Have A Summer Dinner Party

The weekend is here and you're finally free to relax, to read, to toast yourself in the sun. But here's what I think you should do: on Saturday? Go to a farmer's market. If you don't have one in your town, ok, you're off the hook; but if you do, head over there and buy a bunch of fruits and vegetables. Buy zucchini and make Clotilde's carpaccio (as you see above); buy beets and shred them in your food processor for Mark Bittman's raw beet salad; buy carrots too and shred them before the beets, actually, so they don't turn red and make David Lebovitz's carottes râpée. Invite friends over and if that's not enough to feed you and your guests, make Luisa's focaccia di patate which I've made before and can't get enough of...

Or, for a true summer treat, buy two boxes of heirloom tomatoes from Eckerton farms (from the Union Square farmer's market), wash them, slice them in half or in quarters and toss them with thinly sliced red onion, lots of shredded basil, olive oil, red wine vinegar, salt and pepper and LOOK how pretty:

And if you're really keen to impress, you could make Suzanne Goin's roasted pork loin with mustard breadcrumbs, which I made for my designers last year and again recently for a special guest:

However far you go, this is the time to have people over, to toast glasses of chilled rosé, to play Astrud Gilberto albums, and to enjoy all the goodness that summer has to offer. Soon, you'll be wearing your winter jacket, dispirited, unwilling to walk out the door to buy a carton of milk and cereal. Seize the summer and have a summer dinner party before it's too late!