Chef Tom – Upping Your Kabab Skills While You Listen to Mugham

Yes. I know. Upping Kabab skills and enjoying Mugham may not be familiar to most of you, but they will be by the time you finish this column. Food and Music are Life.

Now let us begin ….

Chef Tom – TOMatoes

Tomato season. My favorite time of year. All the colors, flavors, textures and…juice. I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again. When something is in season, eat as much of it as you can. In season means the produce is at peak nutrition. Have tomatoes every day if you can. You’ll maximize the good-for-you.

With tomato season comes all the stone fruit. Their sugars and acid are perfect matches for tomatoes, especially peaches and nectarines. Go for a variety of colors and shapes to make each dish more appealing. Experiment with your own combinations.

Here are just a few of my favorite recipes.

Roxanne Tellier – Back to the Garden

My gardens have been calling me lately. For years I gave up on them – the hostas, the shrubs, the berry bushes and the salsa garden – allowing frustration and depression to stomp all over my joy inthe feel of good earth under my nails, and the delights of helping things grow. Plants ask very little of their tenders – some water when it’s hot and dry, a little pruning away of dead growth so that new, young sprouts have room – but even that was too much to ask of me for almost a decade. I withdrew from the earth, and from most people.