My day-timer runs from August to August. You see, every August, I meet with six of my childhood friends, and we lock ourselves into a house somewhere in LA for three days. While I love Christmas and the coming of Spring, I love Girls’ Weekend most of all.

Have you ever taken the time to make note of all of the “firsts” you may have experienced in your life? Let’s go one step further and talk about the firsts we experience with our kids. First steps, first words, first birthday, first tooth, first day of school, first crush, and first dance. We have pictures of those events. We even frame the majority of them. We glory in our children’s early endeavors “She first walked at 8 months!” “She didn’t dance close with any boy at her first dance!” Those were easy.

I grew up in an all American town, and I loved it.  It was the kind of place where comfort food ruled the day. When we wanted food that was more “ethnic” for a change, we went to the Wong Family Chinese joint, ordered the Poo Poo platter and maybe a few spring rolls and felt as if we were being exotic. Why not? It was the only game in town. Boy, have things changed.

You know when you are asked to answer a security question for a log in system on your computer and one of the options is “Name of your childhood best friend?” What’s so very cool is when the answer is the same name for 40 years. I have one of those friends, and we went to visit her last weekend.

Summer and the foods that accompany it are as varied as... um... well, as the places where summer occurs. I know, that was lame, but it really is true. I could come up with a zillion ideas for summer food and the many different locations where I’ve enjoyed them: corn on the cob, watermelon, fried chicken, peaches, burgers, dogs and strawberry ice cream, and I have thought on all of these items individually, but I didn’t find that little spark I needed to bring it all together. Then my weird little brain focused on one little memory that made a unified theory of summer food possible - worms.

I have to admit that I’m not a big dessert eater. Not that I don’t enjoy a gorgeous crème brûlée  or yummy chocolate mousse; it’s just that within a limited daily caloric intake, I like to reserve my sugar fix for Chardonnay. 

Recently, I had an unexpected culinary surprise, all because of a very well prepared piece of toast.

I was working on a video shoot with my good friend Chef Glenn Humphrey all about an elegant meal made easy. We prepared a few salads and dressings, whipped up two ways to work with potatoes, and fired up a gorgeous dessert classic (comeback soon for the video).

In betwixt them three, we found ourselves trimming up a beef tenderloin and bringing to light the beauty of a petite cut, fried and finished with a gorgeous pan sauce of butter, mushroom, shallot, red wine and brandy… hmmm what was I talking about?