Cookbooks for the Summer Harvest

Remember the TV commercial for Prince spaghetti? Anthony is running through the streets as his mother calls to him out the window--he races home with a happy smile on his face because "Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti Day." That commercial resonated with me. My mother didn't have a strict schedule of meals, but she did have a rotating list of dinner entrees that made their appearance once a week or so.

My mom often denigrates her cooking, but I love it and I always enjoyed having familiar and well-loved meals for dinner. While not adventurous, my mother is a very good cook, and the dishes that she made were consistently delicious and always made from scratch. Now that I have a son, I realize that I cook like my mother did. I have a repertoire of ideas and dishes and I simply make variations of those dishes over and over.

Times have changed and my set of recipes is slightly different from hers: I've replaced the pepper steak with soft polenta topped with spicy tomato sauce, sautéed vegetables and poached eggs. The meat loaf has become...OK, I haven't replaced the meat loaf--I love meat loaf. I just make mine using lamb or turkey instead of beef and pork. Mashed potatoes now have turnips, parsnips or cabbage in them. And we both make spaghetti, but I lean toward whole wheat penne with sardines and greens.

Like my mother, I don't often cook using recipes from a book. It's not that I don't need to, it's just that I have a toddler and I don't have time to look through books to decide what to make. I just come up with something and throw it on the stove while he removes all the cat food from the kitchen cabinet to my right, tries to get into the cleaning supplies to my left or sits between my feet, banging the broiler door open and closed.

I was at the market last week and saw all sorts of beautiful ingredients that don't make it on to my table very frequently, so I've decided to take some time and come up with a few new standards. I went hunting through the bookstore and found five cookbooks for myself that are geared toward summer and market fresh produce.

Recipes from America's Small Farms: Fresh Ideas for the Season's Bounty by Joanne Hayes, Lori Stein and Maura Webber (Villard, 2003).

Simply in Season by Mary Beth Lind and Cathleen Hockman-wert (Herald Press, 2005).

Too Many Tomatoes, Squash, Beans, and Other Good Things: A Cookbook for When Your Garden Explodes by Lois M. Landau and Laura G. Myers (HarperCollins, 1991).

The Herbal Kitchen: Cooking with Fragrance and Flavor by Jerry Traunfeld. (HarperCollins, 2005).

Vegetable Harvest: Vegetables at the Center of the Plate by Patricia Wells(HarperCollins, 2007).

I can't tell you how my experiment will turn out--summer isn't yet in full swing. But I am looking forward to trying the following recipes, and I hope that you are too.