Zephyr is a breeze, a mild yet refreshing wind, hailing from the west. It is so named after Zephuros, mythic Greek god of the West Wind—considered the most benevolent of The Winds.

Zephyr is also a unique summer squash, a two-toned slender beauty: yellow with faint white striping and green-tipped at the blossom end. Do you know it? Tallahassee May introduced me to this delicious vegetable several years ago through her Fresh Harvest Co-op, and I look forward to its fleeting appearance each summer.

I am quite taken with Zephyr. Aside from its distinctive look–indeed attractive–it possesses other prized qualities worth this gush.

The flavor is slightly sweet and nutlike. Its texture is firm, yet pliable: not the least seedy, or watery. You can easily slice it into long ribbons that will retain their lovely shape in a saute.

With a bounty of squashes now filling our gardens, CSA baskets, and farmers markets, I have been considering different ways to highlight this paragon of summer in dishes, without becoming squash-weary.

And, I could readily imagine ribbons of zephyr squash tangled with ribbons of papparadelle. Soon after I had this notion, I came across a zucchini-shrimp-linguine recipe on Tracy’s blog, Amuse-Bouche for Two that followed a similar line of thought. Serendipity! That cinched it. Really, there is nothing new; we are all accessing from the same wondrous creative fount.

The recipe that I put together is ridiculously simple, and enormously satisfying: all designed to let the toasted goodness of Zephyr to breeze through….

Sauteed with some onion in a combination of butter and olive oil, the julienned strips make a lively tangle on their own.

Those interlacing ribbons like a liberal grind of black pepper. I think the dish is very good, even at this basic stage, but a crumble of chevre….even better.

It lightly coats while imparting bites with creamy tang.

I brought a bowl of this to a Sunday covered dish supper, where we all gathered to view slides of a Colorado Trail hike from our friends, Jen and Jenn. It was a favorite–even with the wee ones—who doesn’t love a toasty tangle of noodles?

ZEPHYR RIBBON PASTA
1 medium Onion, sliced thin
4 Zephyr Summer Squash, sliced lengthwise into thin strips
2 T. Butter
1 T. Olive Oil
Sea Salt and Fresh Ground Black Pepper
8 oz. Papparadelle or Fettuccini
2 oz. Goat Cheese

Heat skillet and melt butter with olive oil. Saute onion until translucent. Add julienned strips of squash. Stir until the squash is coated with butter/oil, and gets tangled up with the onion. Cook for 5-7 minutes, until soft and tender, but still with bite.

Boil pasta in salted water, according to package directions. Drain, but reserve a cup of pasta water.

Toss ribbon pasta into skillet with zephyr. Toss well, adding some reserved pasta water as needed. Season with salt and black pepper. Add crumbled goat cheese and serve.

Serves 4-6

Each month, when Gigi and I host the Third Thursday Community Pot Luck Dinner, we put our heads together a few days beforehand to decide what we want to make. Seasonality, of course, takes the front burner. What we find flourishing in our respective gardens figures prominently in the mix. And, then, it’s where ever else the kitchen muse directs us…

“Look at ALL these turtle beans,” Gigi said, bringing out bowls mounded with shiny purple-black pebbles. She placed them on her kitchen counter.
“I don’t know how farmers can make any money. I spent hours shelling them. I haven’t even calculated the time in planting, weeding, and harvesting.”

I nodded. “They are impressive,” I said. Who knew that you could grow black beans in Tennessee? “We will definitely showcase them in some way.”

“And, don’t forget, I have lots of peppers and garlic!” Gigi paused. “The cilantro’s gone, but its seeds are ready too.”

“Toasted coriander, ” I said.

I reminded her of the large bag—a lifetime supply, she believed–of quinoa stashed in her pantry. A Southwest themed salad, hearty, healthy, and protein-rich, seemed to be in the works…

But, what else would we make?

My little front yard farmette is but a speck, compared to Gigi’s Wedgewood Urban Gardens, however, my two lemon basil plants had grown into fragrant bushes. It would be nice to use the lot in a dish for the potluck.

I went home and stared into my own pantry—seeking a spark, a nudge, any ingredient to highlight the herb. I scanned over boxes of capellini, penne, fusilli, but pasta didn’t excite me. Brown rice, jasmine rice, arborio, no, they all seemed wrong.

Then I found a bag of bulgur wheat. Hmmmm. While parsley and mint are key to Tabouleh, it is a distinctly lemony salad. Why wouldn’t lemon basil work in place of parsley and mint?

Yes, friends, we have a winner!

In no time, I made a lemon basil pesto, which worked its lemon-scented magic in the cracked wheat. Not unlike tabouleh, but less green tasting, this salad was refreshing and summery, and turned out to be a complementary partner to the black bean-quinoa.

Side by side on the table, our potluck offerings were rather yin and yang, light and dark, crisp and soft, cool and spicy, citrus and chocolate….

LEMON BASIL CRACKED WHEAT SALAD
2 cups Cracked Bulgur Wheat
2 Lemons, for juice and zest
2 cloves Garlic
1/2 cup Olive Oil
1 bunch Lemon Basil leaves (about 1 1/2-2 cups)
Sea Salt
Fresh Ground Black Pepper
2 ripe Tomatoes, diced
1/2 Red Onion, diced

Soak cracked wheat in fresh water for at least 15 minutes and rinse well. Set aside in a bowl.
Using the food processor with a swivel blade, make a pesto using garlic, lemon basil leaves, lemon zest, lemon juice, and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.

Stir lemon basil pesto into the cracked wheat. Stir in diced tomatoes and onion. Set into the fridge and allow the flavors to meld into the cracked wheat.

BLACK BEAN QUINOA SALAD
2 cups Black Beans, rinsed and picked over
2 T. Olive OIl
1 Onion, diced
1 Poblano Pepper, diced (or 2-3 Jalapenos)
2 cloves Garlic, minced
1 Tomato, chopped
1 t. Cumin
1 t. toasted Coriander Seed
1 cup Quinoa, rinsed three times, and drained
1 1/2 cups Water
1 Lime, for juice and zest
Salt
Red Pepper Flakes

For the Black Beans: (if fresh, there is no need to soak. If dried, soak the beans for at least 3 hours. Drain and rinse.)

In a 2 qt. saucepan, saute chopped onions and peppers in olive oil until onions are translucent. Add garlic and diced tomatoes. Season with cumin and coriander. Saute for 5 minutes. Add black beans and stir until beans are well coated. Add water to cover the beans, and simmer, covered, for 30 minutes. Skim off any foam that accumulates on the top and stir. Simmer until beans are soft but still intact. Can be prepared the day before and refrigerated.

For the Quinoa:
Heat a skillet and add the well-rinsed quinoa. Stir under medium heat to toast the grain—about 5 minutes. Add water and stir. Season with salt and red pepper flakes. Cook, covered, under low heat for 30 minutes.

To Assemble:
Stir the black beans into the quinoa mixture. Add lime zest and juice from one lime. Stir well. Sample for salt and heat, and adjust to taste.

When we moved from New York to Nashville oh-so-many years ago, I was eleven years old: tall and awkward, somewhat shy, and firmly entrenched in my picky eating ways. My first impressions of The South ranged from confusion to dismay.

I had a hard time understanding some of the lingo and the accent. I didn’t know that when our neighbor Lola Newman said, “‘Y’all fixin’ ta go to the thee-ay-ter?” she was asking if we were going to the movies.

And there were foods (eek!) I had never seen before, like pickled okra and chow-chow, beans and greens cooked down in ham hock, skillet cornbread. I remember my picky girl horror when Lola Newman welcomed us with a dish called Summer Squash Pie.

“What is That?” I asked my sister Carole, who was the antithesis of picky eating. I was certain that she purposefully ate things like green olive mustard sandwiches just to gross me out.

“This?” she replied, holding up a forkful of the pie. “It’s yellow squash. It’s a vegetable but it’s sweet. I like it. Wanna bite?” she snickered, in full knowledge of my impending response.

“Yuck. No.”

I have to laugh at myself, having come to embrace The South, its foods, easy-speak, and sensibilities. It’s become my home. And, I believe that I would really enjoy Lola’s pie now, although I imagine she put sugar in it, and I would not.

Today, I made a kind of squash pie–no crust, or eggs, though. It was too hot for that. I layered young uncooked yellow squash (that I grew myself!!) with sweet corn that I bought at our farmers market. It’s more of a gratin. Bechamel sauce seasoned with onion and thyme held it together.

We enjoyed it, served with a piece of crusty bread covered with a fat slice of tomato. Our supper was light and summery-sweet, sooooo good. I think Lola would have liked it, too.

SUMMER SQUASH-SWEET CORN GRATIN
1 T. Butter
2-3 young Yellow Squash, sliced very thin into circles
2-3 ears Sweet Corn, kernels cut off the cob, cob scraped
1 T. Butter
1 c. Water
1/4 c. diced onion
1 T. Butter
1 T. All Purpose Flour
a few sprigs of Thyme
Salt and Black Pepper
1 Cup Lowfat Milk
Grated Gruyere or Parmesan Cheese

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Coat 9″ pie pan with 1 T. melted butter, and lay out squash in partly overlapping concentric rings until the bottom of the pie pan is covered. This will use about half of your squash.

Melt 1 T. butter in a skillet; add corn and corn scrapings. Season with salt and black pepper, and stir in 1 cup water. Simmer for about 3-5 minutes–corn will partially cook and release more “corn milk.”

In a small saucepan, melt 1 T. butter and saute onions until translucent. Stir in flour and cook until it dissolves and is incorporated in the butter. Stir in milk, thyme leaves, and season with salt and pepper. Stir until bechamel becomes thick. Remove from heat.

Spoon corn and its juices over the layer of squash. Spoon and spread bechamel over the corn. Add another layer of squash, and repeat the process. Garnish the top with a center floret of squash circles and sprinkle cheese over all.

Bake for about 40 minutes, or until liquid reduces and thickens. Cool slightly and serve. Serves 2 generously.

The cake lady is at it again! Here is yet another, in the unfolding series of birthday cakes for family members enjoying those special zero-year milestones….

…and this one, made for my brother-in-law, Ted’s 50th, is tangy beyond measure, thanks to the rhapsodic pairing of lemons and raspberries.

Tart, cooling…It’s a summery dessert, to be sure. Lemons and raspberries each have assertive, zingy notes that don’t require a load of sugar to sing. And, really, who wants the burden of sticky-sweet, especially in hot weather?

The cake batter has lots of lemon juice and zest, and plain lowfat yogurt lends rich body without heaviness. The cream cheese-buttercream icing, flecked with lemon zest, takes on a pretty, light yellow hue. The raspberry filling is simple to make, divine sitting on top of the icing, as well as over some vanilla ice cream, should you decide to make extra.

The recipe that I’ve given you will make 2 9″ layers, or fill a bundt pan, if you’d like to make a simple glazed lemon bundt cake.

Because there were close to 50 guests at his party, I doubled the recipe to make the 3 10″ layers for Ted’s cake. And, because his party was held at their country home close to 50 miles from my house, I assembled the cake in my kitchen, and put on the finishing touches once I delivered the cake to my sister’s kitchen.

With heat and humidity being factors, Summertime Cakes have their distinct challenges, especially when a 50 mile drive is involved. But, a trip across town can be just as risky!

One of my first Big Summertime Cake endeavors, (over 25 years ago!) involved a multi-tiered orange-scented spongecake for a wedding. It was an ambitious effort, with each layer having a different filling: chocolate, apricot cream, strawberry-vanilla. The bottom tiers were stacked; the top tier was to be supported by three crystal glasses. Peach tea roses and small clumps of white hydrangea would adorn the cake.

The wedding was held outside at nearby home, on the absolutely hottest, most sultry, dripping August evening. Working at home, in and out of the refrigerator–and a chest freezer I had at the time–I filled and iced the layers, stacking the 14″ and 10″ rounds (and securing them with dowels pushed through the layers) , leaving the 7″ topper separate.

My car at the time was a 1963 Valiant convertible (no a/c, needless to say)—a most improbable vehicle for transporting wedding cakes. I had the sizeable base propped on the backseat, the topper on the front floorboard, and somehow managed to make a safe delivery. The site was only 2 miles away—but felt like 20!

That hurdle crossed, I then assembled the cake in the foyer where it was to be served. I piped simple borders to unite the layers, balanced the top tier on the three crystal cordials, garnished with fresh flowers, and took a deep breath. Success!

But the a/c was not cooling the foyer effectively. So, the host decided that the cake should be moved into the dining room with the other food. Two men in linen suits gingerly shifted the cake across the hallway and onto the dining room sideboard. Phew. Success, again.

Post-backyard-ceremony, the wedding party and guests came into the house, sweat-drenched and delirious. Champagne and heat had gone to everyone’s head. After partaking of more bubbly and the dinner buffet, the host decided that the cake would be more dramatic if it were cut and served from the round table in the foyer as originally conceived.

Indeed.

Our two linen-suited men stepped in, once again, to make the move. It all happened so fast. I remember hearing a groan and then seeing a creamy-white form fly across the room, a spray of flowers and greenery, followed by the crashing of three little crystals….

To be fair, It did supply the Drama. I must report that all was not lost—it was the topper that went sailing. The base layers–the majority of the cake–were undamaged, mostly. And still quite delicious.

LEMON YOGURT CAKE
2-3 Lemons—2T. Lemon Zest and ½ cup Lemon Juice
1 ½ sticks soft Butter
1 ½ cups Sugar
4 Eggs
1 cup Plain Lowfat Yogurt
3 cups All-Purpose Flour
2 t. Baking Powder
½ t. Baking Soda
½ t. Salt

Sift dry ingredients together in a separate bowl. Cream butter and sugar together, add juice, yogurt, zest. Then add eggs, one at a time. Add dry ingredients. Pour into 2 9″ cake pans that have been coated with baking spray.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Cool on rack before removing.

RASPBERRY FILLING
1 1/2 cups Raspberries, or Mixed Berries, rinsed
1/4 cup Water
1/2 cup Sugar

Place a saucepan on medium heat and add berries, water, sugar. Stir until dissolved. Cook the mixture for 15 minutes, occasionally stirring. The berries will break down, releasing their juices, and a sauce will begin to get a glaze and thicken.

LEMON CREAM CHEESE ICING
1 lb. Cream Cheese, softened
1 stick Unsalted Butter, softened
1-2 Lemons, for Zest and Juice
1 1/2 cups Confectioners Sugar

In a mixer, cream together the softened butter and cream cheese. Add the juice and zest of the lemons and mix well. Add confectioners sugar and beat until well incorporated. Taste for sweetness—and tartness—and adjust.

ASSEMBLING THE CAKE

With cool but workable icing, put a “skim-coat” on your first layer. If your kitchen is warm, put the iced layer in the refrigerator for 10 minutes to set up. Then, spoon your raspberry filling on top. Spread it across–but not to the edge. You don’t want the raspberry to bleed through. Place the next layer on top and skim coat it.

Again, let that set up in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes. (30 minutes is better!)

Ice the cake in its entirety. Pipe with simple bordering, stars, and decorate with fresh berries, and a little reserve of raspberry filling. Lemon basil leaves make a nice garnish, too.

Just don’t move it more than twice.