Spago House Dressing

By Andrew Hunter

This is salad season and we like to take full advantage of summer’s garden crops. Fresh summer vegetables are so delicious, they need an equally delicious dressing.

Our favorite is the house dressing at Spago, Wolfgang Puck’s restaurant in Beverly Hills, where the stars dine.

This time of year, when the temperatures are soaring, salads are always a welcome addition to the family table. We love to buy the season’s freshest veggies that we find at the market to make salads like the recipe in our Farmer’s Market Tour post.

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Chill Out with Mache and Cherry Salad

By Lori Powell

We are experiencing yet another heat wave and I’m not sure about you, but I am in no mood to cook today. That’s completely odd for me to say, but true! Usually I have to be stricken ill not to want to cook.

Along with people, not a lot of crops are happy in this heat. I’m not quite sure what happened to the cherry crop but they are amazing in the Northeast this year – super-dark and sweet. Also, they keep you cool if you eat them chilled.

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Beet The Heat Salsa

By Katie Barreira

I usually prepare this deliciously unusual salsa with roasted beets, but when temps are topping out at 100 degrees, I’m going nowhere near the oven. And thanks to Melissa’s peeled and steamed beets (found in the produce section of your grocery store) there’s no need; the sweet little vacuum packed, ready-to-eat beets are perfect for a no-cook version. Scoop up this colorful condiment with yellow corn chips, toss it into a green salad with crumbled goat cheese or, spoon over grilled fish.

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Too Hot to Cook!

By Sandy Hu

We haven’t had a single sweltering summer day, to date, in San Francisco this year. But across the country, people are baking. So all this week, Special Fork bloggers are sharing no-cook, cook-ahead or cold dishes to help lower the temperature in the kitchen and at the dinner table.

My favorite hot weather meal is cold soba noodles with a dipping sauce, called Zaru Soba. This is a Japanese classic summer dish. There’s no fat in this meal – just a clean, simple taste – so it won’t leave you feeling sluggish.

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A Visit to my Cousin’s Coffee Farm

By Sandy Hu

I come from a line of Kona coffee farmers on my mother’s side of the family. My grandpa and grandma Honda had a small coffee farm, as did many of my aunts and uncles. Today, my cousin Randall in Holualoa, Hawaii, is the only one carrying on the tradition.

Instead of a recipe demo for Video Friday, we’re visiting Randall’s farm and picking some coffee! To learn more about Kona coffee, read The Hawai‘i Coffee Book, A Gourmet’s Guide from Kona to Kaua‘i by Shawn Steiman, c. 2008, published by Watermark Publishing. And, if you ever visit the Big Island of Hawaii, enter the world of the immigrant coffee farmer with a trip to The Kona Coffee Living History Farm that vividly and authentically recreates the experience.

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