In the mid 1980’s, at the end of a two-month trip that took us, with our five year old son, through Asia and Russia, we stopped in Sweden on our way home.

We had been living in Singapore for two years, enjoying an incredible variety of Chinese, Indian, Malay and Indonesian food. Our first meal in Stockholm was gastronomic culture shock. There were endless varieties of meat, fish, cheese, vegetables, breads and berries artfully arranged on a breakfast buffet. I began by tasting a little bit of almost everything. When I tasted the thinly sliced, cured salmon I was expecting salty lox and was surprised by the fresh, slightly sweet, dill flavor and delighted by the sauce that accompanied it.

I went back to the buffet for a second helping and knew that I would order it at every meal until we left Stockholm. A friendly Swede at the buffet table explained that what I had fallen in love with was called gravlax. She explained that the word gravlax is a combination of two Scandinavian words – grav meaning grave and lax meaning salmon – and was in fact a description of how fishermen in the Middle Ages prepared salmon by salting it and burying it in the sand, above the high tide line, to ferment. Fortunately the salmon on the buffet had been cured with salt, sugar and fresh dill in a refrigerator rather than fermented in sand. It was a lovely shade of orange, thinly sliced, served with buttered brown bread and a sweet mustard, dill sauce called hovastarsas. Months later, after we had recovered from our trip half way around the world, I remembered my salmon binge in Stockholm and decided to try to make gravlax. It was a remarkably simple process and I make it frequently.

Salmon and trout are in the same family with the distinction that salmon migrate and trout don’t. Salmon come from both the Atlantic and Pacific and may be either wild or farmed. Varieties of salmon include: Chinook, Coho, pink, sockeye, steelhead and chum. Gravlax can be made with any variety of salmon, and I choose the variety based on guidance I get from Alex, the guy behind the fish counter at my market.

The last time I made it was for a dinner party to welcome our friend, Kay, back from her recent trip to Sweden. Following Alex’s recommendation, I chose a one-pound fillet of steel head.

I prepared it three days before the party so that it would have time to cure. Here’s how I did it:

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In 1980, our friend Tom went on a trip to China. Tom was an architect who loved adventure, and in those days, going to South America was exotic but a trip China was unimaginable. Tom had a wonderful time and, as an intrepid cook, he brought back exotic recipes and memories of extraordinary meals.

Soon after his return, he invited us to dinner. When we arrived, he was emptying the wood shavings from his pencil sharpener into the wok. We watched as he added the contents of two tea bags to the wood shavings. He explained that he was going to make tea smoked chicken for dinner. He put a bamboo steamer filled with raw chicken over the tea and wood shavings, covered everything with aluminum foil, put it on the stove and turned on the heat. The tea and wood smoldered and I worried about the yellow paint from the pencils, but Tom explained that it wasn’t a problem and that the smoke imparted a wonderful flavor to the chicken.

While we waited for the chicken to smoke, we enjoyed a cucumber salad that Tom had learned to make in China, and he described the all-duck banquet in Beijing that marked the end of his trip. He described, in detail, dishes made from duck innards, head, wings and webs. We neglected the wok and concentrated on the salad that was spicy, loaded with garlic, Szechuan peppers and peanuts. Unfortunately, the bamboo steamer that held the chicken above the smoke caught fire and so did the chicken. Our dinner was a bit meager, steamed rice and cucumber salad, but we laughed a lot and I went home with a great recipe for Szechuan Chinese pickles. We call it Tom’s Chinese Cucumber Salad and the recipe is my souvenir from his trip.

On a steamy evening a couple of weeks ago, I made Szechuan Cucumber salad and sesame noodles for dinner and we drank a toast in memory of our friend Tom and his love of exotic food. Here’s how I made it:

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In my childhood, wedges of ice-cold, pink watermelon, dotted with shiny, black seeds were the before-dark, Fourth of July Picnic dessert. When the fireflies appeared and the bonfire was glowing, we moved on to sticky, hot, sometimes burned, toasted marshmallows.

It was important to eat the watermelon before sunset because we needed to be able to see who could spit seeds the farthest. Even the grown-ups enjoyed the contest and so, spitting, limited to seeds at picnics, was exempt from the general prohibition against spitting.

The distance-spitting competition usually deteriorated into a melee of targeting siblings, rivals and unsuspecting pets.

Late in the afternoon, on July third, my dad would bring home a block of ice. He used an awe inspiring ice pick to break up the ice for the food cooler, the drink cooler and the metal tub that held the watermelon. For many years, I ate watermelon plain, not even dusted with salt. Watermelon juice dripped off my chin and down my arms.  It was sweet, pink, crisp, cool organized water.

Watermelon is an inexpensive fruit that is loaded with Vitamins C and A and also a source of the anti-oxidant, lycopene. Historians believe that it originated in Africa, and today China is the world’s largest producer of watermelon.  When I was traveling in Shanghai in the summer of 1985, the garbage collectors were on strike and watermelon rinds were piled high in empty lots across the city. There are more than a thousand varieties of watermelon ranging from under a pound softball size to gigantic fruits that weigh more than two hundred pounds.  Watermelon flesh may be red, orange, yellow or white.

I still love watermelon even though it rarely has the necessary ammunition for a distance competition or even target practice. I have progressed from serving plain chunks of watermelon to serving it sliced and dusted with smoky herbs, and have used it in salads, salsas, and drinks.  A sprinkle of seasoning and a squeeze of citrus made slices of watermelon sing.  Here’s how I made Spicy Watermelon Slices, Watermelon Salsa and Watermelon Coolers: … read more

Asparagus is a low calorie, high vitamin food and the perfect vehicle for transporting buttery sauce from plate to mouth.

In 1922, Emily Post, in her book Etiquette, gave permission to eat asparagus with one’s fingers so long as one does not “… squeeze the stalks, or hold one’s hand below the end and let the juice rundown one’s arm.”  The choice is yours.

I have experimented with a variety of cooking methods since that first success and found that I prefer the flavor and texture of roasted or grilled asparagus.   Traditional hollandaise comes to mind but in celebration of spring I made an orange hollandaise that was sublime. Here’s how I did it:

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The first mushroom I knew about was the red one with white spots that killed the king of the elephants in The Story of Babar.

Then, there were those stories that included frogs, toads, toadstools, kissing and princes, yuck! When my father’s friends gave us wild mushrooms, their promises that none were poisonous did not encourage me to try the black, slimy concoction they became. Mushrooms, no thank you!

The turning point in my relationship with mushrooms came when I saw Julia Child cook them. Her method was simple and the lightly browned mushrooms could be served at any meal. After all the ricotta pastries I had enjoyed in Sicily, I wanted to make a low fat, high flavor, savory breakfast in my Vermont kitchen. Sautéed mushrooms served with whole-wheat toast and a pot of tea would be perfect. Here’s how I did it: … read more