We’re marking the Fourth of July with Santa Rosa plums from Al Courchesne’s Frog Hollow Farm, in northern California. Frog Hollow has been supplying the Bay Area with organic fruit for more than 20 years, and if you miss their crop of Santa Rosas, don’t despair—there are plenty more summer offerings to come. Santa Rosa is what […]

Strawberry shortcake has its place. I’m not saying it doesn’t. But if you are inclined to take the path of least resistance, then it’s hard to beat strawberries macerated in a little sugar, orange juice, and Madeira or Sherry. This is far from a new idea. Stephen Schmidt, culinary historian, cooking teacher, and author of […]

Coleslaw gives coolness and snap to almost any summer meal. It transcends the categories of salad, side, relish, sandwich topping with confidence and ease. And as with other age-old dishes, variations abound. Here are three of my favorites. Craig Claiborne’s coleslaw, below, is an homage to the straightforward type you’ll find in Goldsboro, North Carolina, a […]

June 10 was National Black Cow Day, and even though we celebrated in style, I realized I don’t really need a reason to pop the cap off a frosty bottle of root beer. The most sentimental of soft drinks, it reminds me of backyard picnics on a chenille bedspread, Sunday afternoons at a minor league […]

Nothing pitches me headfirst into gloom faster than Labor Day. I will chirk up once it’s October—always such a golden month—but for now, I am holding on tight to summer. The peaches are wonderful. The tomatoes are delicious. The corn—even that bought on the fly in a suburban supermarket—is juicy and full of farm-stand flavor. […]

Stewed tomatoes are delicious hot, cold, or at room temperature. This makes them convenient to have on hand during a hurricane—or whenever you’ve been too greedy at a farm stand and consequently find yourself on the home front with lots (and lots) of tomatoes turning soft-ripe at precisely the same moment. Botanically speaking, tomatoes are […]

The neat, workmanlike, and—let’s face it—really cute bunches of onions stopped me in my tracks. Vince D’Attolico, delighted at my reaction, unloaded the last of the crates from his Hudson Valley farm and stood back from his stand at Union Square to gauge the overall effect. “It’s a Dutch variety I haven’t tasted for twenty […]

Summer weekends are for rusticating. Sometimes, we head down to visit friends in southwestern Virginia, where a typical Saturday might be spent mowing a field, hiking up to the Blue Ridge Parkway … or lolling in a porch swing with an absorbing read and a long, tall glass of something cold. Dinner is straightforward, often […]

  Up until the late ’80s or so, the only parsley you would see in its raw form in this country was a jaunty boutonnière (or prom-worthy corsage) of curly parsley on dinner plates across the land. My mother even garnished our meals with the stuff, turning my little brother’s intense love of a record album […]

I call New York City home, but I’m not from here. I grew up south of the Mason-Dixon, which is why I treasure the fact that local lettuces are available at the Greenmarket for most of the summer. Long after what I consider an early crop has disappeared, a variety like French Crisp, from grower Keith Stewart in […]