas, prolific and delicious, despite a leaf-devouring case of fog-borne powdery mildew; the aforementioned Golden Nugget and Chadwick Cherry tomatoes; African blue basil, skimpy-leaved but prolific in pretty mauve flower spikes; tiny whorls of green and red container lettuce, mostly eaten by those effing caterpillars; and of course, early summer's fingerling potatoes.

My old pals Sally and Christina, who came over to photograph, then eat, that first potato crop, came by again to dine on the fruits of the Summer Salad Project, augmented by a variety of local items. There was some crusty sourdough flatbread I'd made from locally grown and milled grains: whole-wheat flour from Eatwell Farm and cornmeal from Erin at Ridgecut Gristmills, glossed with olive oil from McEvoy Ranch near Petaluma and flavored with summer savory from a Marquita Farm mystery box.

With it went garden antipasti: the five ripe cherry tomatoes we could pick, a handful of sugar-snap peas and baby carrots, sheep's milk ricotta from West Marin's Bellwether Farms and a bowl of homemade mayonnaise. And Julia Child's advice aside, you don't even need to warm the bowl; as long as you go slow whisking in the oil in the beginning, making mayonnaise is a snap. All it takes is olive oil, lemon juice, salt, egg yolks, a little mustard, a whisk and three or four minutes' worth of patience.

There were also deviled eggs made using more of that mayonnaise, because who doesn't love a deviled egg? For dinner, garlicked-and-lemoned greens, made from a mixture of erbette chard, radish and beet greens, all pulled from the mystery box, and the piece de resistance: a succotash of Brentwood corn mixed with roasted serrano chiles, heirloom tomatoes, basil and savory from Mariquita, plus roasted torpedo onions and fresh flageolet beans grown by Annabelle at La Tercera Farm. In our glasses went pink vin gris from Bonny Doon, bought on sale at Good Life Grocery up the street.

Now, I'm name-checking for a reason. This isn't brand-naming just for some kind of locavore dirt cred. The dinner was local on purpose, but it also wasn't particularly hard to put together, thanks to the agricultural abundance surrounding us. What was on our plates was also community through commerce; all these vegetables were the livelihoods of people I've gotten to know, even just a little, through buying their vegetables week after week, visiting their farms, walking through their fields or orchards. It doesn't take much time to put a face on your food, and to make it part of a larger web of interlocking stories and histories, a personal geography marked by olives and zucchini, the taste of a milky green wheat kernel or the sight of two tiny leaves poking up out of the dirt.

And that night, looking around the table, Christina said grace to thank the earth, the farmers, the cook, and friendship, for making it all worth it.

The best summer desserts are simple to make, portable for picnics, and highlight the season's sweet, luscious fruit. Trifle would be at the top of my own list.

While its name might lead you to think that this dish is of little consequence, it belongs in the pantheon of fantastic frugal food, along with panzanella (another wonderful summer dish) and pain perdue (good anytime of the year or day). Back when little bits of bread or cake were far too valuable to toss away, even if stale as a board, cooks invented ingenious ways to use up every last crumb. Dry cake has a way of soaking up endless flavor and, in the process, transforming itself into a silken gift.

A recent pile of cake trimmings, a bit too much creme fraiche in my refrigerator, and a few overripe peaches, combined with favorite pantry staples, Knob Creek Bourbon and Sonoma Syrup, melted together into a most heavenly dessert. Sherry, amaretto, Cointreau, or even orange juice could have stood in for the simple syrup and booze, but do keep in mind that the English call this Tipsy Cake for good reason.

While trifle properly appears in a glass-footed, straight-sided bowl, making it in a portable container means you can bring this dessert to a picnic to share its goodness.

Following its humble, serendipitous origins, I think it best to avoid recipes when making trifle, as no two will be the same. (Otherwise, you've actually gone out to buy all the ingredients rather than looking around your kitchen for odds and ends to use up.) A quick run to the corner store is fine for one or two, but if you're ticking off every ingredient on the list while at a grocery store, then you've kinda, sorta lost the heart of this dish.

MAKING SUMMER TRIFLE

What you'll need:

1. Enough stale cake or cookies to fill 1/3 of your container.

2. Enough fresh, summer fruit to fill another 1/3. If you don't have enough, good-quality jam is good, too.

3. Enough yogurt, whipped cream, mascarpone, creme fraiche or similar creamy ingredient to fill the final 1/3.

4. Booze or juice sweetened gently with simple syrup or sugar or jam.

5. If desired, flavorful gilding such as vanilla, citrus zest, fresh herbs or cocoa powder.

Like a lasagna, it's all about layering and eyeballing. The most important steps are making sure the cake gets brushed with plenty of liquid and that it's in direct contact with the creamy diary. That's how it will melt into lusciousness. If you're fancy, you can take extra time to arrange the fruit into colorful layers, like those sand-filled souvenirs you see at truck stops.

Finish by smoothing the top with a creamy layer. You can reserve a few pieces of fruit for garnish later, or enjoy -- like I do -- that lovely expanse of white that magically hides so many layers beneath.

Now comes the tough part: waiting. The trifle needs its beauty rest just like we do. A four-hour nap in the fridge will bring together the ingredients, but eight hours is what it really needs, if not a full-on, twelve- to twenty-four hour deep sleep. After that, a few serving bowls and spoons are all you need to serve and enjoy.

Sometimes it's best not to tell your dinner guests what you are about to serve them.

Sometimes you should just watch their eyes light up as they try that first bite, and then reveal what you've prepared.

This is one of those dishes.

Tonnato, otherwise known as tuna sauce, is a classic summer dish from the Piedmont of Italy, the northwestern part of the boot.

The Piemontese have been making tuna sauces for centuries. Sophisticated food lovers flock to the Piedmont every year, partly to try distinct regional dishes such as vitello tonnato (veal with tuna sauce).

Yet if you were to tell your dinner guests that you were serving whipped tuna and anchovies as part of an appetizer, some of them might be tempted to say, "Can we just move onto the entree?"

Although there are endless variations on tonnato, every recipe I've seen includes tuna, anchovies, capers, olive oil and some type of acid, either lemon juice and vinegar.

At Oliveto, the restaurant where I work in Oakland, Chef Paul Canales makes a silky smooth tonnato by blending the basic ingredients with trickles of cream and olive oil.

At a recent dinner, we served it with sugar snap peas, cauliflower and other vegetables.

There are other interpretations. Vintage recipes call for whipped hard-boiled eggs in a tonnato, whereas some modern recipes include mayonnaise (homemade only, please). Jacques Pepin adds a little Dijon mustard to his tonnato, a French corruption that would likely spark riots in Italy.

Whatever the combination, your goal is to create a glistening sauce that is rich with the flavor of tuna, seasoned by background notes of capers and anchovy.

My version has a more rustic texture than what is served at Oliveto, but it is similar in taste and execution. You can see how I served the sauce with some vegetables from my garden, including squash, green beans and tomato.

Feel free to put your own twist on this dish and accompany it with a variety of vegetables or meats, such as chicken or turkey. But try not to skimp on the basic ingredients. High-quality tuna (or canned tuna), anchovies, capers and olive oil are essential.

Dijon mustard? Only if you want to trigger a riot.

Tonnato with Summer Vegetables

Serves: 6-8 appetizer-size portions

Ingredients:
12 ounces of fresh ahi tuna (or canned tuna)
6 anchovy fillets, rinsed and dried
1/4 cup olive oil or more
1/2 cup cream or an equal amount of milk and unsalted butter at room temperature
3 tablespoons capers
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Vegetables of your choice
Salt and pepper

Preparation:

1. Cut up and cook your vegetables, either by steaming or blanching. Try to include some that remain crunchy, like string beans or carrots and cook them in separate batches until just tender. Plunge in an ice bath and drain.

2. If using fresh tuna, add oil and tuna steaks to a skillet and heat until just barely bubbling. Maintain that gentle heat, turning once or twice until tuna is just cooked through. Do not overcook.

3. Add tuna and oil (or canned tuna) to blender or food processor. Add other ingredients, except for vegetables, and blend until smooth. Add additional cream or milk if mixture is too thick. [edited for clarity]

4. Your final sauce should be smooth enough to barely pour, without being runny. If still too thick, add more olive oil. (Go on. Just add it. It's good for you.)

5. After checking for seasoning, pour or spoon your tonnato onto a plate, arrange your vegetables in an artistic fashion and serve.

Note: Tonatto can be made in advance and refrigerated for a day or two. The flavors will meld and enrich the sauce. Bring to room temperature and rewhip before serving.