Summer

Poke Cake was created by Jell-O in 1969 to help increase sales of their product. I saw this recipe on a cooking show a couple of months ago, and they had updated the method to include real strawberries (and less Jell-O) which made the dessert more appealing to me.

Although it’s great summer dessert, you can make all year round because it uses frozen strawberries. Note: The top of the cake will look slightly overbaked—this keeps the crumb from becoming too soggy after the gelatin is poured on top.

As far back as I can remember, every June my family would make our annual pilgrimage to Jones' Farm to pick bright red juicy strawberries. If we didn't leave with a heaping boxful then we didn't do our jobs. But as a kid I would always end up picking more for myself than for the box, eating every other berry and leaving with the tell-tale signs on my hands and face. I was just as guilty as the next kid, so actually I didn't feel that bad. Now as an adult I typically taste only one and try to keep myself from eating any more. I'm really just saving up for gorging on them in the privacy of my own home.

You really have to love strawberries to pick them yourself. After all that bending and picking, it's easy for a person to get tired. I must love them so much, because last week on a sunny yet breezy Monday morning, with the help of my mom, I picked 13 pounds of strawberries. But aren't strawberries easy to love? I don't think I know anyone who doesn't adore them. They're so sweet and mushy once you eat them. It's one of the most favorite flavors in ice cream and candy. Even lotions and some cosmetics are flavored with strawberries. That just shows you how extremely popular the flavor actually is.

Zucchini is the most versatile vegetable. On it’s own it is so-so. There is so much you can do with it. I like to pair it with grilled onions, roasted tomatoes, left over brown rice and some Parmesan cheese and bake it for an easy week night side dish.

It is great grilled; pour a little olive oil and balsamic on it with a little salt and pepper, grill it until it is slightly soft, serve it up with a yummy rib eye, mmmm. It is great in muffins and tea breads.

Yet, it is especially delicious breaded and baked. This is a great way to get the kids to eat some veggies. These are easy and delicious. No frying, they are baked and they are a perfect with almost anything.

Sweet, tender, mild, succulent, moist, and juicy. These are some words that describe one of my favorite seafoods, the scallop. I love the shape and design of their shells, which I collect, but I love the mild flavor of their meat even more. Part of the bivalve family of mollusks, these shelled creatures are prized for their tender, white meat. Harvested at sea usually by dredging the ocean floor or by diving, a more ecological method, scallops have their meat removed before arriving in markets. That is why you almost never see them in their shells.

Luckily, I have had the opportunity to see scallops in their natural yet man-made habitat. When I was a teen I worked on a scallop farm out on Long Island Sound as part of a summer aquaculture program. The scallops were housed in lantern nets, suspended directly in the sea between buoys. On reaching the farm, boatmen would lift the nets out of the sea for the students to work on. We moved the baby scallops from their crowded lantern nets into new ones that afforded them the space to grow to full marketable size. While handling them, the scallops, like toy water pistols, would squirt us with briny water. Besides not being allowed to eat the scallops, it was a fun and memorable experience.