To keep your tea kettle looking like NEW on the inside - free of calcifications etc. - take 3-4 oyster shells - scrub them well and then wash in the dishwasher for added cleaning. Place them in your tea kettle and you will NEVER have any mineral or other build up. I have had the same tea kettle since 1992 and it looks like a new one!

All those tomatoes from the garden? Don't refrigerate them, as one of the critical flavor components (something called "dexenal") disappears when tomatoes go in the refrigerator. The cold also will make your tomatoes mealy. Instead, can or make sauce out of the excess treasures. You can also purchase a freeze-drying machine (for not too much money) and have your own "sun-dried" (sort of) tomatoes to use the rest of the year. Your sauce can be frozen and given as Christmas gifts.

When sautéing vegetables or searing off meat and fish, always get your pan and cooking oil hot before adding the item you want to cook.

For vegetables, that you want to cook quickly and with minimum water loss (or too cook off the water as fast as possible in the case of mushrooms), put them into a hot pan with just enough oil to barely cover the bottom. Start tossing the vegetables in the pan right away and season them as they cook. You will get better flavor and texture and hold onto more vitamins because they will cook quicker and their natural sugars will caramelize nicely. Don’t crowd the pan, just enough vegetables to lightly cover the bottom of the pan.

For meats and fish: Season the meat or fish before you add them to the pan and add the same amount of oil to the pan as with the vegetables. Reduce the heat to medium-high or medium and get good color on the meat/fish before turning it over. Don’t crowd the pan here either.

And always remember: “Color is flavor”, just don’t blacken it…unless it’s Cajun…

If you are right handed, set-up your working space to work from left to right (just like reading a book). So, for example, if you are cutting vegetables for a summer salad or to sauté on the stove, have your uncut vegetables on the left of your board, cut them on the board and then transfer them to a bowl or straight to a cooking vessel on the stove (to your right).

Salting meats and poultry a few hours (or up to 5 hours) before you want to cook them is actually a GOOD thing. It will tenderize the meats a little and only removes a minimum of moisture from the meat. Season well with salt, put into a shallow pan or dish and leave (preferably) uncovered in the refrigerator for up to 5 hours. When you are ready to cook the meat/poultry, wipe it dry with a few paper towels. You will get much more flavor from the meat and will not need to salt it at the table (where we tend to get more salt than is necessary).

"Together in the garden, together in the pot". If your fresh ingredients are growing, swimming, or foraged during these summer months and you see them in your local farmer's market, the finished product, no matter how simple, will be better than any "fancy" recipe you'll find.

Don't refrigerate your citrus, stone fruit or berries. In the case of stone fruits and berries, they loose flavor and texture if refrigerated and the starches increase, making the stone fruits mealy and the berries flat. Use them quickly and what you don't eat, freeze for cobblers, pies, crisps and smoothies, or make into purees and eat anytime.