This salad is a great starter course to a big dinner or a stand alone light lunch, just be sure to check out the morels before roasting them to make sure they are clean.

Women on the Verge of A Nervous Breakdown is still my fave Almodovar movie, and as in the film, we always try to keep a pitcher of gazpacho in our fridge (minus the valium) in the warm weather months as a snack and as an easy thing to build a meal around. Keep large batches of this easy and addictive soup on hand throughout the rest of the summer, and if you haven’t seen the film you should rent it, if only for the gazpacho pitcher that steals the film.

Around my hometown, the first mushrooms of the year are about to come bursting into the markets, and of course fresh peas from the South and West are already here. There is something about mushrooms and peas that I adore in tandem, and as a pair they have a deep affinity for rice. This recipe is one that I developed a few years ago as a side dish for a roasted lamb dinner. I have never made the lamb dish since, but the risotto I whip out each year at the first opportunity. The three elements of the dish may seem like extra work for the home cook, but they are easy to do, and can be done ahead of time, and trying it once will make you a true believer in the power of layering textures and elements in your cooking.

Recipes like this one are perfect bridge dishes, linking the seasons, from winter to spring. Try ragout as a side dish for a roasted chicken dinner or on its own as a simple supper. For me, a perfect Sunday is spent cooking a double batch of the ragout. Freeze some, and serve the rest over a bowl of the polenta—you’ll feel like you are in the north of Italy, just into the lodge after a day skiing the Tyrolean Alps. Or the Afton Alps.

This combination of cake and compote makes for a warm, spice heavy dessert.

When it is hot out there, try this Turkish cooling soup called cacik. It's a perfect use for all those great local cukes that flood the market in the summer.

While this is a simple recipe to prepare, keep in mind the overnight straining of the yogurt which helps in the smooth consistency of the soup.

Morels for me are the great harbinger of spring, the first blessed event of the year. Nearly impossible to cultivate, highly prized for their unique flavor profile, and different in structure than traditional fungi, morels have a hollow cylindrical body and a finely honeycombed cap that can be blond, white-tipped, black, or coniferous, and in some fields, they grow to be 8-inches tall. I’ve seen these giants on the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and I almost had a heart attack. My home has morels growing in the backyard, along the stump and root ridges of an old oak tree. Last year was a perfect year for morels. They bloomed all at once, after a particularly damp few days. I stumbled across fifty or so of them quite by accident, while weeding with my wife in the flower garden. Once sure of their species (some false morels can be unpleasant to eat), we checked them for mites by splitting open a few. The rest we shook free of dirt and wiped with a damp rag. I hate washing mushrooms and would rather eat some black earth than sacrifice any of the morel’s subtle flavors. Basket in hand, we rushed to my best friend’s house and cooked them, standing in his kitchen, smiling contentedly, and not saying a word. Morels can be found in the spring at farmers’ markets, from your friendly neighborhood forager, at local markets, and from Fresh and Wild, 800-222-5578, via mail order.

Nothing beats braised chicken in the spring and  this  killer version of the Caribbean asopao, a dish that is served all over the region from island to island, is one of my favorites. Serve it with a great chopped vegetable salad and a plate of sliced avocado, some lime wedges, and some corn tortillas for good measure.

I don't know about you, but I need a guilty pleasure I don't have to feel so bad about.  Asparagus is a great vegetable, especially when tossed in a great sauce like black bean.