This is the last of the series of colorful salads and although these salads are long way from that chunk of iceberg lettuce and bright orange splash of salad dressing, I know that Nana would love them all because, to her, everything I did was perfect. Everyone deserves a grandmother like that!

The crimson red of pomegranate seeds adds color, flavor and loads of health benefits to a cucumber salad. Here’s how I made it: … read more

Although I couldn’t get blood oranges in the market, I used navel oranges to make a red onion and orange salad with cumin.

The salad, along with a bowl of hummus and a basket of toasted pita bread reminded me of a dinner I was served on a trip to Turkey. Here’s how I made it: … read more

The salad  made with a combination of red cabbage and mango brightened the table with the colors of India.

I served it with a roasted chicken from the market. Here’s how I did it: … read more

My Nana could grow flowers anywhere; she was a skilled seamstress and a modest carpenter. Her hands were never idle.

Nana gave me my first tools – a hammer, a saw, screwdrivers and a hand-crank drill. I drilled and hammered beside her at the workbench. Although she was an enthusiastic cook, she was not a good cook. For Nana, speed and efficiency in the kitchen were most important. Her version of a pancake dinner was literally ‘a pan cake’ – a twelve-inch disc, an inch thick that was cut in quarters to serve four. The pancake was always served with a salad and the salad was always the same, the only salad she ever made, a wedge of iceberg lettuce with a puddle of bright orange French dressing poured from a bottle.

I am like my Nana in many ways. I can fix almost anything. I still have my own toolbox and my hands are rarely idle, but for me, neither speed nor efficiency in the kitchen are nearly as important as flavor and beauty. Color is important but rather than resorting to bright orange, bottled salad dressing, I use fruit to add a splash of color to a salad. In the past few weeks I have been making savory salads that combine fruits and vegetables.

I love the combination of blue and yellow whether I am setting a table, painting a still life, decorating a room or making a salad. When a friend told me about a salad she had made that combined corn and blueberries I knew I had to try it. Here’s how I made it: … read more

Two summers ago, when I had more tomatoes than we could eat, I preserved jars of oven-roasted tomatoes for the pantry.

I used them as a base for pasta sauce and for grilled pizza during the gray days of the following winter.

Whether I added them to pasta sauce, used them to top pizza or on toasted bread for brushetta, I always began by pureeing the tomatoes with either a food processor or an immersion blender. The intense flavor of the roasted tomatoes satisfied my tomato desire until I emptied the last jar on Town Meeting Day.

Here how I did it: … read more