Summer

If there’s one thing I learned about food while living in North Carolina, it’s that anything can be battered and fried: steak, okra, pickles. Heck, even butter, as Paula Deen, proved, can be battered and fried.

It’s not just Southerners though. Americans love battering and frying all types of foods. New Englanders have fried clams. Midwesternerns have fried pork. Southwesterners have fried chiles. Texans have fried Coca-Cola. Seriously.

Yet, of all these devilishly fried, crispy treats, corn fritters may just be the best. Tender sweet corn is encased in a pillow of sweet batter and fried until doubled in size and tantalizingly golden and crunchy.

With sweet corn season upon us, there is no better time to make Crispy Corn Fritters with Chipotle Cream Cheese Dipping Sauce. They’re impossibly simple to make and impossible to resist.

A friend of mine from NYC called the other day to ask which pie bakery I preferred. He had guests from Norway stopping by that afternoon for coffee and wanted to offer them a slice of “American pie”.

When he told me a whole pie from a bakeshop would cost anywhere from $35-$65, I suggested he take a quick lesson in pie making and bake one himself. He had 3 hours before they arrived and I was convinced I could help him get a pie, prepped, baked, and on a cooling rack before they rang his buzzer.

I quickly emailed this recipe for Best Ever Blueberry pie and he raced to his local grocery store to pick up everything we needed, (including a pie plate). With the help of Skype, I coached him through the basic steps (he saved time with a ready-made pie crust) and the pie was in the oven in no time.

There's nothing better than the smell of a freshly baked pie and this one is certain to please any guest.

Here it is, the perfect appetizer for your Labor Day Weekend ~ Last Hurrah of Summer bash. There are many reasons this dish is awesome, but reason numero uno (besides taste) is its simplicity. You can make as many as you need, it's ready in minutes and you have the grill going anyway.

And, if your grill-centric partner won't let you near the flames, it's even better. You can send this appetizer outside for them to whip-up, while you finish meal prep in the kitchen. It's also vegetarian, vegan, non-dairy, (sub in vegan-non-dairy veggie cheese) gluten-free, kosher...making it easy to serve to a crowd who have all kinds of dietary restrictions.

A fun variation would be a hot sauce bar, where everyone can choose their level of heat. Since we like it spicy at the Noble Pig house, we chose Sriracha...and it was fantastic.

Magical things happen when you grill an avocado. The buttery inside becomes even creamier and the flesh is infused with the smokiness of the grill. Since the avocado already has a high fat content, sprinkling lime on top is all that's necessary before placing it on the grill.

I’ve toured enough strawberry fields and interviewed enough growers in my lifetime to realize this: sometimes strawberries blow your mind and sometimes strawberries leave you with that “meh” feeling. And the difference isn’t something you spot visually – sometimes even the most anemic-looking berries can pack a flavor punch while large beautiful red ones can leave you wanting more.

While it’s true that strawberries can grow year round here in California it doesn’t always mean they taste great. For the record I’m not a snob and will buy berries all year long if needed but it doesn’t always make me happy. But you know what makes me happy? When things are in season, when berries taste like berries and not flavored lipstick, and just a simple preparation is enough to seal the deal.

Strawberry Shortcake is one of my favorite desserts. It’s perfect really. A small cake or biscuit, strawberries, some syrup and whipped cream. What is not to love? But like most desserts the quality of the ingredients is paramount. No amount of perfect strawberries can save a hockey puck and why go through the trouble of creating a perfect biscuit if you only top it with substandard berries? It’s just not worth it.