Summer

It's almost the end of summer, which likely means you're sunburned, overtired, and ready for your kids to go back to school. I'm here to help. Are you ready for some relaxation? Here's what you need to do:

1. Make a batch of this Sparkling Rosemary-Ginger Lemonade and refrigerate it. Chill a tall glass in the freezer, and fill it with the ginger lemonade.

2. Find a comfy hammock or chaise lounge, preferably in a shady spot. Recline on it while sipping your ginger lemonade.

3. Tell your significant other, your kids, the dog to leave you alone. OK, maybe not the dog.

4. Listen to the hum of bees. Smell the sharp scent of freshly cut grass. Watch the clouds float by. It's a lazy summer day. Make the most of it.

5. If you're still not relaxed, pour yourself a second glass of ginger lemonade and add a shot of vodka or gin. Repeat steps 2-4.

Always on the hunt for an easy to make ingredient, I discovered roasted tomatoes a few years ago. With several left over after a dinner party, I decided a little experimentation was in order. I discovered that roasted tomatoes served up countless uses and, because they freeze well, they can be pulled out at the last minute and added to soups, stews, and sauces.

Incredibly versatile, roasted tomatoes work as a side dish as well as the basis for sauces. Cold, they can be tossed with cucumbers and onions for a salad. Peeled and chopped, they add body and flavor to stews, soups, and pastas.

Ripe and over ripe tomatoes work best. If you shop at farmers' markets, keep an eye out for discounted tomatoes. This week at the Santa Monica Farmers' Market, tomatoes were selling for $2.50 - $3.50/pound, but the over ripe ones were priced at 60 cents/pound.

When they're roasting, tomatoes give off a clear liquid. The flavor is pure essence of tomato. The liquid can be used separately to flavor a simple pasta or as a final basting on a grilled meat. The wonderful chef, cookbook writer, and founder of Fra'Mani, Paul Bertolli was famous for hanging tomatoes in cheese cloth and capturing the clear tomato water that he called "the blood of the fruit."

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.

I think I've hit the ice cream jackpot...I can't tell you how fantastic this is, as weird as it might sound. However, it never sounded weird to me. I mean there is nothing new about sweet corn ice cream, I just wanted blueberry in it. Have you ever had a sweet corn and blueberry salad? It's amazing, just as I knew this ice cream would be. First of all, the ice cream turns this beautiful lavender color and is flecked with pieces of frozen corn and sweet blueberries. It's almost savory-sweet but it's not. In fact it's the perfect amount of sweetness. I want you all to try it so badly.

I have to say, I started making this ice cream at 10PM (in my favorite ice cream maker), it seems to be the only time these days when I have cooking availability. For some crazy reason (oh yeah, it's summer), my boys were still awake. They asked what type of ice cream I was making, I purposefully told them "corn" ice cream, just to see their reaction. You should have seen the horror in their faces. Corn! They couldn't believe it. I love scaring them.