Eating

A big salad posing as a pizza. A huge mound of exceptionally fresh flash-baked greens on a hot, fresh pizza crust. Delicious. Another example of pizza crust as the perfect platform for almost everything fresh and tasty. Dinner for two for $2.

Here's to a hand-held Fourth of July. No disposable plates and utensils for the landfill. No washing dishes. Just your hands. Start with a really good hot dog on a fresh corn tortilla. Add some Salsa Verde. Fireworks in your mouth.

The squash is Summer sweet. Still a little crisp. The crust is crunchy and chewy. The thyme is intensely aromatic. The mozzarella is gooey and rich; the parmiggiano is nutty and slightly salty. A beautiful Summer meal for $2.

Rhubarb's everywhere right now. Ripe and Cheap. The season for a tart but luscious Upside Down Cake. Takes about 10 minutes and $4 to prepare. Makes 10 -12 happy people.

A big salad posing as a pizza. A huge mound of exceptionally fresh flash-baked greens on a hot, fresh pizza crust. Delicious. Another example of pizza crust as the perfect platform for almost everything fresh and tasty. Dinner for two - for less than $2.

Massage cabbage with salt for a few minutes. Get the best sauerkraut you ever had. Come Fourth of July, your hot dog's gonna be thrilled to be covered with this. You'll be even happier. Even if you think you don't like sauerkraut, good chance you'll like this.

Every June. I lose five pounds. I don't try to. It's all the shockingly flavorful greens we get when our CSA farm share kicks in. There's not much room left on the plate for everything else. So you eat a lot less of the high-calorie stuff. And you get inventive with lettuce.

A salad cross-dressing as a soup. Lettuce and herbs with milk. Amazing how flavorful it is. 96 degrees when I made this perfect cool, light meal. Better. Cheaper. Chilled. No oven, no stove, no sweat. Use a food processor and get it done in three minutes. Less than $1 per serving.

Tart rhubarb. Really ripe strawberries. So sweet you won't even think about adding sugar. A deeply sweet and wonderfully refreshing Way to end a meal on a hot day.