Pear

This delightful side dish can be made 1 to 2 days before serving. Refrigerate in a covered container. Serve this dish with grilled pork tenderloin or chops. It would also be delicious with roast or grilled chicken.

A new favorite recipe for pear lovers, this appetizer is incredibly delicious...and can be prepared in a snap! The balsamic glaze is the perfect complement to the sweet pear and salty goat cheese.

This supersmoothie is packed with antioxidants, vitamins, and minerals. The spirulina is a great protein-booster, too.

This juice is very interesting and possesses significant health benefits because of the combination of ginger and radish. Give it a try for a change of pace.

Not a big baker? This dessert is for you. The simple topping can be made in one bowl and results in an airy, tender biscuit no matter your skill level.

This dressing is a little sweet from the miso and pear, and aromatic from the ginger and lime; pair it with something peppery, like radishes for dipping or a watercress salad.

Created by Epicurious member Kathe Miller from Chelan, Washington, this beautiful salad has a wonderful presentation as well as a rich taste. Try it as a starter, or as a satisfying lunch. Miller recommends pears that are tender but crisp, giving the salad a divine texture and bite that is at once crunchy and juicy.

Here's another dessert that was inspired by a wine-tasting dinner. It's often hard to come up with a dessert that pairs well with wine, but this savory-sweet dessert does. At its center is a Seckel pear, a small, reddish pear with a slightly spicy flavor. It has a firm flesh that makes it perfect for poaching. In this dessert I poach the pears in pomegranate juice with some ground black pepper. A chunk of Cabrales cheese, a strong blue cheese from northern Spain, is sandwiched between the top and bottom halves of the pear, and a Szechuan Ice Cream is served with it, sitting on a diamond of baked almond cream.

Kierin Baldwin's pie dough method is special in a couple of ways. First, she uses a combination of butter, which lends rich flavor, and shortening, which makes the flakiest crusts. The best of both worlds. Her technique of repeatedly flattening and stacking the dough coats the flour with fat, which helps make the crust tender.

This sammie-side combo fulfills all your midday-meal needs.

My friend Keena lives less than a mile away and has a plum tree she can't keep up with. In early fall, she makes jam with as many plums as she can and sends me home with a big grocery bag full of them every time I see her. I'm not much of a canner, so I began sautéing them and using them as a topping for yogurt and porridge, and as a filling for these simple buckwheat crepes. While buckwheat groats have a pretty distinct flavor and can be a hard sell for many folks, buckwheat flour is commonly used and adored in both sweet and savory crepes. For this recipe, use oval-shaped Italian plums (or prune plums) if you can; they're nice and firm and lend themselves well to sautéing—or just plain snacking. Morning Notes: The crepe batter needs to rest for at least an hour, so plan accordingly or make the batter and refrigerate it overnight. If you go that route, the crepes cook best when the batter is at room temperature, so let it sit out for at least 30 minutes before cooking them.

When we were first dating, we would stay up in bed for hours trying to come up with new interpretations of classic desserts. Bird chile and passion fruit pavlova; Stilton mousse with walnut Florentine; apple, currant, and Brie pot pie. But some classics we knew not to amp up with "bold flavors" because they were sacred. Such is the tarte bourdaloue. This was one of the first desserts Matt and I were both taught to make in our classical pastry training; it is the pride of any French patisserie worth its (artisinal) salt, and you will treat it with some goddamn respect! Traditionally, it's a buttery tart crust filled with poached pear and luxurious almond cream. However, no matter how mind blowing the tarte bourdaloue is, almost no one in this country knows what it is. French Matt Says: You uncultured American swine! So, in an effort to make this winning flavor combo a bit more popular this side of the pond, we broke tradition and messed with it a little to turn it into a cupcake¿I mean, what's more American than cupcakes? Besides bald eagles, of course, but then again, you can't eat those (yet)!

Consider this sweet and crunchy dessert a free-form fruit crisp. Be warned: The nutty oat topping is addictive.

Paper-thin crepes aren't so fussy. "They're almost simpler than pancakes," says pastry chef Garrelts.

This hearty winter salad balances earthy greens with seasonal fruit and crunchy nuts. Though quite simple, it is far from ordinary.

This rich, subtly tangy cream spiked with almond essence gives ripe, sliced pears just the embellishment they need to go from fruit to fabulous.

September 7 marks the Feast of Saint Gratus of Aosta, the patron saint of the fear of insects. Among his many miracles, Saint Gratus is said to have aided farmers in the French Alps who vanquished a ravenous swarm of locusts by invoking his name. I chose that significant date to host a five-course bug banquet, a first-of-its-kind feast at Cafe Racer, a charmingly off-kilter drinking and dining establishment on the edge of Seattle's University District. Fifty people paid $20 each to attend this fete and to gorge themselves on Orthopteran Orzo, Locust Kabobs, a mealworm-filled Tenebrio Terrine, and a sumptuous Pear Salad dotted with Chiangbai Ants. Between courses, the café offered Bug Juice, a non-alcoholic drink, containing cochineal insect dye. The event was heralded with great enthusiasm by the Seattle media. Writing for the city's alternative newspaper The Stranger, Brendan Kiley urged the Cafe Racer team to consider hosting the bug feast more than once a year. He proposed several additional dates, each of them a feast day commemorating other holy men "who specialize in bugs&emdash;infestations of, fear of, and bites from": Saint Magnus of Füssene (patron of protection from caterpillars), Saint Narcissus (patron of protection from biting insects), Saint Mawes (patron of protection from all insects), and Saint Mark the Evangelist (patron of lawyers). Chinese ants from the Changbai region are sold commercially as a health supplement in Asia. They reputedly have health benefits, perhaps because of their proximity to the finest ginseng-growing region of China. So if you want to slow the aging process or (to quote the literature) "increase sexual vigor," then these ants are for you. When I wrote the first edition of this book, there was a local source of dried Chinese black ants in Los Angeles. However, that company no longer sells my ants of choice, opting to carry a line of healthful ant tinctures instead. As a result, I've had to look for overseas sources, which in my case means begging travelers to the East to bring me back a few vials of China's previous commodity in their luggage. WIthout further fanfare, here is the recipe for a tasty salad topped with dried black ants.

Don't worry about getting too much color on your pears—they will gain more caramel flavor the darker they go. This unusual dessert is a play on flavors—savory alongside sweet—and textures.

Buy thinly sliced beef at Korean markets, or ask your butcher to cut it for you.