Summer

How much watermelon does the average American consume each year? (answer below)

A. 6 pounds
B. 16 pounds
C. 38 pounds
D. 312 pounds

I love eating plain watermelon in its simple, sweet glory, but it’s also fantastic in savory dishes. The key is to pair it with contrasting flavors such as salty cheeses, bitter salad greens, acidic vinegars, or smoky grilled meats to balance the watermelon's sweetness.

In fact, why not try something different for this summer – like my new Grilled Steak Tacos with Watermelon-Mango-Jicama Salsa? For this dish, char-grilled steak is topped with a sweet and tangy watermelon salsa and crumby Mexican cheese. This salsa is so refreshing that you may want to make extra so your guests can dunk their tortilla chips in it while they're waiting for the steak to grill.

To be honest, I haven't been feeling very inspired in the kitchen lately. I've been busy with lots of things including travel, and when I'm home I've been trying to eat the food in the freezer since it is on the verge of overflowing. But yesterday I was at the store and I found local king salmon on sale and some beautiful white corn. I thought about the mango I had and just like that, a plan came together.

Sometimes ingredients speak to you and the lightbulb goes off. I diced the mango to serve with dessert a few nights before but it was firm and a little too sour. That's not good for dessert but it's excellent for salsa. The salsa can be used with chips, with roast chicken or scallops. It's actually pretty good without the tomatoes too. I was a little undecided as to which way I preferred it, so try it both ways and you tell me which you like better!

This recipe has a lot of parts, but you can make the salsa and the sauce for drizzling ahead of time. You can even use already cooked salmon if that's what you have on hand. Even though it's cooked on the stove and not on the grill, it really tastes like summer--the fresh corn, tomatoes and salmon look like summer too. Here's to a little summery inspiration!

Strawberry Shortcake seemed to always mark the beginning of summer when I was growing up.

Although we get strawberries almost year round in California, they always taste best in early summer. We always made our “shortcake” with biscuits.

This is a pretty foolproof method. When you stir slightly cooled melted butter into cold buttermilk, the butter will clump.

Although this might look like a mistake, it's one of the secrets to this recipe.

Everyone has their favorite recipes. Whether they come from dogeared books or handwritten on yellowed paper or even crinkled laser print-outs, these recipes become favorites in the kitchen and almost become a part of us. I have several that I rely on regularly but none as much as this recipe. It’s a key player in my arsenal of recipes that first appeared in the July edition of Gourmet Magazine from 2006. I remember making it three years ago and completely falling in love with it.

A simple pasta dish of angel hair and the best, ripest tomatoes you can find (heirlooms work perfectly!) make for a really simple supper because there’s no cooking involved except for boiling the pasta. And in the dead of summer the last thing anyone wants to do is turn on the oven or stand over a stove cooking for an hour. That’s why this is such a perfect recipe that I’ll usually make weekly from now until the end of August. It tastes like summer.

It’s pretty foolproof and it’s all about technique here. Two-thirds of the super-ripe tomatoes get diced while the rest get grated with a box grater using the large holes. Pulp, juice and chop make the sauce here and the addition of lemon juice and salt give it that zing. I’ve made it with and without the sugar, that’s mostly a matter of personal preference. The recipe also says it can be made 2 hours in advance but that’s about it. It’s meant to be enjoyed relatively quickly.