Summer

To use, sprinkle ribs, brisket, or chicken as if you were putting on heavy salt and pepper.

Raspberry Coconut Popsicles

Peaches (or nectarines), raspberries, red currants, strawberries, and other berries that share the season are happy companions.

This could be the lightest, freshest tasting potato salad of the summer.

Please remember these are suggestions and ideas, not etched-in-stone recipes. Making homemade marinades is a good way to begin trusting your own taste, so sample as you put them together and vary measurements and ingredients as you like. They’re a snap to pull together, have none of the dubious ingredients in commercial versions, and can be inexpensive to do at home once you have gathered the ingredients.

This cooler is an old standby at our house. With no alcohol, no sugar and lots of tart-sweet citrus, it’s what to drink when the heat index is up in the stratosphere. As you sip, the mint leaves are bruised by the ice cubes just enough to let loose some of that cool snap.

This salad resounds with the intense fragrances and flavors of southern Italy. It's a new take on an old favorite. Thick-sliced tomatoes with mozzarella and basil are spiced with a mixture inspired by the Arab influences in southern Italy. Spoon between the slices a blend of toasted pine nuts, onions, currants, and garlic spiked with fresh lemon juice and hot pepper. The tomatoes and mozzarella foil these new tastes beautifully.

Couscous is a pasta by way of North Africa and should be easy to find in the grocery. (Boxes should come with both stovetop and microwave cooking instructions.) This salad is good for when you just can't face another typical pasta salad at your block party, church picnic or family reunion. And this is just one version—feel free to change the herbs or to add any great vegetables you see at the market that weekend.