To me, food cooked with love an intention is more than just a few tablespoons of this and a few cups of that. It's the stirring and the smelling, the slicing and the folding, the oven peaking - when all of these things done with intention, you really can taste the love.

I love to make slaw with whatever I have in the fridge, or whatever I'm influenced by. Much like my seasonal grain salads I have a rough recipe and adapt it around what'll be on the grill or what I'm in the mood for.

This recipe is easy. SO SO EASY. Do not be intimidated because it has yeast in it and it involves a rise. If you can make chocolate chip cookies you will excel at this. If you can mix flour and water with a spoon you will excel at this. This recipe manages to be super impressive, really really delicious and very little work. This last weekend I topped it with kalamata olives - it is also very adaptable!

The really amazing thing about this applesauce recipe, that comes from Zuni Cafe here in San Francisco, is that after peeling and coring the apples you just roast them. In their own juices. And that's it! It's so easy - no stovetop watching or food mills. Just an oven proof pan, a bit of butter, and a little time. And the smells this brought to my kitchen was an added bonus!

I learned a new way of making tomato sauce, under an arbor of wisteria and grape vines, in the outdoor farm kitchen. We washed tomato flat after tomato flat, cooking down some whole, and chopping others up. After a morning of processing we made 91 quarts of sauce and the next day I stepped in to the cellar, where the shelves were once again full of tomatoes.

Last weekend I made a simple corn and tomato salad, with things I had picked up at my produce market that week. It was deeply satisfying and full of summer flavors.

The recipe calls for eggplant, but suggests you can use zucchini or cauliflower, and it was so so good and the best way to use up some odds and ends. You basically cook eggplant (or zucchini, cauliflower or broccoli) until it softens, then add just enough stock to allow it to bubble away and fall apart so it becomes a savory pasta sauce

Most herbs thrive here in our summer dry climate, happy for the well draining soil and mild winters.