Fruit

Pedro Almodovar is my favorite foreign film director—I have his whole library. My favorite film and the one I most relate to: Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

You got the way to move me, Baby! Serve with a green salad and boiled baby potatoes.

My favorite ginger-lime chicken was had at a bistro in Montreal, Canada, of all places. This is the at-home version.

This dish is fast and healthy and incorporates a favorite Sicilian combo: oranges, red onions, and oregano.

When I worked at Macy’s Marketplace in New York City years ago, we had a huge Italian import sale in honor of Columbus Day weekend. As part of the promotion, we handed out cookbooks entitled Columbus’s Menu, given to us by the Italian Trade Commission. The book listed adaptations of recipes as old as Columbus sailing the ocean blue. One of my favorites was a roast pork loin with balsamic- and basil-macerated strawberries. Here’s how you can make it in less than 30. Serve with salad and crusty bread.

Serve with steamed asparagus, snap peas, or green beans.

Serve with steamed green beans or broccoli, your choice, if you want to include a veggie on the menu.

Also good for B, L, or D.

Serve with a green salad and crusty bread.

Remove the seeds from only half the jalapeño pepper. The heat lives in the seeds and this dish is a balance of heat with sweet.

Feel free to make this dish in all four seasons. I just call it “Spring Chicken” because it tastes light and crisp, like spring air, and because “Spring Chicken” sounds more appetizing than “Leeky Chicken,” which was what I called an earlier version of this recipe.