If like us you have a vegetable garden, you know now’s the moment when all the planting, watering and pruning of the last three months is literally bearing fruit in overwhelming abundance. For us that means on a daily basis collecting buckets of sweet, bursting-with-flavor cherry tomatoes and a nice little crop of green and yellow zucchini, too.
For those in the know, the Auberge de Bogis-Bossey is a little hidden treasure, nestled in a pocket of tranquility just off a busy street in the neighborhood after which it’s named. A charming facade and bell tower hint at the pleasures on offer in its gourmet restaurant and its laid back café (the Auberge, as its name suggests, also offers lodgings). In the summer months, lunch or dinner on its patio offers shade and relaxation as patrons enjoy items from an excellent à la carte menu or a menu du jour that’s comparable in price to those of other auberges but a distinct cut above in the quality and variety of ingredients, and in flavor, imagination and presentation.
Head Chef Alessio Corda loves healthy, seasonal, full-flavored ingredients — preferably locally sourced — for his delicious dishes at the Ritz-Carlton Hôtel de la Paix’s stylish new restaurant the Living Room, the launch of which I had the pleasure of attending in January. With Spring rapidly approaching, I asked Chef Corda for a recipe that reflects the changing of the seasons and fulfills the wish that I and probably many of you have to transition to lighter fare. This delicious dish delivers on that request but doesn’t sacrifice anything in terms of flavor, beauty or nutrition.
At this time of year, I like nothing better than a full-flavored curry to wake up my taste buds after months of more tame seasonal fare. My husband recently cooked up this dish based on one he found in the January 2017 issue of Delicious magazine. As usual, he made some test batches till he got it just to his (our) liking, which usually means devising ways to add more flavor and richness, usually by means of a few substitutions and a little more of “this and that”.
The diversity of foreign foodstuffs on Swiss and local French supermarket shelves has dramatically increased over the past few decades as has the number of independent suppliers offering high-quality ethnic ingredients from faraway sources. So an expat desperate for a fix of home needn’t go far to satisfy cravings for a favorite edible or to find the necessary ingredients to whip up a beloved dish in their own kitchens.
To round out my short series on summer salads with seasonal fruit, I nominate this satisfyingly tasty little number that makes the most of late-August tomatoes in all their glorious, full-bodied ripeness. It comes from 101 Cookbooks, another of my favorite websites for innovative yet homey recipes (many that reinvent the way I think about using oft-used produce) that you immediately want to tuck into with a great big fork or spoon. The original recipe calls for heirloom tomatoes, but I made do with an abundant selection of non-heirlooms and I don’t think I missed out too much in the flavor department. The roasted tomatoes are luscious.
This salad just shouts SUMMER! It’s based on one of the many wonderfully tasty and inventive recipes from Smitten Kitchen. It combines seasonal fruit — in this case, watermelon, cantaloupe and honeydew and even a few pieces of pineapple, but as the original recipe suggests, you can substitute other fruit or even seasonal vegetables because they should all work deliciously with the zesty topping.
