Appetizers

Scapes are the wild and curly shoots that spring from the tops of garlic plants. They're brilliantly green, can be thick or thin, curved or corkscrewed, and, depending on how they're cut, just long or very long. They've got a mild garlic fragrance and a mellow garlic flavor. Smell the cut end or snap one and the scent will be a cross between garlic and summer grass. It's got a freshness that garlic loses as it develops.

To add a layer of complexity, hummus can be topped with either warm fava beans (called ful), toasted pine nuts, or more tahini, which is ladled into the center and sometimes doused with an aromatic olive oil. Stewed fava beans over hummus are a revelation atop a revelation: earthy, pepper-tinged, and meaty without a trace of meat.

In this dish the two robust beans slug it out, both vying for your palate’s attention, neither ever quite vanquishing the other. It’s a fight you’re happy to have waged in your mouth. In pursuit of a recipe for the fava beans,

Salty, spicy, and sweet versions of this recipe start the same way. 

Steve Johnson of Rendezvous in Central Square has a way with fish cakes. Years ago, I ate his ethereal bluefish cakes at Mercury Bar, where he was cooking, and wherever he went after that, he always put them on the menu. I had his bluefish cakes again on Saturday night at Rendezvous -- they're delicious! -- and decided it was time to go into the kitchen. Steve makes fish cakes with all the ingredients already cooked (rather than raw fish cakes). After cooking the fish, he adds spicy mayonnaise, lots of sauteed vegetables, and shapes the cakes and browns them. They couldn't be easier.

If I know that someone is coming over, I try to throw a batch of scones in the oven. Tea and warm scones: is there anything better? The only way to be able to do this is to take a recipe -- any recipe -- and make it again and again until it becomes second nature. The dough should roll off your fingers. This is the simple recipe I'm working on now.