I got a call from my editor at Prevention a few weeks ago asking me to fly to New York for a photo shoot for a feature I’d written about how my time on Corfu impacted the way I live and eat. At first, I said no. I had just been in New York the previous week and was headed to Mexico the following week. The prospect of another cross country trip did not excite me. But I called back and said yes, and I’m so glad I did.

I love being a writer and recipe developer. But my creative involvement with an article ends after I’ve written the piece and the recipes, tested them in my kitchen and hit “send.” Months and months later, I open the magazine and see my words and recipes transformed into a gorgeous visual spread. Until last week, though, I’d never been involved in that part of the process. What fun to be a part of it all!

I showed up at the studio at 9:30 Thursday morning to get my hair and makeup done and the huge, airy loft space was buzzing with activity. Food stylist, Jee, was cooking some of my recipes on one side of the room. On another side, a huge table was filled with earthen bowls and wooden trenchers and stoneware platters presided over by Robyn, the prop stylist. Over by the windows, Marcus was arranging big, white baffles around a rustic wooden table where the food would eventually be arranged.

What was amazing about this crew was how we all had a similar aesthetic and idea for what the shoot should look like. I had heard stories from food stylists in the past about lacquer and hair spray and foam being used, but Jee believed in letting the food’s natural beauty shine through. Robyn’s props were perfect for it, and Marcus used only natural light and a very minimal, rustic setup. It was perfect. It captured what, to me, is the essence of Greece.

When it came time for me to get in front of the camera, Marcus invoked the feeling of Greece. He’d tease me, telling me to look out at all the fishing boats coming into the harbor (the windows looked out on the Hudson), and even had me constructing one of the salads for the piece to capture me in my element — with food.

I had an absolute blast and really hope to work with that whole crew again in the future (I Land Home cookbook?). Check out the results in the August issue of Prevention!

I have a bottle of rose chilling in the refrigerator. That, to me, means summer. Never mind the official date. Never mind the fact that the thermometer just topped 80. It’s the prospect of popping a wine that looks as crisp and cheerful as it tastes that marks the change of season to me.

I became a rose convert in France over a decade ago (ironically, in early January). I was having dinner at a little restaurant on the square in Haute de Cagnes, an inland hill town between Nice and Cannes, and had just ordered a plate of salt and chile roasted shrimp. The proprietor, a man from the area who clearly knew how to cook, suggested a rose to go with my dish. I flatly refused. To me, pink wine meant cloying and sweet, and at that point my taste had moved beyond that. But he insisted. And when he arrived at my table with a platter of hissing shrimp, he was carrying a glass of pale pink wine and wouldn’t leave until I took a bite and a sip.

To say it was a great pairing would be cheapening it. The wine was crisp and dry and yet somehow full of flavor. Against the spice of the shrimp it felt like jumping into a cool, refreshing ocean and then licking your lips. It was heavenly.

But then I came back to the States and the pinks were still sugar-bombs. Not so any more. In the past few years, I’ve been delighted to see a new breed of American roses coming out that are giving that Haute de Cagnes rose a run for its money. Several from right here in Sonoma County.

Today, while I still enjoy a crisp rose with salt and chile shrimp, rose to me now means leisurely dinners with people I love, lingering on the porch or nibbling from the grill, when conversations linger as long as the sunsets. If you haven’t already, check out some roses this season. While it isn’t an exact replica of that first fabulous rose pairing (I’ll work on that recipe though), this recipe should do the trick. Enjoy — and join me in a toast to the promise of summer!

My friend Karin and her 9-month old daughter Elsa came by for a visit the other day. (We hadn’t seen each other for over a year and were reconnected through a strange coincidence of filing cabinets and Craig’s List.) We played in the yard for a bit, but our chestnut tree is raining prickly green ‘sputniks’, so we moved to the safety of the garden in the back. Elsa was more than happy eating stones (yes, Karin and I were on high alert), but I was eyeing the last of the cherry tomatoes.

Karin’s parting gift of their Terra Sonoma VerJus—an unfermented juice of unripe wine grapes and an ancient pantry staple—cemented my idea for dinner. After they left, I grabbed my basket and stripped the rest of the cherry tomatoes, wrestled a zucchini the size of an elephant from its nest, and picked two hot cherry peppers and a fistful of basil.

In the kitchen, I pounded two chicken breasts flat and sautéed them, then the diced veggies, then deglazed the pan with a few generous splashes of VerJus and added the cherry toms. Delicious. The tomatoes popped into the sauce and the zucchini thickened it as it melted. With all the acidity of the tomatoes and heat of the peppers, vinegar would have been too harsh of a binder, and I was surprised at how well the VerJus complemented the flavors with its sweet tang.

So I leave you here with the recipe. Picture an adorable little rosy-cheeked, blue-eyed girl playing happily in this ‘terra Sonoma’ and you’ll enjoy it even more.

Last night the first rains began. My dreams were vivid and otherworldly and Christopher and I seemed cemented under the covers this morning listening to the patter and drips. It’s amazing to me how a season can shift so dramatically in one night.

I went outside this morning to turn off the irrigation (duh) and was stopped in my tracks at how totally and completely <i>different</i> everything smelled. What had grown into the neutral, dusty, weedy smell of summer had morphed overnight into <i>green</i> and <i>alive</i>, so vivid and sharp that it tickled my nose. Pine, some of the sweetness from our lemon marigolds, the almost chocolaty depth of the earth, and the strange dirty dog scent of wet cement lunged at me with their foreignness.

What I love about the seasons is that they are the perfect length. The magic of cucumbers and zucchini and tomatoes and grilling just begins to lose its luster and I start to long for braises and beans and kale and fire. Then the rains come just in time, and I stack the wood and get out the Le Creuset trusting that when stews become stifling, peas and artichokes and asparagus will appear. But for now, watching the drizzle drip down my beanpole, I’m more than content that autumn is here.

{ Here’s a recipe to welcome the season  . . . enjoy! }

It’s summertime (granted, the end of summer . . . but still quite warm). And I’ve got a cold. I was in Birmingham, Alabama last week to judge Cooking Light’s reader recipe contest and came home with the flu. Luckily, the drudge didn’t descend until I was getting back on the plane, so my tastebuds were in prime condition for the contest. I had a blast hanging out with my CL friends, and meeting new ones in fellow judges David Bonom and Jeanne Thiel Kelly, and what a wild corner of the food world the whole recipe cookoff phenomenon is . . . but that’s another musing altogether. This one’s about chicken soup.

Nothing makes me feel better than chicken soup when I’m sick. Not the canned stuff (Christopher got some ‘chickenless chicken soup’ the other day and it was awful), but the brothy goodness you get from simmering bones or a bird all night long so that when you refrigerate the liquid, it’s so rich it gels. I was so desperate after the chickenless chicken soup mishap that I asked Chris to grab a chicken and an onion from the market for me.

Many people think that making chicken stock (or soup, for that matter) is a complicated, drawn-out affair. But it isn’t. It took me about five minutes in robe and slippers to get my homemade chicken soup started. Here’s my basic strategy:

* Halve an onion (with skin on) and brown it cut-side down in a pot. Add whole cloves of garlic and chunks of smashed ginger too if you’d like and if you have them on hand. This takes about 5 minutes.

* Then plop either a whole bird, parts or bones in the pot and move them around a bit to sear for a minute or so. (do remove any plastic wrap or bags of giblets first)

* Fill the pot up with enough water to cover whatever’s in there by about 2 inches, then add coarsely chopped celery ribs, carrots, lemongrass, or anything you’d like to add a bit of flavor. I also salt it lightly, add some red pepper flakes and a bay leaf at this point.

* Turn the heat up to medium-high and bring the pot to a boil. This will take a while, so by all means sit down and put your feet up. When it starts to gurgle fairly substantially, skim off the grayish foam a couple of times with a wide spoon. I know people think this is a big deal, but it takes about 3 minutes if you do it at the right time.

* Lower the heat to medium-low or low — just enough for a few bubbles a second — and let it simmer for several hours or, my favorite, overnight. You’ll wake up to a house perfumed with a mouthwatering savory, meaty scent.

That’s the general gist of my chicken stock. From there, I’ll let it cool and strain it (a big strainer or China cap really, really helps here) and then add anything I want to make my soup. Chicken meat, meatballs, dumplings, seasonings, veggies, pasta, you name it. It’s just what you need for whatever ails you.