every June, when our daughter was young,  we went to pick strawberries at Butler’s Orchard. We would pick far more than we could eat. We made jam, strawberry pies and a creamy refreshing sherbet. We made so much it lasted all winter long. Of course you can buy the berries at the supermarket, but the sherbet won’t take as good. The fresh picked berries make all the difference.

Israel’s best known national dish is Israeli Salad, but if you ordered it in Israel no one would know what you were talking about. In Israel this simple salad, which is an accompaniment to most meals, even breakfast, is referred to as “chopped salad,” or “vegetable salad,” or sometimes “Arab salad”. Versions of it have been eaten all around the Mediterranean and the Middle and Near East, which

I’ve been making Salade Nicoise, pronounced “nee-SWAZ.” since I was given a copy of Recipes: The Cooking of Provincial France. I followed the recipe exactly for years, but not anymore. These days I sometimes use cannellini beans instead of the traditional oil and vinegar potato salad because it is much healthier, and I like its texture. Sometimes I roast both the potatoes and the string beans to create