Time for Squash Blossoms – Three Easy Uses for Edible Flowers

By Katie Barreira

Zucchini, yellow crooknecks, pattypans…the coming season promises a deluge of thin-skinned gourds. But before the onslaught of summer squash there are squash blossoms, the flowering buds of a squash vine.

These delicate blossoms are entirely edible and usually seen on restaurants’ seasonal menus. Like Jean Georges’s fabled “Peekytoe Crab and Squash Blossom Beignet,” a simple crab salad stuffed into squash blossoms, coated in tempura batter and fried. But the flowers don’t require such flourish.

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Too Hot to Cook!

By Sandy Hu

In San Francisco, summers are usually cool, so rarely is it too hot to cook. But elsewhere, temperatures are rising and no one wants to be chained to a stove.

My favorite no-cook summer meal is a salumi platter – hot copa, prosciutto, mortadella or other cured meats, plus some thinly sliced ham, all arranged on a wooden board or platter with one or two cheeses, some peperonicini or cornichons, roasted red peppers, sliced cucumber and a baguette or two with a good Dijon mustard. While it’s a delicious, no-fuss appetizer for company, a salumi platter can also make a welcome light supper on its own.

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A Chef’s Makeover of Chef’s Salad

By Katie Barreira

Culinary historians have mused over the origins of chef’s salad, some tracing the dinner salad back to diet-conscious California, others to the kitchen of New York City’s Ritz-Carleton. But as noted in a 1999 issue of Gourmet, “Nobody has ever stepped forward to claim the title of the chef in 'chef's salad.'” No great surprise here, for truly, what self-respecting chef would put their name to the slapdash mélange of deli meat, cheese and chopped salad? Thus the sad irony of a dish, which was named for a chef but that no chef will own.

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Taming the Wild Fiddlehead Fern

By Katie Barreira

A fiddlehead is the curled tip of a wild ostrich fern leaf in its first weeks of life. This fleeting spring delicacy is in peak season at a farmers’ market near you (psssst – even Fresh Direct is carrying them this year!) and while they may sound (and look) wildly exotic, they have the familiar fresh flavor of verdant veggies and are a cinch to prepare.

A quick scan of fiddlehead fern recipes uncovered an almost unanimous call for blanching the ferns before further cooking, but Pamela Mitchell, a very well-eaten pal and Executive Food Editor of Rachael Ray Mag, told me that she likes to snack on raw fiddleheads, which proved a delectable way to enjoy the fern tips. (Caution: technically speaking, raw fiddleheads are safe to eat, but tummy troubles have been reported. I’ve had no such problem, and it’s a risk along the lines of runny egg yolks and oysters. But if you prefer zero-risk eating, steam or boil fiddleheads 10 minutes before stir-frying.)

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