If you ask me, great coleslaw is created with good knife skills and a short list of easy-to-find ingredients. Equal importance being placed on both ingredients and the cut of the cabbage. When cabbage is cut into ribbons that are too wide, the slaw ends up awkward, heavy, and daunting on the fork. If the pieces are too long, cheeks get dirtied with dressing-soaked cabbage sticks - awkward and messy. I like to shred my cabbage into ribbons that are thin as can be, half a pencil width at most. The cabbage becomes feather light and yet each bite maintains the perfect amount of coleslaw crunch.

When Wayne and I visited Mexico City I discovered a simple snack that quickly became a favorite - salt-kissed peanuts that tasted as if they had been misted with lime. I made this coleslaw the other night with those flavors in mind. It builds on the peanut salad I included in Super Natural Cooking and is a tasty (and colorful) alternative to more typical coleslaws. I made it to go along with fajitas, but I suspect it would be a welcome addition to any potluck, BBQ, or summertime party or picnic - tacos, burgers, or whatever else you have planned for this holiday weekend.

I've been buying my tomatoes direct from farmers. If you are looking to steer clear of tomatoes right now, I would substitute chopped avocado and red onion. Or, now that I'm thinking about it - shredded apple, or apple slices. Other ideas: roasted cherry tomatoes in place of the fresh ones - would take longer but would add an entirely different flavor profile.

Not to be a contrarian, but the standard deli-issued potato salad isn't really my thing. Potatoes as the center-point of a salad? Sounds great, I like the general concept. But all the mayo and mush you get with many American potato salads I can do without. I thought a grilled potato salad might be a fun alternative. My gameplan: throw as many of the salad ingredient as possible on the grill, whip up a simple vinaigrette, toss and enjoy.

The first decision I had to make was how to cut the potatoes - slices vs. wedges battled it out in my brain. Coin-shaped slices would cook more quickly. Wedges, well who doesn't love a potato wedge? And I knew they'd hold up better. I went the wedge route. Aside from the dressing and lettuce, I arranged everything else on a medium-hot grill - pattypan squash, green onions, halved lemons, and the potato wedges.

I tossed the potato salad components with a rice vinegar finished with barely a hint of toasted sesame oil this time around, but I couldn't help but think about all the different ways you could approach this. For those of you who enjoy the hedgehog potatoes (from SNC) as much as I do - I'm itching to try a creamy version where I'd toss these potato with the same yogurt mint dipping sauce I use in that recipe. Or, I bet a harissa vinaigrette would lend nice color and flavor and go well with the grilled potatoes. Or, or, or - I think its tough to go wrong here...If you have a unique twist on potato salad, give it a shout in the comments.

A few nights ago we made the first grilled pizzas of the summer. With fog enveloping San Francisco, Wayne and I bundled in our best jackets and scarves and clamored up the steepest hill in the neighborhood, our bags packed with an assortment of pizza toppings. Our friends Aaron and Malinda have an outdoor oven in their backyard and the plan was to give it a good workout. A parade of pizzas commenced until the fire died out. With many summer nights ahead, I thought I'd pass along a few of the things I've learned about getting grilled pizzas right.

The dough: I've done grilled pizzas with a range of pizza doughs. If you're looking for a dough made with whole grain flour, try this one. It's a riff on Peter Reinhart's Napoletana Pizza Dough recipe I wrote about a few years ago - I've had success with both on the grill. As far as the thick or thin debate goes - I like to pull my dough out parchment thin - to the point where it almost rips and you can see through it. That being said, leaving the dough a bit thicker yields a pizza with a different personality, still delicious - try both to see what you like.

Temperature: Controlling the temperature of the grill is key to your success - and I wish you luck. That being said, if your luck and skill is anything like mine - this is a battle that some nights you'll win, and some you'll lose. The heat from the oven we used this time was nice and round. We didn't have any trouble with burning, and the dough crisped up nicely. When using a gas grill, the lid is my friend. I use the lid to control the heat, and to get the hot air circulating all the way around the dough. If you need your toppings to cook/melt more quickly - slap the lid on for a bit. Keep in mind, you have to be particularly vigilant with pizzas you've pulled parchment thin - they'll burn through in a flash. Broadly speaking, whatever type of outdoor oven/grill I'm using I obsessively check the bottom and top of the dough and let it tell me what it needs - more time, more heat, a flip, etc.

Be organized: Once you throw that dough onto the grill, the next steps come in rapid succession whether you're ready or not.

Toppings: Use flavor-packed, fast cooking ingredients that have a tendency to melt quickly for your grilled pizza toppings. This time around we did a range - Aaron made the caramelized fennel & olives (pictured above), we also had spinach/pea & ricotta pesto, potatoes & smoke chile sauce, and tomato & roasted red peppers. I like thinly sliced potatoes on my pizza, I also like them creamy and tender, so I saute them ahead of time. As far as cheeses go, it's hard to go wrong - I like salted ricotta, good mozzarella, and shredded aged gruyere. Don't be afraid to pre-cook ingredients if needed. And lastly (I almost forgot this one), don't go overboard with the toppings - thoughtfully curate each pizza so that the flavors of each ingredient have room to speak. You want to avoid the kitchen sink approach.

If you've never grilled pizzas before, give it a go. It's fun for a small crowd because everyone can take a turn making their own custom pizza. If you have favorite topping ideas, give a shout out in the comments - I suspect this won't be the last time we grill pizzas this summer.

I was waiting for the perfect day to give this blackberry limeade recipe a try. Time and again, bundled in blankets on fog shrouded San Francisco afternoons, I'd whine to Wayne that we should move somewhere with a proper summer. Visions of my hand wrapped around a frosty glass of a jeweled-toned refresher like this occupied a disproportionate amount of my daydreams. No more. With temperatures roaring well past 90 degrees in San Francisco on Friday, I got my perfect summer day - and with a bit of help from Martha Hall Foose (executive chef of the Viking Cooking School), I took full advantage. The recipe is from her eloquently written new cookbook, Screen Doors and Sweet Tea: Recipes and Tales from a Southern Cook.

Cookbooks writers and enthusiasts listen up - Martha is a master of the head note. Hers are some of the most alluring, informative, and transporting lead-ins to recipes I've read. This one precedes the recipe for Cantaloupe Daiquiris...

The hottest I have ever been in my life was at 5:45 P.M., on August 29, 1998, on the no. 923 St. Charles Avenue streetcar in New Orleans. I had been working down in the French Quarter as a pastry chef for Susan Spicer's Bayona. Some days the unique commute felt like the scene in a movie. After rattling down the boulevards, and immediately upon entering our uptown digs, I stripped down and stood in the shower with only cold water running. I could almost hear the sizzle on contact. I really felt as if I had been braised.

The courtyards of New Orleans offer a haven from the heat. Shaded and mossy, planted with sweet-smelling Confederate Jasmine, they're like Mrs. Venable's arboretum in Suddenly Last Summer. She had her trusty secretary deliver a daiquiri every day at five. The musky sweetness of the melon, married to the brightness of the basil and mint, suspended in an icy slurry, will cool an afternoon down to the slow simmer of twilight.

I'd be willing to bet you'd like to try that recipe as well. And that's how it goes with this book - the author skillfully unveiling glimpses of her life (and love) of the South through a lovely collection of recipes.

I know many of you come to my site for inspiration on the natural foods/veg-friendly fronts, so just be aware that this isn't really that kind of book. This is Southern cookbook with all the deep-fried, shortening-packed delicacies you can imagine. Lots of meat, plenty of seafood-based recipes. That being said, there are many great ideas that are easily adaptable. For example, there's a black-eyed pea cake that (minus the bacon) looks like a fresh twist on a veggie burger, a frozen cucumber salad that sounds fascinating, and multiple rice salads that could easily be done with any number of whole grains (or whole grain rice). Plenty to be inspired by.

One of the things I loved about the blackberry limeade recipe was Martha's use of raw sugar - it lends deep, complex level of sweetness that you just don't get with white sugar. It bridges the blackberries, lime, and cardamom wonderfully.

This is my take on tortilla soup - a full-bodied, spicy vegetarian broth envelops a nest of baked tortilla matchsticks. Tiny roasted tomatoes along with a bit of goat cheese lend tang and texture, and flecks of sun-dried tomatoes bring depth and richness to each bowl. Many tortilla soup recipes call for egregious amounts of shredded cheese, but I've found that a bit crumbled goat cheese lends just the right amount of creaminess, without throwing everything out of whack nutritionally.

There are a thousand ways you can remix this recipe based on your personal preferences or what looks good at your local markets. If I'm after a one dish meal, I'll add some grilled (or smoked) tofu, or a poached egg. If I feel I need greens as well, I'll toss in some shredded chard or spinach. For a more typical take you might (instead) finish the soup with sliced avocado and/or cilantro, chopped white onions, and a squeeze of lime.

This is clearly what happens when a tortilla soup meets a California pantry - with the cherry tomatoes and local goat cheese. That being said, I'm hoping my remix will inspire you to try you own using whatever ingredients you might be inspired by. Use the broth as your base and play around from there.