A recent dinner party at a friend’s house began with a gorgeous platter of grilled fresh sardines, golden and crisp-skinned. They were delicious, and made me feel on holiday in a Mediterranean port town. They also left me wanting more grilled fish. As luck would have it, another pal scored some line-caught black sea bass from down around […]

You may not think that green tomatoes have a season—they’re available all summer long if you have access to backyard beefsteaks—but they do, and it’s now. Farm stands are piled high with them, as growers know many of them will never completely ripen on the vine. The tomato is a tropical berry, after all, and […]

Snap beans are such a part of my summer cooking routine, it never occurred to me to write about them until now. Luckily, thanks to second plantings in July, you’ll still find bushels of them at many farmers markets for a few weeks to come. I don’t want you to miss out. I like having […]

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. […]