Summer

No, this dish was not inspired by my father, Jack. It gets its name from the pepper jack cheese that you use to stuff the bologna. Many Memphis in May competition teams cook this dish at the annual World Championship and snack on it during the weeklong celebration.

The world of sausages is large and consists of any kind of meat mixture (or fish, or even vegetable if you want to get loose about it) that is stuffed into a casing, and they’ve existed as a way to preserve food—let’s be honest, it started with meat—since antiquity. Sausages encompass everything from American hot dogs to French saucisson, to German bratwurst, to Italian salami, to Portuguese chorizo, to an entire system of traditional British sausages. In southern Georgia, the sausage of choice is smoked sausage. I’m talking about Polish kielbasa-style sausage that’s made with coarsely ground pork, seasoned heavily with sage, garlic, and black pepper, and then is smoked to perfection so that it comes in big, fat, brown-red rings. It’s salty and lusty and really good with a cold pilsner. It’s also very, very versatile. Here are my two favorite ways of enjoying smoked sausage.

Coca-Cola was born in Atlanta in 1886, when pharmacist Dr. John Stith Pemberton took his new creation to Jacobs’ Pharmacy—where minutes after it was first sampled, it became a sensation. I love the stuff, in no small part because it’s a fantastic global brand from Georgia . . . just like me. What a lot of people outside of the South don’t realize is that Coke can be more than a “delicious and refreshing” drink; it’s a great ingredient to use in a marinade because it’s sweet and because the carbonation can be useful in tenderizing meat. It needs some balance, though, which is what the bacon does here: it adds a salty flavor and a crisp texture to the chicken. This dish is great for afternoon barbecues when you’re chilling by the pool. Serve it with your favorite potato salad (see page 116).

I realize that not everyone has two gooseberry bushes growing right outside his or her house, but I do, and so I give myself over on a long summer afternoon to making gooseberry jam. I never have nearly enough (and I usually double the recipe below), because I use it on so many things during the winter, always reminding me poignantly of summer days, and my friends and relatives like it so much that they all get some for Christmas. So it’s worth the effort of topping and tailing the berries and watching the pot anxiously as the berries boil. I always feel so good when the jam is finally all tucked away in jars. The gooseberries should still be green when you pick them (or buy them at a farmers’ market). If they’ve turned pink, they are too ripe and have lost a lot of their tart flavor. The jam turns mysteriously dark rose red as it cooks, so the final confection is a handsome color.

Another of the treats of summer was making ice cream, cracking up the big block of ice and taking turns with the crank—hard work that was rewarded by getting to lick the dasher when the ice cream was ready. Today we can buy convenient small ice cream makers that allow you to put the freezer bowl into the freezer so there’s no chopping of ice and the churning goes much faster. I particularly like making my own ice cream because I can use pure ripe seasonal fruits and berries and pure cream, without all the additives of candies and cookies that go into the commercial varieties today. Also, it’s a good way to preserve berries if I’ve been tempted to stop at a nearby farm where you can pick your own—and I inevitably pick more than I can eat up.

I always remember my childhood summers in Vermont as a procession of summer puddings made with raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, or currants as they came along. This old-fashioned dessert couldn’t be simpler to put together, and you can do a single portion in a small cup mold. You can even make Summer Pudding in winter when you may have bought from the local street stand more berries imported from South America than you can eat up.

I usually make these in the summer, when berries are plentiful and bursting with flavor. I gather the berries and put all the ingredients out the night before, and it takes but a few minutes to whip up the batter. Then there’s time to go for a swim and work up an appetite while the muffins bake. If you have family and guests around, just double the recipe. This more modest amount will give you a dozen mini-muffins, which I prefer, plus two regular-sized ones that I bake in small Pyrex cups. If you don’t eat them all, they freeze well.

This is a sauce to have on hand at all times. It keeps well in the refrigerator for at least a week if you film the top of it with olive oil (and refilm after you have dipped into it and taken some from the jar), and it keeps its bloom for a couple of months frozen. It’s a good idea to freeze it in an ice tray, and then store the cubes in plastic storage bags. That way, you easily can get at just the amount you need.

Recently this hard-to-pronounce French dish became a household word in America overnight, when the delightful movie Ratatouille swept the country and won our hearts. Not many Americans would begin to know how to make a ratatouille, but that such a dish had the power to evoke an overwhelming taste memory was something we could relate to. I fell in love with ratatouille when I was a jeune fille living in Paris, and I have been partial to it ever since. There is a classic way to make it—cooking each of the ingredients separately, then putting them all together—but that is time-consuming, and I’m not really sure that it produces such a superior dish. I feel that rules are made to be bent in cooking, and that there’s no harm in simplifying and putting your own imprint on a dish. So here is my version, subject to variations according to the season. I always make triple the amount I’m going to eat immediately, because I put it to so many good uses.

This is a soup I had years ago at an inn in Peacham, Vermont, when my husband, Evan, and I were looking for recipes for our book on new New England cooking. It is so delectable that every year now I celebrate the coming of the blueberries by making myself this soup. And, of course, I am blessed by having my cousin John tap our maple trees in the spring, so there is always maple syrup in my larder.

This is ideal to make when you’ve bought too much watermelon.

This is really another take on the preceding vegetable soup, but it differs enough in detail to warrant a full-dress recipe. It is without question one of my favorite soups, and I usually plant a couple of rows of leeks in my garden so I can indulge myself at a moment’s notice. This is one soup in which I prefer to use water rather than stock, so that nothing interferes with the sweet, pronounced flavor of the leeks.

This is a nice dish for summer, when zucchini is abundant and the fingerlings are delicate

Always a hit! Sandy’s version of peach cobbler starts with a layer of cakelike pastry: moist and delicious—never dry! It’s spiced with nutmeg and cinnamon to accentuate the warm flavor of the peaches and simply can’t be beat when accompanied by a scoop of ice cream. We recommend trying cinnamon ice cream for the ultimate flavor combination!

Our zucchini casserole tastes just as good as Mom’s, but we’ve trimmed out many of the calories. Rich in flavor, this dish is a perfect partner for our Mamaw’s Stuffed Peppers (page 58), Jayne’s Baked Spaghetti (page 62), and Chicken Penne Pasta with Pink Sauce (page 74).

Dill is one of our favorite summertime herbs. Its fresh, clean flavor is perfect for a flaky white fish like halibut. It’s lovely served with wild brown rice and crisp green beans. You can also make this with haddock or red snapper.

Shortcakes remind me of the ice cream socials we used to have in my small town when I was growing up. We always had strawberry shortcakes, but now I throw raspberries into my version to make them a little bit fancier and a lot more fun. I also make them free-form—by not using a biscuit cutter, I get cakes that look craggy and knobby, kind of like little toads. But they have a beautiful crumbly texture and act like sponges for the fruit juice without getting soggy. These are SOOOOO delicious that I can hoover a few of them in one sitting!