Just like every other newspaper gets their cue from the New York Times, there must be some trend-setting source out there because I swear, these food mags all come out with big overlap.

(I love to read one magazine and pit it against the others. One will have a recipe for grilling chicken under a brick, then the other will say "that's the dumbest thing you could do". Or they'll have different recipes for the same dish and you can really see what each magazine strives for. Cooks, for example, is big on taking the complexity out of a dish and scientifically coming up with "the best". Fine Cooking is not afraid of complex, time consuming recipes, however, many pay off. Instead of a "lab kitchen", they bring in 4-5 professional chefs to share their recipes, plus the pictures are better. There are others mags, but I don't read them regularly enough.)

In the summer, you can expect to see lots of recipes for grilling, and even more recipes for the fresh food of the season (berries, melons, tomatoes, peaches, squash). But Greek food? Come on. Who said Greek food was the cool thing for the summer? Must be a conspiracy.

Trends for July/August
GREEK!
Several recipes for stuffed grape leaves served one style or another, and Martha has a whole Greek meal laid out for you. Also keep an eye out for olive oil taste tests. Our philosophy is to have a minimum of 3 olive oils in the house: 1 cheaper grocery store brand when taste is not as critical, like for frying (Colavita), 1 buttery flavored one (currently L'Estornell from Spain), and 1 spicier one (currently Altomena from Italy). We enjoy going to Williams-Sonoma to their olive oil tasting bar. :) The fancier oils are saved for salad dressings and other recipes where the taste really matters.

For the BBQ...
-Brushetta. Yup. Grilled brushetta. Topped with all sorts of weird stuff like sweet peppers, summer squash, bacon, arugula... goes a bit beyond your average tomato-parmesan combo.
-Lots of chicken. Chicken must be the ultimate challenge because it's boring and dries out easily. Unlike a good steak which can stand on its own, chicken is totally dependent on the cook to make it edible.

Desserts!
-Think icy goodness. Lemon ice, Watermelon and other fruit granitas, slushy alcoholic sweet beverages.
-No let down on the fresh fruit desserts. It's unfair, really, unless you have the luxury of a farmers' market or stand nearby. Or grow your own, like my parent's did when I was growing up. *sigh*

Drink of the season!!
The Mojito! And quite yummy if you ask me! Bon Appetit also had a "blues mojito" which included a little blue curacao...awesome I'm sure.
Sangria was a close second.

Magazines...
Of course my Fine Cooking and Cook's magazine, but also:
-I don't subscribe to Bon Appetit (more ads than recipes), but every year they have a BBQ issue I enjoy.
-Martha Mag. I'm waiting for my Martha Mag subscription to run out. Meantime, I flip through it for the occassional tidbit. Her recipes (like everything else) are fussy, BUT, the July issue had me saying "hey I'd try that", "and that", "and, hmmm". It's a food issue.
-Something Extra. If you live on the west coast, you've heard radio commercials for the free "Something Extra" magazine that Bel Air/Raley's puts out. I dismissed these at first, but my mom said she'd tried a few things with great results. Naturally it's peppered with ads, but on the flip side, you can expect to find *every* ingredient at their store...what's to complain about? Martha has you running to 3 or 4 different specialty stores!

Wednesday night we always have a game night of sorts with our friends and we rotate between houses each week for dinner-duty. We all have a fondness for salt and vinegar chips.

A couple weeks ago on our turn, we held a blind taste test of these salt and vinegar chips. We were pretty cool to do it. Each person voted for their favorite and here are the results, in order of preference:

"Lay's Kettle Cooked Sea Salt and Vinegar Extra Crunchy Potato Chips"
3 votes
Edged out the Cape Cod by one vote. And for the price...a good bargain. "tastes like balsamic", "prefer over regular Lay's", "good everyday salt and vinegar". One thought "tastes a little cheap".

"Cape Cod Sea Salt and Vinegar Potato Chips"
2 votes
High quality good stuff. Good potato chip thickness. As usual with gourmet chips comes a gourmet price. Taster said things like "good vinegar", "best texture" and "whoa, potent". Another taster also thought the chips were inconsistent.

"Kettle Chips Sea Salt & Vinegar Natural Gourmet Potato Chips"
1 votes
Kettle is found in the natural food aisle. I guess it's natural. This is one thick chip, ranging from "mmmm chunky" to "too thick". One thought it had a "strange potato taste". Overall a boring flavor.

"Tim's Cascade Style Sea Salt Vinegar Potato Chips"
0 votes
Hands down, the worst of the bunch (but still very edible I suppose). Comments included "salty not vinagery", "texture tastes processed", "weird aftertaste" and "don't like these at all".

So what was my comment?

"They all fall short."

J.T. and I have different days off during the week. I worked from home on Wednesday so we could make lunch together. I felt like such a yuppie, or something!!

-brie and sesame rice crackers
-chilled roasted beet soup with horseradish sour cream
-crab avocado salad (much like egg salad, but way fancier)

Both recipes from Fine Cooking magazine for Aug/Sept 2003.

The soup was beautiful, an almost unnatural purple color, and looked radiant served in white bowls. We recently discovered that while beets are yucky, roasted beets are yummy. Still true in this recipe, which earned a great.

The crab, avocado salad was rich, but good. I didn't serve it with lettuce like it called for.

Thursday night we had leftovers and ate the salad again. J.T. had his with lettuce and liked it better. I had mine on toasted bread as a sandwich - it cut the richness a little. All in all, a great.

We also had leftover mashed potatoes fixed our favorite way - as periogies! What's a pierogie? See Mrs T's for a good store brand. We use wonton wrappers and put a teaspoon of leftover mashed potatoes in the middle, seal it, and fry it. I think using 2 wrappers is best. Serve with sour cream (or horseradish sour cream if you have some lying around).