It’s that time of August when you realize that the end of summer is near, even if you can’t see it—like the moment after you pull the drain-stopper from a sink full of suds, just before the dishwater starts to twirl down the drain.  All is still and calm, before it unstoppably slips away.  Right now, in this moment, it’s not yet unstoppable.

Really, it’s a sweet spot of sorts.  The overnight temperatures have started to dip, granting a crisp early-morning reprieve from the sweltering weeks gone by.  But the evenings are still long and warm, sun-streaked and scented with grill smoke.  The markets are resplendent with tomatoes and melons and peaches and corn; we won’t be apple-picking for a few more weeks yet.  Hydrangea bushes heave with great big poms and the lush leaves atop the trees on either side of the street meet in the middle, arching into a sun-dappled canopy.  Those same leaves will go golden and crimson soon, before they the carpet sidewalks below.

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The kind of cooking that’s been happening in my kitchen lately is a summer kind of cooking.  Most of the time, it’s barely “cooking” at all.  It’s largely based on fresh produce—whatever has caught my eye.  Last weekend it was tomatoes, an heirloom variety that was deeply red and wonderfully misshapen.  They were sliced onto seeded bagels, under thin rounds of cucumbers and purple onions sliced into half moons.  They were stuffed into BLTs, mine doctored up with snipped chives, while Kevin’s gilded the lily with a fried egg.  They were diced into a salad—just the tomatoes, a crack of pepper, and crumbled feta.  Salt, too.  It’s the difference between a really great tomato and a transcendent one.  Yes, transcendent.  If there’s a cause for hyperbole, friends, it’s a ripe summer tomato.  It just is.

There’s been some more involved cooking and baking (a baked pasta for our friends who have a newborn; homemade burger buns for a BBQ last Saturday; a smoked pork butt; endless batches of my favorite ice cream), but even that has taken on summer’s rhythms.  I cook and bake in little pockets of time—when it’s raining, or after it’s dark, or before we set out on a giant walk.  I love that kitchen—I do—but it will be there in the fall and it will be there still in the (dare I say?) winter.

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Kevin would be in L.A. the week before the Fourth of July.  So, we set our sights on a road trip up the coast over the long weekend.  Kevin picked me up at LAX, and we drove north along the coast, where the endless blue Pacific slipped from the pristine beaches of Malibu, studded with surfers and life guard stands, into golden, rolling hills and rugged coastline.

Our first stop was Big Sur, and we got there just in time for sunset.  An orange sun slid down through the trees and over the ocean, and we ate at Big Sur Bakery, on the front porch, with a votive candle flickering between us.

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I made this dish last week, on the eve of the holiday weekend, and, while it was spot-on that night, it felt all wrong as I flipped through the photos.  Who wants cauliflower over the Fourth of July weekend?  When burgers beckon, and fire crackers sizzle and sputter, and ice cream is mandatory, whether it be perched atop a sugar cone or plunked into a frothy pint of root beer?  When vegetables, if they must be eaten at all, take the much more summery shape of corn on the cob, or juicy tomatoes?  When fruit is suddenly available in all hues, and often in pie format?

Right: me neither.

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If I had to pick one thing—a single, solitary thing—that I loved most about June, it just might be the strawberries.  There are peonies, and fireflies, and graduations, and kids out of school, and the true start of the BBQ season, and car washes in the sun, and baseball every night, and sunshine past 8 pm, and farmers back at the market in Wicker Park on Sunday mornings, and new swimsuits, and marshmallows burnished by the bonfire.  To be sure, these are all fantastic features of June—a month that, if you ask me, has got exactly the right idea.  It begins (Memorial Day) and ends (Independence Day) with 3-day holiday weekends, for Pete’s sake!

But, between those bookends, there are strawberries.

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Hello!  Happy June!  Happy belated Memorial Day!  Happy summer!  Happy farmers’ market season!  Man, I’ve been gone longer than I thought I would be.  I’ve missed all these beginnings, but—the good news is—I have cake.

Well, okay, the cake was for my mother-in-law’s birthday, but you don’t mind if I recycle it for all of the aforementioned occasions, do you?  No?  Good!  You’re so kind.  But, really, a cake like this—two thick layers, covered in frosting—is best suited for birthdays.

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Last weekend, Kevin flew west (for a weekend with his friends in Yosemite) and I flew north (to Minnesota, to see my family).  The camera went with Kevin (filed under “The Things I Do For Love”).  But my iPhone came with me and I kept it busy documenting a rainy, chilly, but still-perfect weekend with my parents and sister.  There was beer (Fulton and Summit and Surly,  but not Grain Belt, alas):

And fat spears of asparagus shaved thin and tossed in lots of lemon, olive oil, parmesan and coarse salt:

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When we moved back to Chicago from DC in 2005, one of the biggest draws of this town was that it was where many of our friends were living.  Kevin had grown up here, we’d both gone to college here, and it wasn’t so far from Minneapolis, where I’d grown up.  Unlike Washington, where everything was new and where we were wrapped up in anonymity much of the time, this was a place where you could run into someone you knew at a Cubs game, where you could go to a place that you’d been five (or, in Kevin’s case, ten or fifteen) years ago.

There were a lot of great things about being back in Chicago—but returning to a tight group of college friends was certainly one of the best.  There were BBQs and nights of unending Taboo and weddings and chili cook-offs and fantasy football drafts and Fourth of July fireworks and book clubs and girls dinners and street festivals and concerts.

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I’m crazy for ramps right now.  Absolutely mad.  I see them in the grocery store, tucked beneath deep green eaves of chard and kale, and I can’t help but grab a bundle in my fist, lift them triumphantly over my head, and squeal to myself (or is it aloud?): Ramps! About this time, Kevin busies himself in the crucifer bin—suddenly fascinated beyond distraction by a seafoam green head of cabbage.  And, although the man does love his slaw, I’m beginning to think that maybe—just maybe—he’s embarrassed of my expression of ramp triumph.  But, no matter: my shopping cart is lined with a lush carpet of ramps.  Tra-lah-lah.

In truth, what I’m really crazy for is spring, and the ramps are just a little part of that.  They’re a middle piece of the jig-saw puzzle.  It seems that the perimeter of that puzzle  has taken shape (the trees are starting to fringe themselves in chartreuse; the tulips have begun to unfurl), but the rest of the zillion middle pieces seem reluctant to fall into place (creating the real-deal, warmer-than-60-degrees, local-produce-at-the-markets, full-on spring).

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I’m sure there’s some way to spin these radishes—quick pickled in a brine that’s equal parts sweet, sour, spicy and salt—as Passover- or Easter-friendly.  Nary a speck of leavened bread!  A lovely addition to your seder, tucked up against a piece of gefilte fish!  A punchy addition to your otherwise ham-and-scalloped-potatoes laden Easter spread!  A pre-Easter lunch bite with a hue to match the eggs hidden around the yard!