Citrus

The buttery sauce that coats the crabmeat and the shells is part of the pleasure of this dish; to really enjoy it, dispense with the utensils and just eat the crab with your hands. Serve with a green salad dressed with tarragon vinaigrette and plenty of crusty sourdough bread.

Low-fat and low-cal, this dish tastes lively and bright.

Like so many homemade French desserts, this pound cake, tenderized with yogurt instead of butter, is utterly simple and versatile: Enjoy a slice for breakfast with a steaming cup of coffee, or serve it after dinner with fruit coulis or whipped cream.

This colorful salad is a modern, egg-free take on the classic.

A classic served at Musso & Frank. Think of it as a Bloody Mary minus tomato juice.

Harold J. Bigley of New York, New York, writes: "A few months ago I went to a party in The Hamptons catered by Loaves & Fishes in Sagaponack. The veal chops with polenta were outstanding. Could you get the recipe?" Ask your butcher to french (trim the fat from) the bone end of the veal rib chops.

This "salsa" is actually a sort of fruit salad, but it does contain the quintessential salsa ingredients, lime juice and jalapeño peppers. The jalapeños are certainly unexpected, but they have an interesting way of intensifying the sweetness of the pineapple.

A salsa this simple lives or dies by the quality of the ingredients—ripe avocado, luscious tomato, and a sweet, crunchy ear of corn. Most of my corn salsa recipes call for grilled corn. This one features the succulent crunch of raw corn to reinforce the sweetness of the fresh avocado.

Rodolfo Lagua, a thirty-year California barbecue veteran of Filipino heritage, was the inspiration for this recipe. Lagua learned this way of preparing tri-tips from his friend Sammy Ariola, one of the area's first Filipino immigrants. "I have no money for you to inherit," said Ariola, as he lay on his deathbed, "but I'll give you the recipe for my marinade." Since then Lagua has won numerous barbecue contests with his Filipino-style tri-tips, raising thousands of dollars for Filipino community charities. He's now working on bottling the sauce commercially, once again as a fund-raiser. The interplay of salty, sweet, and sour is pure Filipino, and the lemon rind adds an intense blast of citrus flavor. I've adapted my approximation of Lagua's recipe to London broil; in the Tips [below] you'll find instructions for making tri-tips with this marinade. Lagua would serve the meat with boiled rice.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are from French Women Don't Get Fat by Mireille Guiliano. I didn't much care for fish when I was growing up, but I loved nuts. My mother knew both were essential for good nutrition, so she invented this way of slipping in the fish.

You can make this stock with a variety of fish carcasses (from nonoily fish) or with just one type — whatever your seafood market can give you. This recipe makes more stock than you'll need for the fideos with mussels , but leftovers can be frozen and used for soups, stews, and sauces.

Cachaça, a spirit made from sugarcane, gives these drinks their distinctive flavor. In Brazil it is traditional to make caipirinhas one or two at a time, as we do here. For ease of entertaining, however, you can simply combine all the ingredients in a pitcher.

A corkscrew shape gives these light cookies a new look.

This fabulous sorbet is a twist on the classic prune Armagnac ice cream. The prunes can macerate in the Armagnac indefinitely if kept in an airtight container in a cool, dark place.

This rich soup is hearty enough to serve as a main course. Dried tangerine peel and star anise impart an exotic note, and pickled mustard greens provide contrast to the beefy broth.

We love the look of fluted mushrooms in this recipe. Fluting will add about 25 minutes to your preparation time.