Suggested summer menu (with recipes!)

1. Bread and tomato salad. First make croutons by heating up some extra virgin olive oil in a pan. Gently fry a peeled clove of garlic and add your cubes of day old French or Italian bread (my favorite are rustic baguettes) and a generous pinch of dried thyme. When the bread is toasted, transfer to a bowl, sprinkle with sea salt and freshly cracked pepper. In another bowl add diced tomatoes. IF your tomatoes are not of the highest quality (heirloom, organic, fully ripe, locally grown, in season), then don't bother with this recipe. Your croutons will be better used in a Caesar salad. Add an equal quantity of croutons to the tomatoes, a splash of high quality balsamic vinegar, and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil. Garnish with ribbons of basil or fresh thyme leaves. Serve right away or let the juice of the tomatoes soak into the bread cubes for some time.

2. Pasta al pesto. Toast a handful of pine nuts. Pound them to a paste in a mortar and pestle. Add three medium cloves of garlic and a pinch of salt and pound together. Gradually add in basil leaves, which may be coarsely chopped first to make them fit easier. After you have pounded the first handful, add the juice of half a lemon and a generous splash of extra virgin olive oil. Keep pounding. Add another handful of basil. Keep pounding. At about the third or fourth handful of basil you should add the juice of the other half of the lemon and a little more oil. Keep pounding.

Pound.

Pound. Add basil.

Pound.

Think that it will never be a paste, that there is too much basil for the size of the mortar and pestle, think that you should have just settled for doing it in the blender, think that perhaps it would have been better to go out and just buy some pesto. Pound. Add. Pound. When the pesto is pounded to your satisfaction (I allow some leafiness to remain, although some folks insist on an almost aioli-like consistancy), taste and adjust for salt, remembering that the cheese has yet to go in it.

Now, if you are making the pesto for later, simply cover it with plastic wrap and stick it in the ice box. If you are using it today, grate some reggiano parmiggiana (come on, you just pounded pesto by hand - why louse it up with cheap cheese?) into it and pound some more. Taste and adjust.

Cook up a pound or two of pasta (I tend to like less sauce than most, so I figure that a bunch of basil yields pesto for two pounds of pasta, although most Americans will probably want the ratio of one to one) in salted water (don't add oil to the cooking water - that's barabaric) to al dente. Drain (but never rinse! More barbarism) and TOSS in a bowl with the pesto, until it is evenly covered. If you stir the pasta, rather than toss the pasta, give yourself a sharp slap to the back of the head.

3. Grilled Italian sausages. Self explanatory. Grill. Squeeze lemon juice on them. Eat. Yum.

Serve this menu with a light red wine, or even a good dry rose (especially if eating outdoors).