Zucchini blossoms were the jewels of the market last week, fat bouquets of them piled on a farmers table, glowing green, gold and orange in the afternoon light.

We had come to the Watsonville farmers market in search of Mexican produce and found our share of glossy poblano peppers, leafy ezpazote to cook with beans and crunchy purslane, or verdolaga in Spanish.  But the gorgeous zucchini blossoms, celebrated all over the Mediterranean as well as in Latin America, were irresistible.  They’re only available in the market for a few weeks every year — about the time everyone has hit their limit of the prolific squash.  We went home with two bunches.

Not until we were driving home did I begin to think about what I would do with my treasures.  Zucchini blossom fritatta was a no-brainer.  It’s easy and a wonderful showcase for the delicate herbal flavor of the tender blossoms.

What I really wanted was stuffed and fried zucchini blossoms.  I don’t deep  fry, though.  It’s much too messy, slightly scary,  and really isn’t good for me anyway.

What I came up with was zucchini blossoms relleno, baked in a casserole with a simple tomato sauce on the side.  It’s a takeoff on a dish I used to make out of an old Sunset Mexican cookbook, stuffed with an updated filling I created for chiles relleno.

The combination of fresh corn, onion, diced chile, and salty queso fresco with the blossoms and an eggy batter is unbeatable.  The flavors are fresh and the corn adds nice texture.

True, it’s not quite as crisp as if the blossoms had been fried but it’s a lot easier to pull off. And much better for your health.

Stuffing the blossoms is a tad tricky. You need to hold the flowers open with one hand while you spoon the stuffing in with the other and they keep closing up.  After that, though, it’s smooth sailing.

Line a buttered baking dish with the stuffed blossoms, sprinkle with a bit more cheese, top with a thin egg batter and pop it into the oven.  While it’s baking, stir together a basic tomato sauce—using canned, chopped tomatoes to cut down on the prep work — and let it simmer.

Pull the casserole out of the oven and you have an ideal dish to celebrate the last days of summer.

As much as I adore homemade jam, I’ve always considered it an enormous gamble.  The more I invested in time and ingredients the higher were the odds I would end up with a runny syrup or a rubbery mass better suited for Gummi Bears than toast.  Perfect preserves eluded me.

Neither the old-fashioned cookbooks I inherited from my mom nor the new crop of canning guides and web sites were much help.   Most of their recipes relied on commercial pectin and called for specific amounts of sugar and fruit, stated in cups.  All advised checking whether the jam had set by watching it drip off a spoon or cling to a chilled plate — imprecise measures at best for the uninitiated.

Then I ran across Russ Parsons’ advice in the Los Angeles Times this summer and everything began to make sense.  He offered a simple ratio for making small batches of jam using equal weights of sugar and whatever fruit you have on hand.  Because you cook a limited amount of preserves at a time in a non-stick skillet, it’s easy to tell whether it’s ready just by watching the syrupy mixture become thick and glossy as you stir.  Flavors are also fresher.

Parsons still advocates the dripping spoon method of checking for jelling, it’s true, but the technique is beginning to make some sense to me as I make more jam.  Just to be safe, I’ve also tracked down a couple of references for jelling temperatures to compare against the signs of the spoon.

I fare much better now that I employ an instant read thermometer to check my jam. The base line is 220 degrees at sea level and a couple of degrees less for each thousand feet of elevation — or 218 degrees at my house.

I’ve also given up on commercial pectin, which sets too quickly and firmly for me.

No longer do I make dense and sticky jam that I can barely pry out of the jar.  Instead, my jams are soft and smooth, singing of ripe fruit and spice.

Using Parsons’ technique, making jam is no longer a daunting enterprise involving scary vats of scalding hot syrup and high odds of failure.   Small batches are easy to handle and encourage experimentation with flavors.  The colorful jars on my shelves are filled now with the likes of strawberry, rhubarb and cardamom or blackberry, lemon and Asian pear jams. Most recently I’ve been playing with the season’s plums and pluots — a cross between plums and apricots — spiked with freshly grated ginger.

This method of making jam requires little specialized equipment other than a kitchen scale.  Because you’re only cooking a couple of cups at a time, you can avoid the hot water bath processing altogether if you like and just stash your preserves in the fridge.   If you do opt for canning, you don’t need such a large pot of water since you’ll only be doing a few jars at a time.  I’ve downscaled to a tall stock pot with a folding steamer basket in the place of my massive graniteware canning kettle.  A canning funnel is helpful.

Cooking times are reduced, too, because the fruit and sugar sit unattended off the heat for hours after you’ve brought them to a boil.  When you put a couple of cups of the macerated fruit mixture in a non-stick skillet, it only takes 5-10 minutes to get to the jam stage over medium heat.  Even if you cook off several batches, it doesn’t take long.

I’m giving a formal recipe for the pluot and ginger jam here because it’s often easier to follow a step-by-step procedure the first time around.  But feel free to substitute whatever fresh fruit is in season and any flavor accents that appeal to you.

Many fruits, such as plums, contain so much natural pectin — the thickening agent in jams — that you don’t have to worry about them setting up.  Others, such as blackberries, can use a little help from mixing with a small amount of a high-pectin fruit like apples or Asian pears.  It’s actually better if some of your fruit is a little under-ripe because it will contain more pectin and jell easier.

Have fun and let your imagination run free.  Next winter, you’ll  have the flavors of summer sitting on your pantry shelves just when you need them the most.

I didn’t grow up eating eggplant.  In my family, broccoli was about as exotic as produce got.  But I was hooked the first time I tasted the  Mediterranean vegetable in a slow-cooked ratatouille served by a friend.

Properly prepared eggplant is a luscious vegetable with the texture of velvet and a mild flavor that harmonizes beautifully with late season tomatoes and peppers. Throughout the summer, we often grill long, slender Asian eggplants to accompany a piece of fish or meat for dinner.

So I was intrigued by the idea of grilling the ingredients  for a Moroccan vegetable salad when I ran across an old recipe in my files from Jozseph Shultz, owner of the recently resurrected India Joze cafe in Santa Cruz.  His directions called for stir-frying the vegetables in a wok.

After a little research in Claudia Roden’s “The New Book of Middle Eastern Food,” (Knopff. 2000),  I decided to turn up the heat as well by seasoning the dressing with cumin and a touch of harissa, a fiery Moroccan chile paste now in available many markets.

The result is a lively salad packed with all the best flavors of late August.  Grilling adds a nice smoky note to the eggplant and brings out the sweetness of the peppers and onions.

This salad works well as a side dish at dinner but is substantial enough to serve as a light lunch or a vegetarian pot luck offering. Although it can be made ahead and refrigerated, I  like it best at room temperature.   Just take it out of the fridge about half an hour or so before serving to let the flavors blossom.

In the waning weeks of summer vacation, with the days already getting shorter and the first day of school on the horizon, few of us want to spend a lot of time in the kitchen.  Now is the time to make the most of the incredible bounty of the August garden.

I’m talking tomatoes, here, of course.  As far as I’m concerned, nothing compares to the deep, sun-warmed flavor and chin dripping juiciness of a freshly picked tomato.  Whether it’s a salty, smoky Cherokee Purple or a nicely acidic Early Girl, a good tomato needs very little help to make a good meal.

A couple of slabs of ripe tomato and a sprinkle of salt is the perfect mid-summer lunch.  Add toasted bread and a salty bit of cured pork and you have a simple feast of the season that crosses continents and cultures.  In America, it’s a BLT.  In Spain, it’s pan con tomate, or bread with tomato. One of the most popular offerings in the tapas bars of Barcelona, bread with tomato at its most basic is little more than a generous slice of toasted bread rubbed with the cut side of  a tomato half until the bread has soaked up as much juice and pulp as it can hold.  It’s a classic marriage of flavor and texture that only takes minutes to prepare. 

From that point, you can embellish as you wish. A clove of garlic rubbed over the toast just before the tomato adds a typically Mediterranean note.  So do a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of sea salt.

If you’re particularly flush, a slice or two of Serrano ham is a luxurious addition.   Or, like me, you could make do with some well-crafted domestic prosciutto, which lends savor and a measure of protein.   The ham should be dry-cured and sliced paper thin.  A garnish of good quality anchovy fillet is the crowning touch in my book, but you can leave it off if you share the widespread American prejudice against strongly flavored little fish.

A dish like this doesn’t really require a recipe, although I discovered a good guide in the new cookbook, “The Book of Tapas,” by Simone and Ines Ortega (Phaidon, 2010).  It’s a veritable encyclopedia of the little dishes served in Spain.

The critical point is to use the best ingredients you can find.

A substantial, rustic bread like the Pan Pascal organic demi-miche I found at Trader Joe’s is essential since it needs to absorb the tomato without falling apart.  A good local sourdough with a dense crumb and not too many holes does the job, too.  Get an unsliced loaf so you can cut thick slices. Toast the slices until well-browned under the broiler, on the grill or even in the toaster if it has wide slots.

The tomato must be very ripe and super juicy.  Dry-farmed Early Girls are ideal but any flavorful beefsteak would be great, too.  Cut the tomato in half across its hemisphere and rub in as much of the juice and pulp as you can.

Then drizzle with a good olive oil and sprinkle with a small pinch of sea salt.

Top with a couple of slices of the dry cured ham, garnish with anchovy if desired, and dig in immediately.  Summer never tasted so good.

Sometimes, inspiration comes just when you need it.   I had returned from a wonderful Bakers Dozen tour of Harley Farms in Pescadero last month and was pondering what I could bake with the fabulous goat cheese I had scored when I spotted an article in the New York Times about the French enthusiasm for savory quick breads.

Cakes salés—savory cakes—is the French term for these popular breads laced with cheese, meat and even vegetables.  They’re homey loaves, as easy to stir together as muffins, and they’re served at picnics, parties and potlucks in Paris and beyond.  Sliced or cut into cubes, they make terrific nibbles with a glass of cool wine on a summer afternoon.

This was the ideal use for that log of creamy chevre that I had picked up at Harley Farms after a morning spent communing with the delightfully friendly goats. The basic recipe is infinitely adaptable and I knew the bright tang of the cheese would bring fresh flavor to a fine-grained bread packed with fresh vegetables.

The first loaf was even better than I anticipated.  Warm out of the oven, the flavors of broccoli, roasted red pepper and goat cheese were irresistible. The colors were appealing and the broccoli design charming.

The next day, though, the bread was a little dry.  So I did some research and found a variation by Clotilde Dusoulier, of the “Chocolate & Zucchini” cookbook and blog, that substitutes yogurt for the milk used in most recipes.

Yogurt did the trick.  The next loaf stayed moist and tempting for a couple of days.

Feel free to put your stamp on this bread.  It takes just as well to cubes of ham and gruyere or bacon and cheddar as it does to goat cheese and vegetables.  Stir up the basic batter, add your signature ingredients, turn into a loaf pan and bake.

Serve with a glass of chilled rose on a warm Saturday afternoon, and you just may find yourself in a French frame of mind.

Let’s face it, pie is intimidating for many cooks.  Why else would supermarkets sell so many of those cardboard-like frozen crusts in foil pans?

Never fear, pastryphobes.  The French have given us a marvelous alternative to the pie with perfectly ruffled edges—the galette.   A free-form cross between a pie and an open-faced tart, it makes the perfect showcase for sweet and juicy produce of summer’s stone fruit season.

What’s more, it’s a snap to make and actually is supposed to be irregularly shaped. Call it rustic and revel in the imperfections.

The galette crust goes together in minutes with the help of a food processor.  Slice the fruit and toss it with sugar, lemon juice and a little cornstarch.  Then pile the mixture in the center of the rolled-out crust, tuck the edges up around it, and bake until it’s a beautiful golden brown.  If the crust should sag a little or the juices leak out of the pastry, it only looks that much more appetizing.

This summer, I’ve been following a very adaptable Martha Stewart recipe for galettes.  A little cornmeal in the pastry enhances the flavor and makes the tender crust sturdy and easy to handle.  It stands up well when nearly overloaded with fruit.

My favorite filling combination is Blenheim apricots and Bing cherries.  Alas, the all-too-short season is over for those varieties, though.

Still, peaches are fantastic, whether paired with blackberries or blueberries.  I like yellow-fleshed varieties with plenty of acid to balance out the sugar.

The legendary Sun Crest peaches, made famous by David “Mas” Masumoto in “Epitaph for a Peach,” were absolutely incredible.  But I also adore the July Flame peaches we picked up at the Aptos Farmers Market last weekend.

Just be sure to taste any fruit before you buy.  It should be ripe but firm, with a deep, complex flavor.  White-fleshed sugar bombs rarely have the character to make a memorable galette.

Plums, nectarines and other fruits should work well, too, but you may need to adjust the amount of sugar.

One warning:  If the fruit is very juicy, don’t try to scrape every bit of sugar and juice out of the bowl and into the galette.   Excess juice is all but guaranteed to leak out of the crust and spread across the baking sheet.

On the other hand, don’t worry if it does.  The beauty of a galette is no one expects it to look picture perfect.

When temperatures soar and appetites wilt, nothing is more appealing than a salad packed with cool, crisp greens.  Add a little protein and dinner is ready for the table.

This summer, I’m enamored with the pork tenderloin salad with warm strawberry dressing I found in “The Berry Bible,” by Janie Hibler.  Nominated for a James Beard award when it was first published in 2004, the cookbook is one of the books Amazon Encore is bringing back because customer reviews and other sources indicate they were overlooked and under-appreciated when they were first released.

This cookbook is an encyclopedic reference on every variety of berry imaginable, from the Arctic raspberry to the thimbleberry, with recipes for every course from cocktails to dessert.  I’ve never even tasted or seen most of these berries.  Who even knew you could eat the fruit of the manzanita bush?  But I’ve made several batches of the tasty strawberry, rhubarb and cardamom jam.  And I can’t get enough of this memorable salad

With its brilliant colors and intriguing blend of sweet and savory flavors, the salad is impressive enough for company.  Yet it only takes about half an hour to put together.

The tenderloin, rubbed with rosemary and garlic, cooks in 15 to 20 minutes in the oven.  While it’s roasting, you slice the strawberries and prepare the greens and avocado.  When the pork is done, the dressing is quickly made in the roasting pan with the remaining meat juices.  Slice the pork, arrange everything on a platter and dinner is served.

If you’re expecting a really warm day,  you can roast the meat in the cool of the morning, wrap the cooked meat in aluminum foil, and put it in the fridge until dinner.  Reduce the balsamic vinegar in the roasting pan and refrigerate it, too.  When you’re ready to eat,  just pop the foil-wrapped package in a toaster oven to warm for about 10 minutes while you reheat the vinegar and juices, then stir in the strawberries and olive oil. Assemble the salad and enjoy.

The combination of tender pork, balsamic-spiked strawberries, luscious avocado and chilled greens is guaranteed to hit the spot on a sweltering day.

Summer books should be entertaining page-turners.  Who wants to get bogged down in obtuse economic theory or convoluted political arguments while stretched out on a beach towel or curled up in an Adirondack chair?

Fortunately for food lovers, there’s a whole crop of fun reads out this year that explore the culinary world.  You don’t even have to be a cook to enjoy these memoirs.  Here are my choices:

Spoon Fed, by Kim Severson (Riverhead Books, 2010, $25.95).

Kim Severson, one of the best food journalists in the country, has been at the New York Times since 2004 but she began building her reputation at the San Francisco Chronicle six years earlier.  I’ve always admired her as an excellent reporter with a great eye for the stories that define our times.  She’s also an engaging writer with a cheeky sense of humor.

Severson’s memoir traces her life from alcoholic despair in Alaska to domestic happiness in Brooklyn with a wife and young daughter.   Yet, like many journalists, she seems more comfortable writing about other people than plumbing her own emotional depths.  Self-deprecating humor is more her style than self-obsession.

So it should be no surprise that she’s used her life story as the context for illuminating profiles of her mother an some of the most prominent women in the food world, from Marion Cunningham to Marcella Hazan.  The subtitle, “How Eight Cooks Saved My Life,” is a bit melodramatic but I’m willing to forgive that in the face of such charming stories.

Oh yes, there are recipes, too.  I’m itching to make the Gumbo Z’Herbes inspired by Leah Chase — maybe in September.

52 Loaves, by William Alexander (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2010, $23.95).

William Alexander is a man who redefines obsession.  When he gets his teeth into a project, he doesn’t let go until he’s exhausted every comic possibility.

He chronicled his quest for the perfect garden in “The $64 Tomato” (Alqonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2006).  Now he’s pursuing the Platonic ideal of bread. He wants to recreate the life-changing artisan bread, complete with crisp crust and holey interior, that he still remembers from dinner in a New York restaurant.

The book opens with Alexander — an IT manager by day — preparing to sow his own wheat for the loaf of his dreams. In the course of a year, he consults bread experts, bakes a new loaf from scratch every weekend, enters his bread at the state fair, builds an outdoor brick oven, and braves airport security to take sourdough starter to an ancient monastery in Normandy.

Along the way, he blends encyclopedic detail of the history and science of bread making with laugh-out-loud accounts of his exploits.  Even readers who aren’t as fascinated as Alexander is with every nuance of great bread will enjoy his tale.

Amateur bakers may learn something, too.  As a sort of epilogue, Alexander gives detailed instructions for building your own levain, or starter, and creating several variations on pain de campagne, otherwise known as peasant bread.

The Butcher and the Vegetarian, by Tara Austen Weaver (Rodale, 2010, $23.99)

Don’t let the cover fool you.  This book is not your typical romance novel.  It’s the story of Tara Austen Weaver’s flirtation with meat.

A lifelong vegetarian, Weaver was advised by doctors to eat meat to cure an unidentified ailment that had led to chronic fatigue.  She takes us with her to the butcher’s shop while she tries to make her peace with the idea of eating animals.

Although this could be a heavy, moralistic tome, Austen turns it into an often humorous and lighthearted journey through a world of crown roasts and barbecue that feels exotic to someone raised as a vegetarian.  Confirmed carnivores will learn something about the meat industry as well.

Austen is generous, funny and very likable.  Her story will grab you from the first chapter and keep you reading until she makes her decision about what she should eat for health and happiness.  I just wish she had shared her recipe for Syrian meatballs.

Medium Raw, by Anthony Bourdain (Ecco, 2010, $26.99)

The cover photo tells you everything you need to know about Anthony Bourdain’s life ten years after the publication of the best-selling “Kitchen Confidential”:  He may be fingering a knife, but he’s wearing a suit and tie.

Bourdain no longer cooks for a living in the sweltering, hectic, macho kitchens that he celebrated in his earlier memoir.  Now he writes, serves as a judge on “Top Chef” and stars in the Travel Channel’s “No Reservations.”   He’s remarried and become a doting father.

So, if you’re expecting another wild ride of drugs and sex, you’ll be disappointed for the most part.  Bourdain is the first to say he’s sold out.  Although, he  still writes in the frenetic, profane style of a culinary Hunter S. Thompson, lobbing F-bombs left and right, he’s lost some of the energy he drew from life in professional kitchens.

This is not so much a memoir as a string of essays.  I could pass on his rant about Alan Richman, the food critic of GQ magazine.  But his blustering account of what it feels like to be a father is truly touching and his profiles of David Chang of Momofuku fame and Justo Thomas, the cook who fillets fish at Le Bernardin  are some of the best material in the book.

We don’t buy salad dressing at the supermarket anymore.  It’s just too easy to make our own now that I’ve switched to shaking them up in a jam jar.  And the flavor is so much better, not to mention the purity of the ingredients.

I hate to admit it, but I’ve never been adept at creating an emulsion by whisking a thin stream of oil into vinegar in the classic technique for making a vinaigrette.  Far too often the dressing separates before I get it to the table.

So I’ve experimented with all sorts of alternatives, from salad dressing bottles with their own stirrers to jars with markings on the sides for measuring out ingredients.  Nothing works as well as a wide-mouthed jam jar with a tight-fitting lid.

Pour the ingredients into the jar, screw on the lid, shake vigorously and you have a beautifully mixed dressing.  If it’s just family, I’ll put the jar on the table.  For company, I transfer the contents to a cruet, using a small funnel.

A simple vinaigrette is an obvious candidate for the jam jar but you’re not limited to that.  I’ve also adapted a yogurt-based dressing from James Beard and an Asian dressing from Perla Meyers for the jar approach.

For vinaigrette,  I like the standard proportions of 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar.  Extra virgin olive oil is my first choice.  It should be good, but save the pungent, pricey stuff for use as a condiment.   You can substitute a more neutral vegetable oil, such as canola, if you wish.

The vinegar is critical to the balance of flavor.  My new favorite is Banyuls, a fairly expensive French vinegar made from the sweet wine of Grenache grapes and aged in oak barrels for five-plus years.  It’s mild, nutty and well worth the high price because it goes a long way.  But champagne vinegar or fruit-flavored products such as raspberry vinegar also are very nice.  I avoid harsh red wine vinegars or overpowering balsamic vinegars.

Add a little garlic or shallot, a pinch of salt, some Dijon mustard and freshly ground black pepper and you have a traditional vinaigrette that tastes so much better than anything you can buy. Add minced fresh herbs if you wish.

For the yogurt-based dressing, I’ve drawn on the recipe labeled “Dieter’s Yogurt Dressing,” in my old copy of “The New James Beard,” by James Beard (Knopf, 1981).    I prefer to think of it as a creamy, healthful alternative to ranch-style dressing.  To pump up the flavors, I’ve added apple cider vinegar, a little garlic and a trio of finely minced herbs.  Now its a tasty match for crisp, sturdy lettuces such as romaine, Little Gem, or even iceberg.

The Asian-style dressing is a tribute to all the wonderful Chinese chicken salads I’ve enjoyed over the years.  I love the contrast of a lightly sweet and savory dressing with crunchy greens, shredded chicken, crisp bean threads and nuts.

Finding the right combination of flavors, though, has been a challenge. Some dressing recipes are too sweet.  Others rely too heavily on sesame oil. Finally I decided to riff off a recipe in “Fresh from the Garden” by Perla Meyers (Clarkson Potter, 1996).

This dressing can be made with the ingredients on hand in many kitchens.  I’ve cut back on the sesame oil, introduced rice vinegar, and substituted sunflower oil for the peanut oil in the original.   Feel free to use canola if you don’t have the other oils in your pantry.

Of course you can grill hot dogs and hamburgers at the Fourth of July barbecue. That’s what most people will expect.

There’s a whole world of great grilling traditions to explore, though, if you’d like to try something new.  One of the best is Korean-style barbecue with its sweet and spicy rendition of beef short ribs known as kalbi.

These are the same tasty, tender ribs you may have cooked over a tabletop grill in a Korean restaurant.   They’re almost as easy to make at home and they’re guaranteed to wake up the palates of guests expecting the old standards at the annual Independence Day festivities.  We’re such a diverse nation, who’s to say what’s American food now?

Korean-influenced fare is one of the hottest trends in American cooking.  Celebrated chef David Chang has made his name at his string of Momofuku restaurants in New York City with food influenced by his Korean-American upbringing.   In Los Angeles, crowds follow Roy Choi’s Kogi taco trucks on Twitter for the opportunity to stand in long lines for short rib tacos and burritos.

Making your own is as simple as marinating the meat in soy sauce, sugar, garlic, ginger, and sesame overnight, then quickly cooking the ribs on a hot grill.  They’re cut so thinly  there’s little worrying about when they’re done.

The trickiest part may be finding the right cut of ribs.  The beef chuck short ribs should be cut across the bone about a quarter to a half inch thick, leaving three or four flat bones at the top of a long strip of meat.  Some Asian markets carry this cut but you may have to go to a butcher shop and ask for them to be cut for you.  My butcher calls them English style short ribs, but many cookbooks refer to them as flanken-style ribs.

Lacking a helpful butcher, barbecue guru Steven Raichlen suggests butterflying individual ribs in his latest cookbook, “Planet Barbecue” (Workman, 2010).  That takes kalbi out of the easy category, however, and I’m glad I haven’t had to do it.

Every Korean family has its own recipe.  I’ve adapted one from Sang Jung Choi in “The Asian Grandmother’s Cookbook” by Patricia Tanumihardja (Sasquatch Books, 2009).  She uses kiwi puree to tenderize the meat then adds a big bottle of lemon-lime soda to the marinade for good measure.  Since I just can’t bring myself to endorse soda in anything, I’ve increased the honey in the recipe to make up for the omission.  I’ve also substituted cayenne for the Korean red pepper powder that I couldn’t find locally.

Traditionally, the meat is cut into strips after it’s grilled.  Diners wrap the strips in lettuce leaves with a bit of white rice, a little kimchi — the pickled and fermented vegetables at the heart of Korean cuisine — and perhaps a dab of hot sauce for the brave.   I made the quick cucumber kimchi from Chang’s cookbook, “Momofuku” (Clarkson Potter, 2009), to go with my last batch of kalbi and it delivered quite a kick.

You also could take the fusion route and turn your kalbi into tacos or burritos like the Korean taco trucks in LA. do.  They layer strips of short ribs in a fresh tortilla with  salsa, cilantro and onion relish, and a slaw tossed in a chile-soy vinaigrette.  I like the rib meat in a taco with salsa and the smoked jalapeno sauerkraut from Farmhouse Culture.

Feel free to make it up as you go along. It is Independence Day, after all.