Root Vegetable

This comforting classic thickens considerably as it stands, resulting in a generous quantity of soup. Each time you reheat it, thin it with additional water, and adjust the seasonings. Or, once your original batch cools, consider freezing half of it for later use. This soup is a meal in itself. All you need is a good bread and a salad—simple or bountiful, as you prefer.

This is a soothing remedy when you are coming down with a cold—though you need not wait for a cold to try it!

This soup is simple but labor intensive. If you want to immerse yourself in the summery, sensory experience of peeling fresh tomatoes and scraping kernels off of corn cobs, you won’t regret it. This is an appealing accompaniment to a late summer meal of grilled vegetables and veggie burgers.

Fresh herbal overtones lift the flavor of this instant soup. White beans make a creamy base for soups, dips, and sauces.

Potatoes, barley, and buttermilk are a trio that I find blissfully refreshing in the summer, served cold in a soup.

Fish is my fave thing to serve with this.

Slice the potatoes right before you assemble the dish so they don’t turn brown.

Very unpretentious and delicious. There’s no need to trim the onion roots; the dish looks more rustic with them as is.

This is the color of autumn.

Small leeks are essential for this dish.

These sweet roasted tomatoes are great on sandwiches or chopped up in pasta.

This vinaigrette is more like a chunky sauce, and is also great as a topping for bread toasts. Don’t refrigerate the vinaigrette—the fat from the bacon turns from liquid to solid.

Chicken wings don’t have to be just chicken wings. This teriyaki glaze is incredibly easy to make and turns a boring concept into something sophisticated.

I order steak tartare in restaurants whenever it’s on the menu. When you serve it at home it’s important to seek a fine butcher who can provide you with the best-quality beef. You can make the Parmigiano baskets the morning of the party and store them covered at room temperature; they will still have an amazing snap hours later. The trick for success with this is not to use “green can” grated cheese, which will not melt evenly; you have to buy the good stuff. Once you get the hang of making Parmigiano-Reggiano frico you can really crank them out. The tops of water or soda bottles are ideal for forming the Parmigiano cups. I also like to make flat frico as a crunchy garnish for Caesar salads.

These spring rolls are so fresh tasting that they’re addictive. The beet turns the noodles a pretty pink—way cool. Wear gloves when you cut up the beet so your hands don’t turn purple—not a festive look.

Beach clambakes are a blast. They make me think of Annette Funicello, who I still find very attractive. Anyway … Lobsters, clams, and corn all steamed in seaweed: For me, it’s the perfect summer party. Even if you can’t get to the beach, you can still pull off a great clambake in your own backyard. Be sure to ask your fish guy for some seaweed. Lobsters come in crates packed with this stuff, so he should be able to give you some. Parboil the lobsters to kill them first before putting them on the grill. Alternatively, you can just split the bodies down the middle to kill them and skip the boiling step.

Infused butters are fun to put together because you can customize different flavors to give grilled meats a whole new dimension. This dish has strong roots in the Spanish Mediterranean countryside, and it’s one of the hits of this chapter.

The key to success with this sandwich is knowing which way to slice the flank steak: against the grain of the muscle fibers. Hey, Philly never had it so good.