In the Balkans, they bake savory ingredients in a mix of eggs with Greek yogurt or sour cream, creating a rich, tender, creamy custard. In the traditional recipes for this dish, the eggplant is salted to remove excess liquid and then fried, and the tomatoes are stewed separately, but I find that oven-roasting them both together accomplishes a similar result much more quickly and easily. It’s supposed to have a peppery bite, but you can cut the pepper level if you don’t like that.

There's nothing quite like the fresh flavors of summer, and this simple Caprese appetizer is the perfect way to showcase the season's best ingredients. With juicy, ripe tomatoes, creamy burrata cheese, fragrant basil, and a tangy balsamic drizzle, this dish is sure to be a hit.

Tomato pie is a Southern classic that's perfect for showcasing the bounty of tomato season. Whether you serve it hot or cold, for breakfast with a fried egg on top, lunch, or dinner, this dish is always a crowd-pleaser.

In Japan, mid-August is time to celebrate Obon, a multi-day Buddhist festival that honors the spirits of the ancestors, much like the Mexican Day of the Dead. Huge numbers of city people travel to their hometowns to visit their family graves and altars, where they update the departed on what’s happening in their lives and present offerings of food for their spirits.

For a few summers in college, I worked at a peach orchard and vegetable farm on the Eastern Shore of Virginia. It was there I had my first heirloom tomato and subsequently, my first heirloom tomato sandwich.

Sun tea is straight from the summers of my childhood. On hot sunny days when we were home, my mom would break out bags of black tea, place them in a pitcher with lots of water and set it out in the sunshine for sun tea.