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dish in a casserole.)

Tongs for handling meat

Carrots and Zucchini with Garlic and Ginger

Application: Sautéing

Heat the sauté pan and, when hot, add the oil. Add the garlic and ginger to the pan and toss for 30 seconds. Add the carrots and toss until they are half-cooked, about 2 minutes. Add the zucchini and toss for 30 seconds to 1 minute more. Add the mint and the vinegar; if carrots are still too firm, cover and steam briefly. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, toss, and turn out onto a serving platter. Top with the sesame seeds.

Yield: 4 side servings

Software:

1 tablespoon peanut or safflower oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 teaspoons fresh ginger, minced

2 large carrots, cut into 2-inch sticks

1 large zucchini (unpeeled), cut

into 2-inch sticks

1 tablespoon mint, cut into fine

chiffonade

1 tablespoon rice wine vinegar

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2 teaspoons sesame seeds, toasted

in a dry pan over high heat until

you just begin to smell them

Hardware:

Sauté pan

GARLIC

Garlic wasn’t grown commercially in the United States until World War I, when some farmers in California started doing so in response to a government call for garlic to ship to troops overseas for use as an antiseptic. By 1920, Gilroy, California, in the San Joaquin Valley, established itself as the nation’s garlic capital. Today, more than 1 million pounds of garlic are processed there each day, and the town is the proud host of an annual three-day garlic festival that regularly attracts more than 100,000 people. An old folk saying goes “Shallots are for babies, onions are for men, garlic is for heroes.”

Scampi V2.0

Application: Sautéing

Chop the garlic together with the parsley until it almost reaches a paste-like consistency. (When salt is added, the French—yes, them again—call this mixture persillade.)

Heat the sauté pan and, when hot, add the oil. Add the shrimp and toss. When halfway cooked, about 1½ minutes, add the tomatoes and toss for 30 seconds to 1 minute more. Add the garlic and parsley mixture, the salt, pepper, butter, and lemon juice and toss one last time. Turn out onto a plate and serve.

Yield: 2 servings

Software:

2 cloves garlic

2 tablespoons finely chopped

parsley

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 pound jumbo shrimp (headless)

2 ripe Roma tomatoes, seeded and

diced

Salt

Freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon butter

Juice of half a lemon

Hardware:

Sauté pan

Believe it or not, you can substitute firm tofu (of all things) in this application. I’m told that crickets do well, too, although I haven’t tried them.

Hot Melon Salad

I also prepare this using a roasting pan on the grill. You really want to work with as much surface area as possible.

Application: Sautéing

Heat the sauté pan and, when hot, add the oil. Add the onion and toss for 30 seconds or until fragrant. Add the melon and toss until halfway cooked, about 2 minutes. Add the basil, vinegar, and pepper and toss for 30 seconds to 1 minute more. If the melon is still too hard, cover and let steam briefly. Remove the pan from the heat and immediately toss in the cheese. Turn out onto a serving platter and garnish with the pine nuts.

Yield: 4 side servings

Software:

1½ tablespoons olive oil

1 red onion, sliced Lyonnaise-style

2 cups diced assorted melon such

as cantaloupe and honeydew

1 tablespoon basil, cut into fine

chiffonade

Splash of red wine vinegar

Freshly ground black pepper

Crumbled feta cheese

1 tablespoon pine nuts, toasted in

a dry pan over high heat until

just browned

Hardware:

Sauté pan

I habitually burn pine nuts when I toast them this way, so I’ve recently switched to using a hot-air popcorn popper. No more burned nuts.

Miller Thyme Trout

Somewhere between sauté and pan-fry is a method the French call meunière. The word means “miller’s wife,” who I’m betting could get her hands on just about all the flour she wanted. Unlike a sauté, we’re talking a large piece of fish here, but the procedure