Starter

If you'd like to make the jalapeño-lime butter one day ahead, use a broiler or gas burner to char the chiles and save the grill prep for the corn.

Most people are familiar with confit duck legs, but the French confit the gizzards, too. Active time: 30 min Start to finish: 30 min

A fruity, spicy Sauvignon Blanc would be perfect with this elegant dish.

"Many of the everyday dishes I made when I was raising my daughters are recipes I learned from my mother while I was growing up in the suburbs of Paris," writes Fanny Carroll of Eugene, Oregon. "She was quite a cook, and with a husband and seven kids to feed, everything had to be fast. It's nice that the dishes I learned as a girl are enduring favorites in my own family. I still make the carrot and rice soup for my daughter Eileen." A colorful soup that's smooth and rich.

Spicy and sweet, this unusual salad would be ideal with grilled chicken or fish.

This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Arabs brought the eggplant to Sicily in the late tenth century and, in fact, the Italians once called eggplant radice arabica, or Arab root. It is an integral ingredient in Sicilian cuisine, and the variety of recipes featuring it — the most famous being caponata — is astounding. Sicilians often serve room-temperature vegetable preparations as appetizers. In this one, a caper-flavored tomato sauce "blankets" the eggplant.

Tartines de Caviar à la Crème Aigre Active time: 25 min Start to finish: 25 min

Serve our Sophisticated Stir-Fried Rice with these irresistible ribs and wash it all down with cold Chinese beer. Buy green tea ice cream and fortune cookies for dessert.

In 1917, a society grande dame asked Julius Keller, maître d’ of the Casino restaurant in New York, to surprise her with a new dish. Keller presented clams baked on the half shell, topped with minced bell pepper, herb butter and bacon. By the twenties, Clams Casino, as Keller called it, was ubiquitous on restaurant menus. Here is a lightened version with great lively flavors.

We loved L.A. chef Mary Sue Milliken's crisp baked-tortilla crackers in her pool-party menu (August 2000). Here, we invent our own version of them.

Active time: 45 min Start to finish: 45 min We created this recipe using Louis P. De Gouy's article on green salad and agree with the quote he includes from Fred Allen: "A salad should be dressed like Dorothy Lamour — adequate but lightly."

This dish uses three vegetable-bin staples: onions, celery, and carrots. If you don't have any canned broth on hand, dissolve a bouillon cube in water.