Summer

A quick almond crust gets filled with ice cream and topped with cardamom-scented whipped cream and berries.

This salsa is chock-full of sun-loving ingredients like tomatoes, olives and capers. It's a splendid accompaniment to grilled halibut steaks, pork chops, sliced eggplant or sourdough bread.

This salad makes a lovely side dish at summer barbecues.

I line the buttered pans with buttered wax paper, then flour them, to make unmolding the cakes easy after baking.

Torquato Innocenti, who sells his just-harvested, still-prickly zucchini — with flowers attached, a sure sign of freshness — offered me simple advice for the vegetable. Roast them whole in a "puddle" of oil and serve with basil. I bought a bag of his smallest (cigar-size) zucchini, pan-roasted them until browned sprinkled them with chopped basil — and loved the results. Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Terrific for a first course or a side dish, this recipe is adapted from the lobster succotash at Kinkead's in Washington, D.C. Chef Bob Kinkead's original uses chunks of lobster, which can be substituted for the large shrimp called for here.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Instead of using a pastry bag to pipe the meringue for the baskets, just snip a corner off a resealable plastic bag. Begin preparing this one day ahead.

Puntarelle (a Catalonian chicory) with anchovy dressing is a classic Roman dish. We have substituted celery for the puntarelle because the latter is not widely available in this country*. Active time: 45 min Start to finish: 1 3/4 hr

After experiencing a dazzling meal and the gracious hospitality of Martín Berasategui, one of the top Basque chefs, at the restaurant that bears his name in Lasarte-Oria, he gave us a final taste of his talent in a wonderfully refreshing granizado de cava. The following concoction I devised is very nearly the same, and surprisingly simple.

Part of the allure of this very grown-up dessert is its texture, which is softly set, rather than bouncy like Jell-O.

Assemble this modern take on a classic English dessert the day before to allow the juices to be absorbed. Look for the soft ladyfingers in the cookie or specialty foods aisle of the supermarket.

This refreshing and truly sparkling dessert adds glamour to any summer dinner. If you can't find Prosecco, use any fruity sparkling wine, such as Asti Spumante.