Summer

Eggs, sugar, and flour in equal measure are the basis of this simple cake, which bakes in just 20 minutes and can be filled with fruit or berries in season.

This will impress your guests when you want something extra special to serve for brunch on a summer morning during blueberry season. I sometimes make an extra cake just for backup and keep it well wrapped in a round metal tin in the freezer.

This salad is wonderful served warm or at room temperature with French bread and a green salad.

Roasting concentrates the flavor of tomatoes in this light, refreshing, easy-to-make soup. It’s irresistible either hot or cold.

Here’s a soup for late summer when eggplants, tomatoes, and red peppers are luscious and ripe. Top the soup with a dollop of plain yogurt and pesto for added zip.

Serve small wedges as an appetizer or large wedges for a vegetarian main dish.

Roasting brings out the sweetness of vegetables and intensifies their fresh flavors. Vary the vegetables if you wish, but follow this general pattern: Roast the vegetables, remove skins if necessary, puree, and flavor the puree with fresh herbs or garlic. Serve over hot pasta or use as a sauce for lasagna.

Eggplant, zucchini, sweet onions, and tomatoes all roasted together thicken by themselves to make a deeply flavored sauce for pasta. It’s a meal that’s ready in less than half an hour.

Semolina cooked in cream becomes a thick, delicious porridge, with an almost puddinglike consistency, that can be enjoyed many ways. In Sardinia I have had it as an appetizer with honey drizzled on top, and as a dessert with a sauce of mirto, or myrtle. I loved both! And I’ve made it as a warm breakfast treat, too. Here I give you mazzafrissa as a dessert, with a lovely blueberry sauce (strawberries or cherries or other seasonal berries would be good, too). Scoop the warm cereal into serving bowls and top with the blueberry sauce, or serve the sauce on the side and let your guests help themselves.

Our friend Franco Azzara made this memorable pasta dish for us during a recent visit to his home in the Gallura region of Sardinia. I marveled at how quickly he put it together, and at the complex flavor of the raw sauce—just fresh tomatoes, basil and mint, and other savory seasonings, whipped up in a food processor, no cooking necessary. I thank him for sharing this Azzara family recipe, one that I know you will enjoy both for its ease and convenience and for its brilliant flavors.

Throughout southern Italy, almond-stuffed figs are a traditional holiday treat, made in every household to offer visiting family and friends. Makes sense for a region that historically had little wealth, and where figs and almonds were abundant and always stored for winter use. Figs and almonds are also a naturally delicious pairing, in my opinion. Though it is not fancy, a dried fig with a single toasted almond tucked into it is transformed into a delicious sweet. In Calabria, though, the preparation of stuffed figs, fichi ripieni, is not always so simple. The region’s figs are prized for their excellence, both fresh and dried. And especially in the northern province of Calabria—in the area of Sibari, where figs grow best—they’re stuffed in all sorts of ways, with different nuts, spices, sweetenings, cocoa, or candied fruits. All of these flavorful ingredients are mixed together to make the stuffing for fichi ripieni alla Sibarita, figs stuffed Sibari-style, considered one of Calabria’s signature dishes. There are many versions of this classic. In most, the figs are baked after stuffing, usually with saba (cooked grape must) or other syrup. Sometimes the figs are then packed in some preserving medium for long storage and more flavor, such as saba, spiced sugar, or sweetened liquor. My version is really a dessert, best served right away. The stuffed figs are baked in a pool of pomegranate and lemon juice, which concentrates in the oven into a luscious thick syrup that I drizzle over the warm figs. It’s a great dessert anytime of year, but particularly during the holidays it has the spirit of an old Italian custom.

When summer is in full swing and there are mounds of beautiful purple eggplants available, here’s a wonderfully refreshing salad you can make. Since the eggplant is poached rather than fried, it is a light and healthful dish. The flavors and textures of the eggplant, onion, and potato are harmonious, but you can use fewer or no potatoes and more eggplant.

The traditional Ligurian bread salad condiggion was the highlight of the meal we had in the Cinque Terre a few years ago (as I mentioned in the introduction to this chapter). With many textures from crunchy vegetables, vinegar-soaked bread, and tangy greens, and layers of flavor in the basil and olive-oil dressing—and a shower of dried tuna roe, bottarga, providing a touch of salt and sea—this has become one of my favorite summer salads. It is exceptionally flavorful and refreshing, and a great accompaniment to the grilled meat and fish that I prepare in summer. This salad is also open to variation, so use your favorite greens, vegetables, and even bread. I find that curly chicory, green and bitter, makes the best salad, but you can play with other seasonal greens you find in the market. And if you have some day-old whole-wheat or multigrain bread, that could be delicious here, too. Just make sure it is dry enough to be revitalized by the vinegar and dressing (if too fresh, it will crumble into mush at the bottom of the bowl). In Liguria, where bottarga is a common flavoring element, it is essential to the salad. If you have some, by all means use it (and keep it wrapped well and frozen for long storage). Otherwise, chopped anchovies are a good final addition to the salad, if you yearn for that salty fish flavor, as I do.

He was the chairman of the Board, new Jersey's favorite son (other than me), Nancy's dad, and perhaps the greatest interpreter of the American popular songbook ever to have lived. He was a heartthrob (although my mother always said he was so skinny he had to leave the hangers in his jackets to have shoulders) and he was a serious actor—anyone who saw him in The Man with the Golden Arm can attest. He took home the Oscar for From Here to Eternity in 1954 and gave memorable performances in the musicals On the Town and Guys and Dolls. But it is Sinatra's music that endures. if you don't love his albums Frank Sinatra Sings for Only the Lonely, Come Fly with Me, September of My Years, and the samba record Francis Albert Sinatra & Antonio Carlo Jobim, you just don't get it. In fact, if you don't like those records, you don't deserve his lamb recipe.

This is a good summer recipe. I sear the chops briefly on a very hot grill and then transfer them to a warm oven, where they continue to cook slowly in their own residual heat. The sauce, a simple mixture of onion, capers, lemon juice, and olive oil, is made separately and the chops are coated with it before they are served. Be sure you don't overcook the chops. Although veal is not served rare, as beef is, it should be slightly pink inside and juicy throughout. Chicken or even a piece of fish also goes well with the caper and sage sauce.

-Gazpacho can be made ahead and frozen. Defrost in the fridge overnight.
-Mayonnaise is an unusual ingredient, but we like the creaminess it adds to the soup.
-For 2 you will need 4 tomatoes, 1 small cucumber, and 1 small red bell pepper. For 6, you will need 12 tomatoes, 1 cucumber and 1 red pepper.

This is an adaptation of a recipe created by our local berry farm.

Texas is proud of its peaches. They're soft, juicy, floral, and sweet, and the best I've ever tasted. During the season, when you travel through lush Hill Country Texas towns such as Fredericksburg, or Central Texas towns such as Fairfield, you won't be able to go a mile without seeing a roadside stand or pickup truck filled with baskets of this cherished summertime treat. We also have a peach tree at my grandma's North Texas farm, and every July it delivers a bounty of peaches that she'll put up for later in the year. Pickling fruit is a common method of fruit preservation in Texas. Yes, there's vinegar involved, as with other types of pickles. But you also add enough sugar and warm spices to give the fruit a balance of both acidity and sweetness. If you've never tried pickled fruit, you'll be pleasantly surprised. Pickled peaches are perhaps my favorite fruit to preserve, as I love how the peaches' sweet juice combines with the piquant brine. Of course, I've added a bit of heat to my peaches, which is decidedly not traditional, but I find that the habanero's flowery notes go very well with the peaches' floral tones. These go well with a bowl of ice cream, on top of your morning oatmeal, with a freshly baked biscuit, or yes, simply eaten straight out of the jar.

Christensen's vinegary, buttery, barely cooked greens stay bright in color and flavor.