Summer

We live in Boston. To get ourselves through winters that go from November to May, we hold dear dreaming of warm weather. Any restaurant with two feet of sidewalk sets out tables in March. They say it's to be ready for baseball season. This is wishful thinking since there are no home games until well into April. Snow plows don't disappear until May. Still.

When we think warm weather, we want fish. We get fish all year but somehow the best time for shellfish is summer. Lobster, shrimp, crabmeat, clams and oysters are at their best when we want them most. Here's a seafood recipe with lobster, shrimp and crab that brings summer to the kitchen full blast. It goes equally well at cookouts and air-conditioned dinner parties.

From the New York Times

Summer may not be the best time to cook, but it’s certainly among the best times to eat. Toss watermelon and peaches with some ingredients you have lying around already, and you can produce a salad that’s delicious, unusual, fast and perfectly seasonal.

That’s the idea behind the 101 ideas found in this section. In theory, each salad takes 20 minutes or less. Honestly, some may take you a little longer. But most minimize work at the stove and capitalize on the season, when tomatoes, eggplant, herbs, fruit, greens and more are plentiful and excellent.

This last point is important. Not everything needs to be farmers’ market quality, but it’s not too much to expect ripe fruit, fragrant herbs and juicy greens.

Read article...

All summer long I love to make ice creams and sorbets. I use all types of fruit to create the most fantastic flavors. For ice creams, too, I enjoy creating unique flavors with herbs and spices. These frozen treats are sweet and dessert-like, but they also work to cleanse the palate after a meal. So before the warm weather ends this September, I'm using my ice cream maker one last time.

Typically ice creams are made with a custard base using sugar and egg yolks that are combined with hot milk. You get rich consistency and a luscious mouthfeel from ice cream created this way. But instead of a custard base, this recipe uses crème fraîche to create the rich texture. This French cream is cultured and has a sweet-tart flavor like a cross between cream cheese and sour cream. It makes an exceptional ice cream. But I take this dessert to the next level with the addition of lavender.

Summer is here and our bar-b-que is cleaned and ready to roll. I love summer grilling. Not just the food and the luscious flavors that come off the grill, but the whole idea of being outside. The bikes get used more, the art supplies emerge from the garage, and the use of “screens” becomes almost non-existent(the key word here is, “almost”).

Last weekend I had returned from the farmers market with enough produce to feed my entire neighborhood.  As the red, green, purple, yellow, and orange vegetables stared me in the face, I instantly knew what I wanted to do.  

I grabbed the eggplant, zucchini, purple onion, orange pepper, and a few tomatoes, sliced them and rubbed them with a bit of olive oil and red wine vinegar.  Tossed them in a bowl with Celtic sea salt and some fresh ground pepper.

The grilled ratatouille was eaten, outside, as the rest of the meal was cooking on the grill.  The kids took a few bites, shot a few baskets, then came back for more.