Dairy

Chlodnik Polish cooks serve this soup (pronounced "hu-WOHD-neek") as a cooling first course for summer meals. It's a delicious alternative to gazpacho.

Serve these tacos with salsa, shredded lettuce, sliced avocado and black olives. Corn and black bean salad finishes the meal—except for dessert. We recommend spice cake.

The raita — a type of Indian yogurt sauce — makes a terrific dip for the rolls. A cilantro raita seemed right for this global menu because cilantro is one of the most widely used herbs in the world.

The secrets of a great cheese steak are the quality of the ingredients and the thinness of the raw beef. The beef is best cut into paper-thin slices on an electric slicer. If an electric slicer is out of the question (many home kitchen stores sell these small machines inexpensively), try our method below to achieve similar results.

No cooking required for this dessert that needs to be assembled at least 24 hours—and up to three days—in advance.

Active time: 20 min Start to finish: 35 min

Hot pepper jelly is an unexpected taste that picks up the sweetness of the corn and cornmeal. Active time: 45 min Start to finish: 1 3/4 hr

Nigella Lawson If we're talking about family favorites, I couldn't leave liptauer out. It was the deli counter delicacy of my childhood and another eating item I'd all but forgotten about. But something made me remember it, and from taste-memory and some notes from the kitchen book inherited by my friend Olivia from her mother, I tried my hand at making it myself. I can confidently and categorically state that it's not some sentimental yearning that makes me want to see its comeback. You don't need to go in for the retro-molding here, just mix the ingredients and plonk them in a bowl if you like; but whatever, this glorious cream cheese, caper, caraway seed, and paprika combination, spread over sour black bread or — if you don't have the genetic taste for it — over slices of any dark or brown bread that you can get from the supermarket, is rhapsodically unbeatable.

Rosemary sprigs double as flavoring agents and skewers in this beautiful hors d'oeuvre. Only half of the pesto is used for this recipe; toss the remainder with pasta or spread thinly on crostini or grilled chicken breasts. What to drink: Pinot Grigio.

These are great with maple syrup, honey, marmalade, or even cottage cheese.