Chimichurri sounds surely like some exotic Spanish-tinged shimmy, not as sexy as the tango, but definitely better than any line dance - I’m looking at you, Macarena - we’ve got up these ways.

At home, this is a sauce we come back to again and again, and we did so last night for supper, given that summer has returned and our beautiful Webber grill is still like a new toy. The classic, rather machismo way of eating it dripped over slices of a broiled, rare steak, and that’s plenty good. But I think it would work splendidly with some charred chicken, too, or just dripped over a plate of ripe tomatoes and mopped up with crusty bread.

I fall hard for anything that’s heavy on cilantro, but I’ve heard the stories. To some people, cilantro tastes like soap. That it’s not just that they dislike it, but they honestly don’t taste the bright, spritly zing that the rest of us crave. How can these be? Rumor has it that there is a genetic reason for this. I can’t fathom the disappointment of imagine biting into a carnitas taco, only to find your mouth full of the taste of Dial or Downy or Dove. Yikes. I am really sorry for you guys. Really. But come on, is an entire website dedicated to eradicating the herb really necessary? Sheesh. I mean, these guys sell t-shirts. Pink ones, even, for the girls.

So if you’re a member of the above group, or now an aspiring one, you may want to skip this next recipe. Oh sure, a quickly seared flank steak rubbed with a handful of cumin and kosher salt and ground coriander (which, truth be told, is actually dried cilantro seed. This topic is apparently one of great debate on the afore-mentioned website.) and black pepper is just divine on its own. But without The Sauce it just won’t, well, dance.

Flank Steak with Chimichurri adapted from the Gourmet Cookbook

Serves 4 to 6, depending on the size of the steak. Leftovers are a worthy goal. With a fistful of spicy arugula, some toasted hazelnuts or pine nuts, and cucumber, you’d have the makings of a terrific salad.

This cut of steak is really best rare to medium rare. And ensure that it is tender, always slice flank steak very thin on the bias and against the grain.

For the steak:
about 1 1/2 pounds trimmed flank steak
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

For chimichurri sauce:
1 large garlic clove
1 1/2 cups loosely packed fresh cilantro leaves
1 1/2 cups loosely packed fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
1/4 cup distilled white vinegar
1/3 cup olive oil
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Ready the grill or preheat the broiler. Pat steak dry. Stir together salt, cumin, coriander, and pepper in a small bowl and rub on both sides of steak. Broil steak on hot broiler pan about 4 inches from the heat, turning once, for 12 minutes total for medium-rare. Transfer to a cutting board and let stand, loosely covered with foil, for five minutes. If grilling, grill directly over hot coals, about six minutes each side, to medium-rare and let stand covered with foil after taking off heat.

With a motor running, add garlic to a food processor or blender and finely chop. Add cilantro, parsley, vinegar, oil, cayenne, and salt and pulse until herbs are finely chopped.

Slice steak against grain and on the bias (hold the knife at a 45-degree angle). Serve with lots of sauce.

Back in May, I did a double-take at a local branch of the state farmers’ market.

There. They. Were. Local tomatoes. In May, mid-May, mind you. Local tomatoes in time for Mother’s Day. I made fresh salsa to go with the green chile frittata we gobbled down for brunch that day, and I felt as if I had conjured up a bowl of rubies to sprinkle over the eggs.

North Carolina farmers have gotten sneaky, and brilliant. They’re growing tomatoes in dirt, as usual, but sticking them in greenhouses, where they get warm and tall waaaayyy earlier than the typical tomato season. Now, I had my doubts, but hell, these tomatoes taste good and they come from farms right around the corner. I’ve run into a mushy one or two, but overall, I’m convinced. Let the Cherokee Purples and German Johnsons come in the spring. I’ll just eat more of them.

Sunday dinner this week featured some of these puppies. Never mind that my own tomatoes are still hanging on their plants, a tangly backyard jungle of scratchy leaves and hard, green knobs. The wonderful people who made the food for our wedding introduced me pulled a similar trick. We got married last June - early June, mind you - and amid all the guests I was very happy to see local tomatoes, these greenhouse tricksters, accompanied by generous drizzles of olive oil, fresh chevre and cool circles of cucumber, a reinvented, earthier, more summery insalata caprese.

We sat on our front porch, the day falling around us, plates in our laps and margaritas at our feet, sopping up the pink juices with stray grains of orzo, toasted almonds, roasted red peppers and grilled lamb. Happy summer, and happy tomato time.

Tomato, Cucumber, Avocado and Chevre Salad inspired by Celebrity Dairy

As with other simple, spare recipes, it’s important here to use the best ingredients you can find. To me, this salad is highly addictive during the summer, when it’s too hot to think about my oven, as avocado green as it is..

Serves about four

1 to 2 fresh, local and ripe tomatoes, heirloom varieties if you can find them and if it suits you
1 avocado
1/2 cucumber
young, fresh chevre, crumbled and sliced to your taste. I’ll leave the amount up to you, but be generous to yourself.
good quality extra virgin olive oil
freshly ground pepper
sea salt
finely chopped fresh basil, to your taste

Slice all the vegetables. Arrange in layers on a plate, alternating tomato slices with cucumbers and avocado. Crumble chevre over the salad. Drizzle oil and basil over the salad, then season with salt and pepper.

I recently wrote an essay called “Comfort Food” for my creative nonfiction writing class. In it, I talked about sugar cookies and fried chicken and “cheese toast” - you know, toasted, crusty bread with a bubbly slice of cheese slip-sliding across the nooks and crannies? That’s one sort of comfort food.

Here’s another kind: I’m sorry if I’ve been absent, but in my real life I have had to think, write, read and talk about the horrific shooting at Virginia Tech, a lot. I came home every night last night very numb and very sad, and so it was hard to blog about anything. Instead, I fed us macaroni and cheese laced with Appenzeller and Parmigiano-Reggiano and Romano. I threw in some spinach for good measure, because we needed our strength. I folded red cabbage into raw white onion, threw some catfish in a bath of cilantro, garlic, pepper, salt and lime, and made fish tacos. Sunday, we ate roast chicken, then a rhubarb tart. Friday, the first grilled hot dogs of the season, in the backyard, at dusk, without plates or napkins. Mary K. brought vodka infused with cucumber from her bungalow across the street. The sun went down. The ice in our cocktails clicked and melted in our glasses. The dogs held relay races back and forth across the long green grass that we so badly need to mow. And I started to feel better.

I’ve also been planting like a mad Mother Earth - lavender, a pink peony bush, mint, dill, tarragon, irises, columbine, another kind of rosemary. A man at the farmers’ market sold me on a bag of hairy tuberose bulbs. “Step away from the California poppy seeds,” I told myself at Whole Foods. I visit my gardens every evening like a doctor making rounds. There’s a front garden and the back vegetable garden and some hosta from this amazing place keeping company with ferns on the east side, a rose bush on the west. I went to the Reynolda Gardens annual tomato sale whispering to myself, “Just a few, just a few,” and walked out with eight baby tomato plants, including some of my favorites - German Pinks, German Johnsons, Cherokee Purples - with some heirlooms varieties I have never, ever heard of. How can you resist a name like “Big Rainbow,” or “Mortgage Lifter”? A plant that promises to produce orange tomatoes made it into the mix. Only three months until we get to eat them.

I’m unstoppable, now that I have my own patch of earth. And recently, it sure has felt good to have my hands in the dirt, soil under my fingernails, the sun beating down on my shoulders, sowing hope for the future, or at least for the next 90 days.

April 16th, 2007 Fish Tacos

Serves 2 to 4

I didn’t go to the grocery store that night, because I just couldn’t. I wanted to get home, as soon as possible, and be in my kitchen with the dogs underfoot. I planned to make these, but I hadn’t planned very well - I forgot the corn I like to use in the slaw, and decided to add sliced avocado at the last minute - but like some of the best cooking, these are largely improvisational. Except for the fundemental trio of cabbage-fish-creamy white sauce, these aren’t at all like the famous fried fish tacoes of Baja California, that craggy finger of Mexico that points the way to the Equator (best eaten on your honeymoon, stealing bites from your honey, overlooking La Bufadora). But these are still excellent.

about 1 pound fish, any will do, but I have luck with catfish. Flounder would also be good. Grilled salmon is fantastic.

The marinade
1-2 cups fresh cilantro, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, sliced very thin
about one lime’s worth of juice
red pepper flakes
sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon olive oil

The slaw
1 ear of sweet corn, cooked briefly in boiling water and scraped from the cob
3-4 cups thinly sliced red cabbage
1/2 white onion, finely chopped
1 cup cilantro, finely chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil
splash cider or white vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

The sauce
Mix equal parts mayonnaise and plain yogurt, season with loads of chipotle powder

For serving
lime wedges
small flour tortillas, warm, soft and floppy

Mix up the marinade and pour over the fish. Let rest in fridge for about an hour. In the meantime, chop the raw white onion and run under cold water (this is a Rick Bayless trick and helps cut down on the raw onion’s bite). Drain. Mix with cabbage, cilantro, corn and olive oil. Season to taste. Set aside.

Whisk the mayonnaise and yogurt for the sauce, season with chipotle powder. Refrigerate.

Crank up your oven’s broiler. Set the fish (the marinade can come, too, if you want it, but you may want to remove the garlic because it can burn) in a glass dish when the oven is hot, then broil for 5-10 minutes (watch the fish so it doesn’t overcook - you want it moist). Or grill.

Warm tortillas in the microwave between two sheets of wet paper towels.

Assemble tacos (fish, cut into bit-sized pieces, slaw, sauce). Eat, repeat.