It's been a fun week. On Tuesday, I made an appearance on KPBS FM's weekend edition with 2Good2B chef/owner Rodney LoveJones to talk about cooling summer foods--those dishes that you can prepare on a sultry day without having to turn up the heat. Readers of San Diego Foodstuff will recognize some of the dishes I mentioned, like my gazpacho soup, my new coconut milk melon soup, and my watermelon pizza salad. You can listen to the segment and get a couple of recipes on the KPBS website.

On Wednesday, the fourth of my six-part unusual proteins series this year for the San Diego Union-Tribune appeared. This one addresses how to prepare octopus and squid. I went to two marvelous San Diego chefs for help with this. Danilo Tangeman of JRDN makes a sublime octopus panzanella, so I spent time with him in his kitchen learning how to both cook octopus and how to make the salad. I turned to Solare chef Accursio Lota for a primer on making squid. Both were hugely helpful and shared their time and recipes. You can find the story here.