5 Ingredients or Fewer

You can cut and butter the bread well in advance, but don't bake it till guests arrive.

The deconstructed caprese is a sandwich on a skewer, featuring crusty bread, mozzarella cheese, tomatoes, and basil. While it looks sort of fussy, it’s actually a snap to pull together and it has a colorful presentation that looks quite smashing in a lunch box. Small mozzarella balls, also known as bocconcini, measure about an inch across and are sold in the specialty cheese section of many supermarkets. Pack the skewers with a little side of olive oil and balsamic vinegar for lunchtime dipping. For bigger appetites, increase the recipe by 50 percent, which will make three skewers instead of two.

At farmers' markets, look for Golden Bantam or Silver Queen varieties of corn, which are less sugary than some of the supersweet hybrids.

Because this dough is eggless, it has great al dente texture. If you can't find durum wheat flour, all-purpose will work well, too.

We love using preserved lemons in the BA kitchen, and Philip Krajeck's recipe makes the best we've ever tasted. They take 10 minutes to prep and need only two weeks to cure. Sure, you can buy preserved lemons at specialty stores, but when the end result is this good, we say make your own.

Sherry is an "It" cocktail ingredient, with enough heft to build a drink around but still relatively low in alcohol.

This dish is called misticanza ("mixed greens") on the Ava Gene's menu. You can sauté whatever leafy greens you like or happen to have on hand; it's an ideal way to use up those slightly past their prime.

Greetings, comrade. This quasirevolutionary sorbetto is so bone-chillingly good that there'll never need to be another cold war. It's one of the flavors we were developing for our "Dictators of Cool" collection, which included our old favorites Adolf Hitler (The Great Licktator), Colonel Gaddafi (Cone El Gaddafi), and David Cameron (Fake 99, after a British ice cream cone).

The ginger "bug," which jump-starts the fermentation, specifically uses organic ginger because it's rich in microbes. You'll have extra bug; use it to make more grape soda, or try 4 cups fresh unpasteurized apple juice in place of grape.

I call this hapa food. The term hapa is deliciously slippery. It is often used to describe mixed-race Japanese Americans but not always. For me, being hapa provides a way of claiming a whole racial and ethnic identity as opposed to thinking of myself as "just" or "only" half-and-half. I am a whole person, and my experience of race, culture, and nationality is more complicated than adding fractions. This dish did not emerge from a place of separation in which two disparate things were fused together, but rather from the co-constitution, interdependence, and wholeness of my life as a hapa growing peaches in the United States and cooking food from my multiple cultural and racial lineages that go far beyond this country¿s borders. I have learned to make and cook my own path. Biting into this treat is like unleashing a burst of glowing peach wrapped in a crunchy cocoon. This could be served as a side dish with other tempura, on top of a salad, or even with green tea ice cream and chile-infused honey as a dessert. When we step outside of rigid categories, possibilities are infinite, no? --Nikiko

I began making frittatas regularly when our family transitioned from the pancakes-or-waffles-every-weekend phase into more "grown-up" breakfasts. As in much of my cooking, I believe I first learned to make a frittata from Julia Child, in one of her books or her television shows. You can whip up a frittata for any meal: for a weekend breakfast, or with a green salad for lunch, or supper. The frizzled leeks are inspired by a dish served at Union Square Cafe in its early years. It was the first time I saw the word "frizzled." "Fun word," I thought, and asked Danny Meyer where it came from. "My grandmother. Louise Meyer used to serve mashed potatoes with fried onions on top," he said. "When we opened Union Square Cafe in 1985, we substituted rutabaga for the potatoes, and leeks for the onions. That became our 'Mashed Turnips with Frizzled Leeks.' To avoid using the word 'fried,' I landed upon 'frizzled.' After that, frizzled leeks found their way onto everything from mashed potatoes to scallops, an omelet, red snapper, and just about everything except for ice cream." If you don't have leeks, then thinly sliced onions, pan-roasted asparagus tips, crisped bacon all work fine. Concerning culinary substitution, I think of the Russian proverb that my grandpa Jan would trot out about many things in life: "If no fish, then lobster will do." Apparently, lobster prices under the czar were less steep than they are in present-day America, but I took his point. As I noted earlier, Parmesan cheese has a lot of umami, which contributes to the high FPC of this recipe, especially when I top the finished frittata with some cherry tomatoes charred at high heat and pepped up with crushed red-pepper flakes.

Like curry, za'atar is a spice blend that varies from cook to cook in the Middle East, its birthplace. My father was Assyrian, so I've always enjoyed the flavors of the region (though the closest I've yet traveled is Turkey). This is my interpretation, and it reflects my priorities: my favorite part of za'atar is the tart sumac, so it's particularly heavy in my version. And while some cooks grind their spices together, I like to leave the sesame seeds whole. You can find sumac in Middle Eastern groceries and from online sources such as Penzeys and Kalustyan's. For a perfect, quick snack, combine with olive oil and brush on pita.

These crunchy, addictive chips will have your whole family begging for more kale. They are wonderful served alongside sandwiches, on their own as an afternoon snack, or crumbled atop salads.

Labneh is an Arab cheese made by draining yogurt so it loses most of its liquid. Use natural goat's milk yogurt, or, if unavailable, natural full-fat cow's milk yogurt, but not the Greek varieties. This recipe takes at least 48 hours to make. If this is all too much, you can buy labneh from Middle Eastern grocery stores. Store the labneh in the fridge to use as a spread, like any cream cheese. A more labor-intensive option is to roll it into balls and then preserve them in a jar of oil. The jar will look beautiful, the cheese keeps for weeks at room temperature, and the balls will create a special visual effect when used, as they are, in salads and legume dishes (Couscous and Mograbiah with Oven-Dried Tomatoes ).

Guava-Chile Butter At Chifa, my Peruvian-Asian restaurant, the pan de yuca with this delicious sweet-spicy-salty spread is a the hit among our customers. It would also be tasty on crusty bread, toast, or savory scones.

Baked tofu is crispy on the outside, creamy inside, and loaded with flavor. Removing as much water as possible from the tofu before cooking it, as in this recipe, helps the tofu absorb the flavors of the marinade and cook up crisp rather than mushy. It is delicious eaten as is or in sandwiches, salads, or stir-fries. Serve hot or cold.