Recipes

SAN FRANCISCO — After defying industry trends in recent years, Apple is feeling the slowdown in global purchases of laptop and desktop computers.

In the weeks leading up to the Olympics, I always look forward to reading stories about what Olympians eat. What many of the athletes have in common is a favourite healthy snack that gives them an intense burst of energy.

The upcoming summer Olympics have me dreaming of a bucket-list trip to Brazil, and because my dreams usually feature food, I’m also hankering for some black beans made in my incredibly heavy stone bean pot a dear friend of mine lugged all the way back from his Brazilian vacation years ago.

When berry season arrives and they become much more affordable, my family and I turn into berry gluttons.

We love them year round, but it’s such an indulgence to shovel in handfuls of what may be one of the most luxurious and perfect fruits of the summer.

This week’s recipe puts a Brazilian twist on an American staple, succotash. It should be just the ticket in August, when millions of us watch the Olympics being played in Rio de Janeiro.

The classic version of succotash is a combination of fresh corn and lima beans (or some other shell bean), sometimes embellished with tomatoes or peppers.

Shake up breakfast with a smoothie bowl. The combinations are endless.

I try to get fish on my family’s table two or three times a week. The research describing the incredible heart and brain benefits to eating fish, especially fatty fish like salmon, is compelling.

An extra bonus? Fatty fish is more filling, too, which means I’m less hungry for late night snacks a few hours after dinner.

I could eat quarts of gazpacho all summer long. When I set about making this version, the goal was a gazpacho with great, fresh tomato taste, but even deeper flavour.

The solution was simple: roast the tomatoes first.

Summertime is harvest time for sweet stone fruits: apricots, peaches, plums, nectarines and plumcots, a hybrid of a plum and an apricot. Plumcots have been around at least since the days of Luther Burbank, who named them. They’re also known as apriplums.

In the world of summer barbecues, the pickle hardly plays a starring role.

Truth to be told, “hold the pickles” is my standard order, as I am not a fan of pickles on a cheeseburger, nor do I particularly care for pickle juice leaking onto my sandwich bread at a deli.