Summer

We live in Boston. To get ourselves through winters that go from November to May, we hold dear dreaming of warm weather. Any restaurant with two feet of sidewalk sets out tables in March. They say it's to be ready for baseball season. This is wishful thinking since there are no home games until well into April. Snow plows don't disappear until May. Still.

When we think warm weather, we want fish. We get fish all year but somehow the best time for shellfish is summer. Lobster, shrimp, crabmeat, clams and oysters are at their best when we want them most. Here's a seafood recipe with lobster, shrimp and crab that brings summer to the kitchen full blast. It goes equally well at cookouts and air-conditioned dinner parties.

We eat a lot of salads at La Touche, my father’s country house in the Loire which he shares with a couple of long time friends. Lunch typically consists of several salads, a panier of bread, and a substantial wedge of cheese. It is a meal large enough to satiate an afternoon hunger but is not overly filling because there is rarely meat served unless it is reheated from the night before. A main reason for the plethora of salads is the summer surplus of garden produce including the aforementioned courgettes de nice, tomatoes, potatoes, and haricots verts.

I wanted to do something creative with courgettes, the amazing little light green zucchinis, so I decided to make a carpaccio. Our kitchen is equipped with tons of culinary gadgets and the professional mandolin is one such toy perfect for cutting long translucent slices of zucchini. I arranged the slices on a large platter and dressed them a half hour before sitting down to lunch with lemon juice, olive oil, and sea salt. The brief marinating time gives the acidity in the sauce enough time to slightly breakdown the fibrous cells of the vegetable. I topped the zucchini with some shredded basil, a crack of black pepper, and a white impatient to dress up the presentation before we tucked in.

Summer is coming to an end, and as I'm having trouble saying goodbye, I'm comforted by all the beautiful produce still available in the farmers' markets this late in the season. Last week I visited the Tucker Square Greenmarket at the corner of Columbus Avenue and 66th Street. They are a compact market with about six or eight small yet bounteous stands. I couldn't help but notice all the fruits: last-of-the-season white and yellow peaches and a few early varieties of apples, such as honey crisp. But what really caught my attention during this visit was a crate full of beautiful green and yellow zucchini. That's when I immediately decided on making this recipe for vegetable tian.

A tian is technically a name for a type of French earthenware casserole commonly used in the region of Provençe. But the name "tian" also carries over to the meal cooked in the earthenware container. This vegetable tian is possibly one of the simplest recipes that can be made especially with an abundance of late-summer vegetables like zucchini, squash, eggplant, and tomatoes. Similar to a gratin, this casserole features layers of thinly sliced vegetables artfully assembled together, topped with Swiss cheese, and baked until tender and brown.

Since eating fava beans for the first time last year, I've come to love the legume as much as the bean-eating crowd. Italians love their beans and Tuscans in particular are known as mangiafagioli or bean-eaters. Among their favorites are cannelini or white beans and fava beans, which are even more popular in Puglia. Favas, or broad beans as they are also known, are prized in their raw or near-raw state, but they are an unusual bean to shell. Each bean is encased in a slip or skin and grouped together in fuzzy pods. So yes, peeling them and blanching them to remove the extra skin may be a chore, but it's really a labor of love.

Here I take my favorite fava beans and combine them with a very herbaceous salad atop a crusty slice of grilled bread lined with wedges of avocado. Texture, flavor, and aroma are very much at play: creamy avocado, granular favas, crunchy bread, and pungent herbs all enrobed in a tangy dressing. To eat this bruschetta, pick it up like an open-faced sandwich and bite right in. It's a fun and casual summer appetizer that will refresh the palate and stimulate the appetite.