At long last, things have settled in here a little bit. The Pasta Burner and I have finally gotten our kitchen in order, and with it, there's a chance to really start exploring the California bounty at our fingertips.

I've been inching to make a pie for a while now. Yes, yes, I know, there have been more tarts on this page than in the wives' seats at the World Cup, but there's just something different, something luscious, indulgent, and summery about pie that other pastries -- including my beloved tarts -- just can't touch. In short, think of it this way: If Tarte au Citron is Grace Kelly, Blueberry Pie is Jayne Mansfield.

There's snow, and then there's 28 inches of snow.

To be honest, I've always had a soft spot for the white stuff. Only a particularly prodigious storm can turn the city into a pastoral winter landscape worthy of the collective Pieters Bruegel -- and yesterday's precipitation did just that. That being said, enjoying the snowfall doesn't mean I like the aftermath; a solid week of ice, wind, and muddy sludge collecting in storm drains. It doesn't take long to go from cabin-like security to cabin fever. The cold alone will do it to ya.

The point is this -- February can be a demanding month. Spring is just around the corner, and yet so far away. For that reason, this week's recipe gives you a reason to look ahead, a reason to remember that sunshine, green leaves, and maybe even tall, cool glasses of lemonade are only about 10 weeks away. Let's get to it.

"Cheese?" you may say.

"Doesn't that need a dedicated refrigerator, and take weeks, if not months of curing?"

"Won't it smell bad?"

"Don't I need rennet, and powdered acid, and all sorts of complicated equipment?"

Fear not, dear readers. While it's true that making a well-aged Gouda might require a bit more in the way of preparation, there are many "fresh" cheeses -- mozzarella, ricotta, queso fresco -- that take only a few hours of forethought and can be made with supplies found in your local grocery store.

Two quick notes before we begin this week's post!

First, thanks go out to eagle-eyed reader Sarah Y. for catching an error in our last post. In the description of how to melt the chocolate, the text originally read to melt down "one stick of butter per 12 ounces of chocolate." It should have read "1/2 of a stick of butter per 12 ounces." The correction has been made to the page, hopefully soon enough to save all of you from runny chocolate and unnecessary coronary episodes.

Second, we couldn't help but notice that, six days after our own recipe for Grilled Lamb Chops with Sun-Dried Tomato Chimichurri went live, the New York Times ran this remarkably similar recipe. We here at Burning Pasta don't assume that Ms. Clark or any other NYT staffers read this page, but we do love a good coincidence.

On to this week's post!

For about ten-and-a-half months of every year, citizens of the Northeastern United States wait for the perfect tomato.

You see, in the month of August, and, perhaps, in a good year, for a week or two in September, the most glorious tomatoes you can imagine run rampant through Pennsylvania, running over the border from New Jersey, carefully selected at the farmer's market, or, best of all, picked right from a vine in your own backyard. It's a matter of feast or famine. Now, of course, the best specimens, as any gardener can tell you, are the ones you grow yourself. Problem is, living in a city, with only a fire escape to grow things on, it's hard to bring big, beautiful beefsteaks to term; in truth, anything more than an herb garden can present a challenge.

This year, however, I found a compromise; I would try and grow grape tomatoes, those bundles of bursting umami that deliver big flavor in a small package. Best of all, grape tomatoes don't take until August to get ripe -- by the middle of July, their season is in full swing. Now, I don't expect you to have grown your own -- my little Charlie Brown plant has only yielded a half-dozen baby fruits itself -- but I do hope you'll consider going out and getting a pint of these babies while the getting is good. After all, tomato season, even grape tomato season, only lasts so long.

Today, we'll be using grape tomatoes as part of a cold summer soup, along with another early summer treat -- raw, farm fresh corn. Let's get to it.

I was going to post the Senegalese recipe that I promised you last week, but I'm afraid there's something we have to address first.

You see, one of my favorite things about Burning Pasta is the feedback that I receive from readers. Whether in the form of post comments, e-mails, Facebook notes, or in-person conversation, it’s always gratifying to know that people are not only reading, but also enjoying the content here on a regular basis.

Unfortunately, all too often, I hear a common refrain in these communiqués, which, if I might paraphrase it, goes something like this: “I love reading the blog and looking at the pictures, but a lot of the recipes seem beyond my skill level.” While I’d heartily disagree – neither myself nor the Pasta Burner have any formal cookery training whatsoever – I can understand and sympathize with such concerns.

However, the truth of the matter is that such worries are baseless -- chefs obfuscate, cookbooks lie, and, as a result, there are certain ingredients and preparation techniques that we’ve been brainwashed about; we become convinced they are just shy of impossible to pull off. Among these, I would argue that no area of the kitchen is more clogged with cloak and dagger intrigue than the domain of the pâtissier, no food more fetishized in this manner than French pastry.

I’m here to tell you that many of those breathless demands about French baking that you’ve heard – your butter has to be at an exact temperature; you have to use ten different kinds of flour for ten different kinds of bread; you have to rise your yeast breads in a towel; you need to follow every inch of traditional technique or else all is lost and you’ve disgraced Belle France herself – it’s all just meant to scare you, to keep you from trying, to make sure you spend your days reading food blogs instead of cooking from them.

Well, no more, I say! This week’s recipe is as classic and delicious as French pastry gets, except for one thing – we’re tossing out all the technique. Let’s get to it.

There are those people who like mint, and there are those of us that love mint.

Cool, bracing, just a little bit sweet, it's one of my favorite flavors -- quite often, you'll find a pack of Mentos in my pocket; the freezer in our apartment rarely goes for more than a few days without containing Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream.

All this being said, like many herbs, there simply is no substitute for the real thing, fresh and homegrown. I should know -- for the last few months, I've been lucky to have an unruly, rapidly growing mint plant of my own. In fact, it's been growing so fast that I've been struggling to use it all up, tossing a little in this, a little in that, revitalizing well-trod recipes with its blast of refreshingly green tannins. This isn't just limited to desserts, however; while everyone knows how to use mint in desserts, it can be an inspired addition to savory dishes, such as the one I'm presenting today.

As a quick glance at the sidebar of this website demonstrates, I've tried to organize the recipes here by course and type, and the category of "Side Dishes" has been sorely neglected, something that I hope to rectify over the coming months. After all, what is summer about, if it's not about picnics, and side dishes, and salads; a million different dishes full of spice and crunch and zip?

This may seem silly to say, but, looking back over the last few months of posts, I was struck by just how, well, wintery the recipes featured here have been.


Lamb. Squash. French Fries. Candy. Butter. I mean, honestly. Butter! How rich and heavy can you get?

Now, this makes sense -- a big part of what we eat each week is held in sway by what we get in our farmshare, and, well, winter weather will make anyone crave richer, heavier, rib-sticking food.

That being said, the last few weeks have given us brief suggestions of warmth, and yesterday rang in, officially, the first day of Spring. It's time to start cooking lighter again, to feature dishes with vinegar, and citrus, and crunchy vegetables. It's time to experiment with new cuts of meat, to grill whole fish, and to start counting down the days until you eat that first glorious summer tomato. It's time for Água Fresca.

(***NOTE FOR FACEBOOK READERS: This post includes extensive use of video, which will not show up in embedded blog posts. Please go to http://burningpasta.blogspot.com/2009/01/kitchen-staple-sweet-cream-butter.html to read it. I'm afraid that this post just won't cut it if you skip the fancy-pants moving pictures.***)

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Butter.

We all use it, we all love it, and it's a key ingredient in any kitchen. Branching over multiple cultures, used for purposes both savory and sweet, whether presented hot and served with lobster, or found as cold bits dotting pastry dough, butter is an invaluable tool for the modern cook.

And yet, all this being said, I don't know one person who makes their own butter. People have this impression that to make it, you need a big wooden contraption, several hours, and your hair up in Dutch pigtails. Pish-posh. (Poppycock!) With prices-per-pound creeping up past four dollars (while the ingredients to make the same amount from scratch remain around two dollars) , now is a good a time as any to learn how to churn your own. And believe me, it really, really, couldn't be any easier.