Summer

There’s nothing quite like this combo on a summer Pasta Night. Ricotta, basil, corn, and summer squash varieties. It’s good warm, but it’s really, really good at room temperature, when all the flavors have a chance to meld. So tonight’s a night when it’s okay if dinner gets cold—pour a glass of crisp rosé, set the table outside, and let everyone leisurely make their way to dinner.

This is a departure from my usual tomato salad, which is composed of little more than carved-up tomatoes, torn basil, salt, and olive oil. Daniel and I eat this simple salad almost every night in tomato season, since it takes about twenty seconds to assemble and has a juicy purity of tomato flavor that I can’t seem to get enough of this time of year.

In 2013, after we finished our second peach season, we took off on a five-month trip around the world, including six weeks in India. We zigzagged across the country, starting in Kolkata and ending in New Delhi, with a visit to Nepal along the way. One evening, on a rooftop in the northern city of Varanasi, we ate a peanut salad that we still think about to this day. Creating one for this cookbook felt special—a nod to that extraordinary trip and something that we really wanted to get right. We think we did. The Thai chile and basil, which can be found at your local Asian market; the fish sauce, which contributes complex salty flavors to the dish; the fresh fruits tumbled together with the crunch of peanuts—this is the magic you long for in a summery side dish.

There should be a word to describe the way the soft texture of this cake matches the flavour of the vanilla, strawberries and almonds in it. But that word doesn’t exist, so the only way to know how incredibly good this cake tastes is to go into the kitchen and make it. If you come up with a word for it, drop us a line. For the best results, pull all the cake ingredients out of the fridge about an hour before you start. It will make your baked cakes fluffier and tastier.

Cooked strawberries are a controversial subject in some circles. I love them, but I agree that there is a right way to cook them. My method is simple enough: Cook them hard and dark. They are at their best when you choose a high-flavor variety with good color, and you cook them until nearly all the water has escaped and they are concentrated and toothsome. Anything less than that and you have the soft, pallid, slippery fruit situation that gives cooked strawberries a bad name.

Our well-proportioned sandwiches feature relatively small, thin cookies and precise scoops of ice cream that give each bite the perfect combination of textures and flavors. We added water to the dough to prevent the cookies from turning rock-hard in the freezer, as well as plenty of browned butter, dark brown sugar, vanilla, and salt to compensate for the flavor-dulling effect of the freezer. Mini chocolate chips provided bursts of chocolate flavor and delicately crunchy texture.

Seriously. Addicted. To. This. Corn. It’s next level. There is nothing better than sweet, fresh corn on the cob. Corn is one of my favorite vegetables, up there with potatoes and ketchup! I love smelling the nuttiness of hot corn off the grill on a hot summer day. This corn gets brushed with my jerk-spiced mayo, and then I make it rain toasted coconut! Whoa, I told you, next level!!