Lemon

This is fantastic on fresh pumpernickel or rye bread for lunch; or spread it on fresh Italian bread to serve with light pasta dishes.

A somewhat more exotic salsa, this jazzes up meals with a tropical beat. See the menu with Gingered Coconut Rice, page 96. Serve with tortilla chips or as a condiment with spicy dishes.

One of my favorite ways to use summer’s heavenly ripe tomatoes is to toss them, uncooked, with warm pasta.

It goes without saying that this is best made with fresh, just-off-the-vine tomatoes!

A contemporary stripped-down fruit dessert that is so unbelievably good, with very few ingredients.

Lemon and blueberry are a perfect pair, like Bert and Ernie. You will need a 10 1/2-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Serve this year round.

I order steak tartare in restaurants whenever it’s on the menu. When you serve it at home it’s important to seek a fine butcher who can provide you with the best-quality beef. You can make the Parmigiano baskets the morning of the party and store them covered at room temperature; they will still have an amazing snap hours later. The trick for success with this is not to use “green can” grated cheese, which will not melt evenly; you have to buy the good stuff. Once you get the hang of making Parmigiano-Reggiano frico you can really crank them out. The tops of water or soda bottles are ideal for forming the Parmigiano cups. I also like to make flat frico as a crunchy garnish for Caesar salads.

This is an easy recipe for a late summer backyard feast. Steamed lobster, lemony butter, and a few cold beers: That’s love. Special equipment needed: kitchen shears, tongs, crackers, bibs, and a napkin to wipe your chin.

Fresh Prince Edward Island mussels are God’s gift to an appetizer menu. This dish has worked in every restaurant that I’ve been involved with and people just love it. If you don’t have saffron, it’s okay—but the curry is a must. I like serving grilled bread with this for sopping up the delicious broth.

These are scones, not stones, the hard, crumbly things you may be used to. Avoid using frozen blueberries because the color bleeds too much into the dough and spoils the look of the scone. This is a side note to all the guys out there. If you bring your woman warm blueberry scones for breakfast in bed, you’ll thank me later.

One trick that I learned a long time ago about cooking pork is that you have to brine it. The brine for this recipe is a sugar-salt solution mixed with apple juice concentrate (you will need 2 cans of frozen juice) for the brine and spiced apples. With its sweet apple flavor, this is an intense marinade that works miracles on pork chops. Trust me—once you taste a thick pork chop that’s been flavored in a brine, you will never go back. Cozy up to your butcher to get the pork chops cut to your liking. Thin pork chops—no way! Serve this with Corn Pudding (page 236).

Give yourself plenty of time to marinate the chicken; I usually do this the morning I plan to serve it. The smashed broccoli and garlic remind me of the soft, overcooked vegetables of my youth. It’s mushy and satisfying. To me, chicken and broccoli is a classic combination that doesn’t need rice or potatoes to go with—it’s perfect the way it is.

These are shaped rather than rolled cookies. To shape even-sized cookies it is helpful to use a #40 ice cream scoop that measures exactly 1 tablespoon of dough. Arrange the oven racks so they are evenly spaced. This works best for most cookies and multiple pans will bake evenly at the same time.

Long, slow baking in the convection oven produces a beautiful cake, one that has a silky texture. A bit of flour in the mixture makes the cake easier to cut. This makes a large cheesecake, ideal for a party. Top it with fresh berries in season or use one of the variations below.

This moist, even-textured cake is wonderful served plain with a cup of herbal tea. When raspberries are in season, top slices with the berries. To gild the lily, add a dollop of whipped cream.