With Father's Day looming before us, the real question is, who is going to grill those wonderful New York steaks on Sunday?  Can we really ask Dad to prepare his own meal? 

Of course!  We all know Dad loves nothing better than a sizzling seared steak on the grill, flipping burgers for the family, or roasting a big alder plank of salmon. 

That's true for plenty of fathers/men/women/anyone, but if you're thinking of grilling on Sunday, or any time during the next few months, expand the repertoire a bit to include the whole meal.

You can easily make your own crisp sweet potato slices or potato fries on the grill.  Sweet corn is especially sweet and juicy when it's prepared over a flame, either campfire,charcoal or gas.  Bring out the flavors of fruits like peaches and pineapple on a barbecue, too.

Slice up some summer vegetables and coat them lightly with a flavored olive oil, seasoning to your taste, and let them bake gently over a low heat.  The complex mix really resonates on the tongue, and is even better if there are leftovers the next day.

You can add your garlic bread to the grill, too...virtually the whole meal can be managed with outdoor cooking.  The only slightly tricky part is coordinating the food to be done cooking at approximately the same time.  But no worries...you'll get the hang of it. Until you do, just keep a careful eye on the various elements so they don't get too well done!

We recommend a great steak for Father's Day, but if you want something even easier, any frozen or homemade pizza tastes terrific when it's finished off on the barbecue. 

Give Dad a day off from his duties, if he wants, or give him more to cook if he's the creative chef type.  Either way, the end result is summer eating at its finest. 

From my limited gardening experience, it seems as though you need to plant lettuce and other greens you want to eat all summer consecutively...because once you harvest a mature head of lettuce, that's it.  Unless you plant more seeds, you are done.  So gardening, like meal preparation, is an ongoing activity. But oh, the rewards of fresh!

Speaking of farm shares, which is a great idea, if you haven't paged through Barbara Kingsolver's book, Animal Vegetable Miracle, it's an engaging look at how one family attempts to grow everything they eat over the course of a year.

What strikes me, and what I've seen written about before regarding farm shares, is how  the more unique vegetables you might receive from a share, particularly in early spring, or the vegetables you might grow when the season begins, is a wonderful exercise for creative cooks.

I, for one, am mystified by kale, mustard greens, collard greens and anything else that resides in that part of the produce case.  Making a point to pick up those unfamiliar veggies and learning how to prepare them can be very satisfying.  They also tend to fill in the gap between the more familiar, like summer berries, and that time of year when you're struggling to find a new way to serve broccoli.

Many of us have started a garden this spring.  There is something so satisfying about preparing a bed, planting the seeds, watering faithfully, and watching plants spring up.

I'm all about variety in my garden, and plan to use it to fill in the gaps between visits to my favorite grocery store.  This spring, I chose starts with dreamy names like "French Market Melange" and "Spicy Argula Mix" and "Baby Spring Mache Lettuce".  As an inexperienced gardener, I discovered my first mistake:  all my lettuces will be ready for picking at the same time, so I hastened to put more seeds in the ground.

Then, the fun starts.  I couldn't resist planting edamame, and wondering if it would succeed in the cooler Northwest climate.  Pattypan squash, butternut, spinach starts, red pepper, Walla Walla onion, little jack o'lantern pumpkins are all co-existing in my elegant and simple raised garden bed.

I have a special section for herbs, because you can never have enough of them.  Italian parsley, French tarragan and dill line up with thyme and an especially hardy basil.  Like everyone else, my rosemary withered and died in the difficult winter, so I've replanted my favorite, for adding to roasting beef, using as skewers for chicken kebobs and crushing to add zest to sauces on fresh fruits.

Are you on the garden bandwagon this summer?  What is your most successful crop, and what's your favorite way to use it?  I forgot to mention that I'm especially excited to grow some broccoli rabe (or rapini) to serve alongside grilled fish and meats.  We're all about eating local whenever possible, and certainly a garden helps us do just that...along with The Markets and our sourcing of all products from close by.

This old-fashioned favorite is often paired with salmon, but it's great with almost anything.  It's even tasty if you drain the liquid and add it to a hearty sandwich.

Ingredients

• two English cucumbers, peeled, seeded and sliced thinly
• half a white onion, peeled and thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons sea salt
• 1/4 cup white vinegar
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• sesame seeds, caraway seeds or chopped fresh dill

Steps

1. Mix together the salt, vinegar, sugar and pepper.
2. Pour over sliced cucumbers and onions in a shallow, non-metallic bowl, making sure to cover all the cukes.
3. Refrigerate several hours, or until the cucumbers and onions are soft and the puckery flavor has penetrated the veggies.
4. Serve at room temperature and top with your choice of sesame or caraway seeds or chopped fresh dill.

Are mothers and food (almost) synonymous?

Mothers take on all sorts of roles in a family's life, but certainly purveyors of food are tops on the list.  Although many dads are equally adept, involved or active in food prep for their families, since Mother's Day is upon us, I'm going to talk moms and food.

Think of your mother and the food she served you and your family.  In my home, it was meals she learned from her own mother, sturdy, hearty foods that included meat, potatoes and something green.  Meals were simple and predictable:  if it was Sunday, it was pot roast.  Friday was the fish fry.  The (dreaded to me) meatloaf emerged mid-week, along with the ubiquitous chicken and the chicken-casserole-leftovers following. There was usually a pressure cooker full of chili or a vegetable soup in there, too.

Desserts were for special occasions, and featured made-from-scratch lemon meringue pies, a peach-stuffed pastry and a sheet chocolate cake, loaded with double the chocolate buttercream frosting.  She made almond-flavored cookies we called pink ladies, due to their pink frosting, that disappeared within a day.

In the summer, we would pick cherries, can peaches, put up other fruits for the long, snowy winter ahead.  Sometimes, Mom would get an inspiration, and we would eat something far distant from our Midwest table:  say, an Asian-themed noodle dish.  Once, she and a neighbor spent the better part of a day cooking up bubbling pots of Italian "gravy", or what we know as the Italian red sauce.  It simmered all day, and we ate the gravy atop all kinds of dishes well into the following spring.

This brings me to my question:  what kind of food did your Mom cook for you?  Another question:  what are your memories of the kinds of food associated with your mother?  Finally, if you will be with your mother this Sunday (hint: Mother's Day), what will you feed her as a small thanks for all the care and feeding she's done for you?  (I'm cooking for my family, and it will be grilled fish, a green salad, homemade sweet potato fries, some broiled garlic asparagus, and perfect oatmeal cookies.)

Why Not Cupcakes?

Suddenly, these cute little cakes seem to be everywhere.  They show up in boutique bakeries, at bridal showers, in supermarkets, in lunchboxes.  There's just something about a cupcake that makes you feel like you are treating yourself without going overboard on the sugar-sweet continuum. 

I am somewhat of a cake fanatic, but am very particular about that cake.  I first tasted a Magnolia Bakery cupcake in New York City a few years ago, and thought to myself, "this is what a cupcake should be."  A dense, vanilla-infused cake with just a few crumbs, strong enough to stand up to a crown of swirling pastel buttercream:  now that's a cupcake to remember.  And I do remember it well, carrying two of them home on the plane, but alas...had to eat one mid-air,somewhere over the Great Lakes,  much to the envy of my fellow travelers.

I like to make cupcakes in the mini size.  They are just right for two bites and you don't have to confront 24 supersized cakes.  When they're petite, you can nosh on a couple and feel like you've given yourself a little pat on the back.

Flavors?  I am a purist.  I go for a white cake with white frosting.  I don't think that's boring: it's the height of culinary skill to produce a true vanilla flavor without a synthetic aftertaste.  And if you're like me, you always double the frosting you make, adding twice as much, because isn't the frosting the whole point?  I make mine from scratch, a simple buttercream, but if you're pressed for time, an inexpensive cake mix and canned frosting will quell the craving quickly.

Cupcakes have long been the answer to classroom treats, and adapt themselves to any holiday or season.  Right now, a pink, strawberry-flavored cake with a creamy matching strawberry frosting would be right in step with spring.  Mix up a batch and share your success with your family, coworkers, students, pals.  It doesn't get much better than a sweet taste of cupcake heaven.

Someone told me that a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is the ultimate comfort food.  That got me thinking about the foods that satisfy when I need a pat on the back, a kind word or a little treat

When I was a kid, it was always about something sweet.  A wedge of angel food cake with lofty white frosting topped with chocolate chips, a handful of bridge mix (and why is it called bridge mix?), a piece of lemon meringue pie, eaten in separate layers, or the ultimate: oreo cookies, broken apart, and devoured filling first. 

But as I got older, comfort related to more than the basic lust for sugar, and became both seasonal and situational.  After a big exam, nothing tasted as good as a slightly soggy grilled cheese sandwich, simply white bread with melted American cheese.  In the summer months, a big bowl of local strawberries in the afternoon was reward enough for working all day in the garden.  The forboding days of deep winter in the Pacific Northwest encouraged hot Irish oatmeal, steel-cut and topped with sliced almonds, dried cranberries and a dollop of plain yoghurt.

My comfort food these days is even simpler:  just one or two ingredients, easy to assemble and slow to eat.  I can linger over a toasted bagel, treating myself to a little peanut butter on top, after I finish a long jog.  Following a grueling drive in heavy traffic, I sit down to a piece of last night's homemade pizza, served cold, and feel myself wind down.  Food has the ability to not just nourish , but to satisfy on many levels.  Well, that's a pretty deep thought, and I'm feeling a little chilly, so I need a big bowl of lentil soup to keep me going. How about you?

In the details, or most likely, in the eggs.   Deviled eggs, that is.  For me, spring heralds the beginning of deviled egg season.  You have probably seen deviled eggs in their usual environment, adorning a picnic plate, sitting in all their half-moon glory, bright yellow creamy yokes topped with that bit of "devil", in this case, a smidge of paprika or red pepper flakes for a nice  bite. 

Deviled eggs are pretty simple and inexpensive to make.   Take as many eggs as you want to serve (but be warned, there are never enough!), and put them in a capacious pan, completely covered with water.  Bring to an energetic boil, and then, turn off the heat, cover the pan and let them sit for 15 minutes while they finish their work.  Uncover the pan, and  voila:  hard-boiled eggs.  To easily remove the shell, I run them under cold water, tap with a butter knife around the midpoint, and peel them, hopefully not losing too much of the white to the attached peel.  (By the way, anyone have a foolproof ---sorry, it's April 1st! --- method to peel eggs?  I'd sure like to try it.)

Slice each egg in half, longways (not around the midpoint), and scoop out the yoke.  Then, the fun begins.  You can mash up the yolk, add salt and pepper and a bit of mayo or creme fraiche, some soft chevre or even Greek yoghurt, and spoon back into the waiting eggwhites..  Top with the red sprinkles. That's the classic deviled egg, but I like to tinker with such simple perfection.

How about mixing in some jalapeno to your yolk blend?  Or tiny bits of chopped pickles?  Red onions, little capers or pimientos, pickled ginger or wasabi, shredded cheese, any spice that piques your interest: deviled eggs are like a blank canvas for creative cooks who like to dabble. 

But be warned: deviled eggs, once they appear in all their straightforward appeal, just don't last long, and you'll find yourself wishing you had doubled the batch.  Dare I say "no foolin'?"  Eggs-actly so!

Does Food On A Budget Make You Cringe?

Thinking about stretching your food budget to accommodate today's leaner days?  When I consider food and budget in the same sentence, my thoughts go immediately to solemn words like lentils.  Tomato sauce.  Oatmeal.  Potatoes.  None of it sounds very appetizing, but if I put a little thought into those, I'm thinking, ah ha!  Lentil soup with a soupcon of yellow curry.  Tomato sauce?  Sure, and why not toss in just a few kalamata olives and a shredding of parmesan?  Oatmeal?  Well, my default on oatmeal is topping it with brown sugar and broiling it for a budget-inspired oatmeal creme brulee.  Potatoes?  Wow, a whole meal when I bake them, and then empty out the fridge with a piece of this and a leftover piece of that. 

My question:  what are your food on a budget inspirations?