After the scorching heat of the dry summer and the almost daily onslaught of the dust-laden winds from the neighboring western desert, nothing was more welcome than the torrential downpour that signaled the start of the monsoon season. The dry, parched land soaked up the first raindrops eagerly, scenting the air with a heady, earthy aroma. Flowers bloomed again, adding to the fragrance. If you were lucky, you might be able to hear the call of the peacocks, and maybe even see a male unfurl the full splendor of its iridescent plumage, dancing in the rain for a mate.

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In my mind, no dish better encapsulates the experience of Roman cuisine than Spaghetti alla Carbonara -- the Roman charcoal industry's gift to the world. As the story I've been told goes, the charcoal sellers lived in the towns in the hills of Lazio outside Rome, cutting wood and charring it before carrying it in sacks down to the city to sell. The work was almost unbearably physical, and demanded hearty food to keep up one's energy -- hence, the birth of this almost unbearably rich pasta dish.

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Cauliflower Gratin

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"You really shouldn't eat so much fat," Mom lectured one morning when I was visiting over Christmas. "That's why your blood pressure so high."

She told me this as I poured myself a bowl of granola and she prepared a breakfast of fried eggs and Spam for Dad.

We all know, of course, that food doesn't have to be fattening to be wonderful. We love the custardy, string-free mangos that sometime pop up, for a mere 50 cents apiece, in Chinatown. We always look forward to the peppery salads made with the greens Mom grows in big pots on the back patio.

Still, some of the things nearest and dearest to our hearts and stomachs are not to be spoken of in the presence of respectable people -- and the element of danger only increases their appeal. You'll have to pry our pork belly sliders from our cold, dead (no doubt from congestive heart failure) hands.

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After a glorious week in the sun, while the rest of us were still asleep to the hypnotic sounds of waves, the breeze gently blowing through palm trees, and the lazy whir of the ceiling fan, my husband woke up quietly to sneak out for his one last wish. He drove 45 minutes (each way) to get a dozen malasadas. That's the kind of guy he is.

Malasadas are the yeasty, eggy, sugary doughnuts that were introduced to the Hawaiian islands by Portuguese immigrants from the Azores generations ago. Eagerly incorporated into the cuisine of the Hawaiian islands, each island has a "best" place to get them. On the Big Island, that place is Tex Drive In, in Honokaa, near Waimea.

To the casual observer, the malasada looks like a typical raised doughnut, rolled in granulated sugar. Stace, one of the kama'aina (locals) I talked to, shed some light on what makes Tex's malasada special: the first owners converted their recipe for pao doce (Portuguese sweet bread) and used it to make their mouth-watering and award-winning malasadas.

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This week, we asked for your least-guilty guilty pleasures.

THIS WEEK'S WINNER:

Spaghetti alla carbonara by Charlie Lawton: Forget all the leaden, creamy, faker versions of this classic Roman dish. Here it is, in its original form: just good pasta, cured pork, eggs and cheese, food that will make you moan and then pass out.

THIS WEEK'S ALTERNATE WINNERS:

Pakoras -- Indian vegetable fritters by Anjali Joshi: Light, crisp and beguilingly spiced, Anjali shares a favorite taste from her Delhi youth, when pakoras were about the only thing that could lure her back indoors at the start of the monsoon season.

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This vegan version is like springtime in a bowl, thanks to asparagus, mushrooms and -- added just before serving -- gremolata. (Gremolata, generally a mixture of parsley, raw garlic and lemon zest, is a frequent secret weapon in my cooking.)

The addition of some peas during the last few minutes of cooking would be a nice variation here. And, of course, if you're not cursed with high cholesterol like I am, some grated parmigiano reggiano would be delicious.

See more of my heart-healthy recipes on my blog, What Would Cathy Eat?

Barley Risotto with Asparagus and Mushrooms

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I know the farm to table movement is trendy right now; jaded restaurant reviewers have referred to this kind of cuisine as "haute barnyard" and the chefs who prepare it as "lettuce whisperers." But it’s trendy for a reason. Aside from all the political and ethical arguments for eating sustainably and locally, there is this: The food tastes good! I guess I went to work behind the scenes to find out why.

The answer turned out to be ridiculously simple. David Shea, the chef I worked for, was brilliant, but it wasn’t his ego that was center stage. It was his ingredients. There is an obvious difference between a generic box-ripened tomato that grew a month earlier on another continent and a juicy red Brandywine straight off a vine in New Jersey. Grass-fed beef from a pasture in Vermont tastes a whole lot more flavorful than a corn-fed cow from a feedlot. Wild salmon is another fish altogether from the insipid variety raised on a fish farm.

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Anyway, all that walking and all those fish made us thirsty so we made our way to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Restaurant, ordered cocktails and perused the bar menu. The grilled artichokes jumped off the page. These were beautiful -- slightly crisp from the grill, lightly salty and served with a spicy dipping sauce that was mostly chipotle and garlic. They were heady, to say the least, and there was nothing left on that platter but two napkins.

We have made these several times at home. I don’t make a chipotle sauce but prefer a spicy lemon aioli.

Have plenty of napkins on hand and a cold drink. And don't bother with any other food groups, these babies deserve your total attention.

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I used to think I hated spinach. Turns out it was canned spinach. That stuff is nasty. I didn't find out until I was about 14 that it could be served freshly and crunchily (is that a word?) in a salad! It was sweet and leafy, and it felt like it was scrubbing out my fat-riddled insides with every tasty bite. Surprisingly, that's a pleasant feeling.

I first had a spinach salad at my aunt Julie's baby shower. I think it was just spinach, some nuts and a kind of thousand island dressing. I loved it so much I ate it for dinner that night. I don't remember why I never ate more spinach after that, but when I moved to California I ate it in many salads. I found I didn't much like it cooked unless it was drenched in a hollandaise sauce or something. Definitely not frozen or canned, though. That seemed to take away all the things I loved about it: It's clean, crisp, fresh and crunchy, much like the first few delicious days of spring! This recipe comes straight out of my journal from culinary school.

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This week, we asked for your favorite spring dishes, whatever spring means to you wherever you are.

THIS WEEK'S WINNER:

Pea shoots with caramelized garlic and seared scallops by Lisa Barlow: Recalling a month working at a favorite seasonal restaurant, Lisa shares the thrill of a box of pea greens, a sure sign that the Era of 100 Potatoes is coming to an end. In this simple but lovely dish, she slowly caramelizes garlic, sautés the greens in the oil, and tops it with perfectly sautéed scallops, if you'd like them.

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There was always something cooking or about to be cooked in her kitchen, never dormant, a radio on and a meal being made or at least thought of. Every cupboard stuffed (with some questionable expiration dates), the fridge full, the oven at the ready. Her favorite greeting was "Hello, my pet!" quickly followed by "How would you like a ...?" It could be 10 in the morning and she would offer to cook you a steak, make you a sandwich --just a little something, a drink to wet your throat, a piece of candy for something sweet.

Her house itself was filled with things that mystified me as a kid. She kept everything and had (for lack of a better term) a lot of Catholic swag: medals, rosary beads and palms tied into crosses and stuck behind pictures. In the air hung evidence of cooking mixed with the smell of Oil of Olay and furniture polish. I have her dining room set in my house now and sometimes stick my head into the highboy for the last lingering vestiges of that smell. I laugh when I look inside and see my pottery barn candlesticks, where she used to have statues of saints, hard candies, a bottle of old perfume, receipts and Mass cards.

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This is not a lament. Growing up, I had all the privileges of a tight-knit family. My sister and parents, my grandmother, uncles, aunts and cousins all lived in close proximity in Cleveland. That's just it. Like so many assimilated Jewish families -- orphans of history -- we had no family history to speak of beyond our grandparents' generation. 

This little I know: My ethnic origin is Russian. There were pogroms. There was revolution. There was a great-aunt imprisoned in Siberia, and no doubt there was high drama in my grandparents coming to America at the turn of the 20th century. After all these years, all I've gathered is that my maternal grandfather was around 14 years old when he emigrated to this country with his older brothers. He was a tailor, a union organizer, a leader in the Cleveland community. But I never knew him. The only grandparent I had was my grandmother who came to America at an undisclosed age, a baby in her mother's arms. (The family was from Riga. Latvia? Or Russia? Who knows what their ethnic origin was.) In the kitchen? My grandmother broke every kosher rule in the book. With delicious results. 

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When I first began to teach myself how to cook at the overripe age of 25, my English then-boyfriend -- now husband -- threw out this dish as a suggestion for me to tackle. It was difficult to find the ingredients for the recipe I had at the time. I did my best, tweaked it, then continued tweaking and tweaking until it became an Anglo-Indo-American (or Indo-Anglo-American) dish.

A curry-scented sauté of onions, fresh fish and rice, I love it and it is easy as anything to make. And when I make it, as soon as the curry wafts into my nostrils I think about my husband as a little boy peering under his mum's arm as she created this same aroma in her kitchen, just as my 3-year-old son peers under my arm asking, "Mommy, what's that you're making? I think I like that."

The following is my version.

American Kedgeree

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"So ... where are you from?"

It wasn't until I was in high school that I finally realized why everyone was so baffled by my perfectly truthful one-word answer: "Pittsburgh!" I've grown to dread the time-sucking ritual of The Question. It's like answering, "So, how are you?" when you're in a really rotten mood: You can either tell people what they expect to hear and waste a few seconds or tell the truth and drive people insane while wasting epic amounts of time.

Sometimes, the temptation toward the latter is too great to avoid.

"No, where are you REALLY from?"

"Well, I was REALLY born in a community called Squirrel Hill. But I think it's technically still part of Pittsburgh."

This helpful clarification invariably leads to the question of where my parents are from. And this sucks me into yet another lengthy digression:

"Your mom is from WHERE?"

"Macau."

"Where's THAT?"

I could just say Mom is from Hong Kong -- it's not as if anyone actually cares. But part of me believes that even truly tedious people deserve to know about Macau -- a former Portuguese territory on the south coast of China, just west of Hong Kong -- for it's a genuinely wondrous place. Wondrous enough to make me want to stand around explaining my ancestry to total strangers.

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Mandlebrot (also mandelbroit) translates from Yiddish as almond bread. Jewish biscotti. A staple in my mother's cookie jar, and always on hand in my grandmother's kitchen -- both blessed memories. My grandmother's version was simple yet sublime, the ultimate coffee dunker: baked in small loaves, sliced, then returned to the oven for added crunch. My mother's recipe was sweeter, lighter, the dough thinner, almost batterlike.

I can channel my grandmother's recipe for mandelbrot, and when I follow it, it's out of a jumble of memories: the buttery baking aromas of her kitchen, the fragrance of roses in her summer garden, the cinnamon goodness of her noodle kugel and cheese blintzes ...

My grandmother's Mandelbrot (approximately)

Ingredients

• 3 large eggs
• 1¼ cups sugar
• ¾ cup vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon grated orange rind
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1½ teaspoons baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup slivered almonds, chopped
• 1 tablespoon sugar mixed with 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon anise seeds (optional)

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This week, we asked for your best nut recipes and ideas.

THIS WEEK'S WINNER:

Creamy cashew/roasted garlic spread by Cathy Elton: Sure, vegan nut "cheese" can be silly, but Cathy takes one killer trick she's learned from making the stuff: soaking nuts overnight can make them luxuriously soft, and easily turned into a sweet purée. Add a wallop of roasted garlic, and you have something the texture of bean dip, but a whole lot richer. (Incidentally, Lisa Barlow also has a slew of recipes -- with wonderful photos! -- featuring these soaked, softened nuts.)

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The first good thing: slow-roasted walnuts with sea salt and maple syrup. The second: cinnamon- and sugar-dusted apples, laced with bourbon and pan sautéed in butter until golden brown. Bring these two small miracles together, add in some vanilla ice cream and, well, let me just say, it was what this Sunday really needed.

What started me down this road of midday decadence was this post inspired by a favorite food writer of mine: Nigel Slater. The man knows how to keep things unpretentious and delicious. In short, the post discussed a recipe for apple crumble, where the apples are sautéed first before being baked with a traditional crumble topping (flour, sugar, oats, butter, etc.). The extra time in the pan before the oven gets you some nice pre-game caramelization, which is really what it's all about.

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Having said that, I took one cue from the vegan cheeseheads in developing my rich and creamy Italian cashew spread: I soaked the cashews overnight to make them soft. But rather than going for a thick, cheeselike texture, I created a spread that's more reminiscent of a white bean dip. The hefty dose of roasted garlic, along with lemon and olive oil, put it in a whole different league than faux cheese.

This would be good served on homemade crostini, or even cucumber slices. If you have it on crackers, be sure they don't have a strong flavor or the crackers will overwhelm the lovely roasted garlic taste.

See more of my heart-healthy recipes on my blog What Would Cathy Eat?

Cashew Roasted Garlic Spread

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