Yapple-Dapple (Apple galette, cognac caramel sauce)

We are now in undisputed apple season. In my hometown, September is always marked by the Apple Peach Festival, sadly this year just an apple festival after the late spring frost laid waste to the peach blossoms. Intending to console myself with copious amounts of apples, I had my heart set on tarte Tatin: a pastry crust baked upside-down atop a layer of deeply caramelized apples. This led to my next revelation, however: that recipe seemed somehow intimidating. I feel like "effortless elegance" is more my wheelhouse, so I split the difference: an easy apple galette, gussied up with cognac caramel sauce.

Gastronomically gussied

Star of the Summer (Strawberry mascarpone cheesecake)

I've told you before how, in my family, cheesecake is a celebratory affair. This is even more true for Aaron's birthday, for which it is a mandatory offering. "What kind of cheesecake would you like for your birthday?" is a standard question come August. This year was especially telling, because he laid out his entire hierarchy of berries, in which strawberry is king. This is perfectly fine by me - strawberry is my favorite, too, and undoubtedly a perennial star of the summer.

Star of the summer

In the Limelight (Lime Delicious)

Lemon pudding cake is a recipe that has been haunting me across social media for weeks, now. Whether it's an algorithmic snafu or message from the divine, I finally surrendered and clicked through and now I have a new go-to dessert recipe. Especially using the Australian name of Lemon Delicious, it's an easy sell: soft, pillowy citrus white cake floats atop a layer of warm, semi-liquid custard. Making it in individual ramekins allows you to turn out portions onto plates for a prettier presentation and the enjoyment of drizzling the creamy sauce down over the cake. Or, you can chill them, in which case it becomes akin to a cakey rendition of lemon meringue pie. As both of the GourmetGents prefer limes to lemons, this version is for Lime Delicious, but any citrus variant is an option.

Delicious by any name

Haute Potatoes (Herbed Potato Salad)

One of my favorite parts of summer is the cookouts and barbecues, but options to do so in Harvard Square are more limited. I can still enjoy some of my favorite cookout foods, though, like potato salad. Rather than watch that mayonnaise sit all day in the hot sun, I favor less creamy versions, made with extra-virgin olive oil, vinegar, mustard, and lots of green herbs. A pared-down variation of my grandmother's recipe, still featuring a hot shower in oil and vinegar, this offers something fresh and bright to cut through rich foods and is light and cool for hot summer days.

Fresh & Bright

Not So Sweet (Raspberry rhubarb crumble)

Spring is the perfect season for rhubarb, among the first plants we can harvest, growing outdoors from April until September. Greenhouse agriculture also allows rhubarb production year-round, so one never needs to go without. As a child I was as obsessed with rhubarb pie as I was with all baked goods (an obsession that remains), and confused to learn that the sweet, ruby-red filling was born of a bitter vegetable related to celery. Now that I have a more adult palate, rhubarb proves a wonderful option for making desserts that celebrate that happy zone of satisfying one's sweet tooth without being so cloying they induce a toothache. These individual raspberry rhubarb crumbles deliver sweet and tart in just the right measure.

For the not-so-sweet-tooth

Asparagus in Ambush (Asparagus-prosciutto twists, lemon béchamel)

Spring is always deserving of celebration. Especially after that cruel trick where winter swept in to freeze the first buds off the trees, it's nice to see everything sprouting up, again. In honor of those sprouts, I wanted to do something with asparagus, one of my favorite spring vegetables. I settled on an adaptation of "asparagus in ambush," an old favorite from the Flying Rhino restaurant in Worcester, Massachusetts. There, asparagus and prosciutto are wrapped in a flour tortilla and drizzled with lobster sherry cream. I made some adjustments, trading crisp twists of puff pastry for the tortilla to make a prettier presentation and swapping out the lobster cream sauce for a lighter, lemony béchamel with a little kick.

Roll for initiative

Pi Day (Pineapple mango macadamia nut pie)

March 14, or 3.14, is now celebrated by nerds like Aaron and myself as Pi Day, in recognition of the mathematical constant pi (π). Without pi, we wouldn't be able to formulate geometry or trigonometry. Without pie, I would be sad. At Aaron's office, there's even a pi bake-off, and professional pride dictated that we simply had to enter. As we brain-stormed, Aaron rattled off ideas, including pineapple and mango. I scoffed at both as preposterous, only to eat humble pie as Google Image Search returned a gorgeous photo of this State Fair winner: pineapple and mango with a macadamia nut-studded lattice crust.

Boom.