I have a culinary problem that causes me much anguish. I have alluded to it in past posts, and the time has come to address it directly. So here it is: My digestive system will not tolerate onions unless they have been cooked to smithereens. And I mean smithereens. In stews or a chili where the onions have been simmered for hours and hours, I seldom have a problem. If the onion is chopped very fine and cooked fairly well and there is not too much of it, I’ll only have slight indigestion. (In such dishes—like the fish chowder at the Congo Church—I will indulge from time to time, knowing I’ll have to hit the baking soda and water as soon as I get home.) But if I eat something that has big chunks of not very well cooked onions, then I know I am headed for trouble—multiple doses of baking soda and water followed by Tagamet. And raw onions? Forget about it.

To say this puts a damper on my cooking and eating is an understatement. Onions provide a flavor and depth that when missing can make a dish seem blah and boring. In addition, it is often difficult when going out to eat to find items on the menu that don’t have onions, and dining at friends’ houses can be downright problematic. I was brought up to eat what was in front of me and to say thank you very much. So what do I do? Confess that I have an onion disability? Stay silent, pray that none of the dishes are laden with raw or lightly-cooked onions, and eat what is served? I have done both, and neither approach seems satisfactory. The first approach seems rude—what I have, after all, is an intolerance not a full-blown allergy—and the second approach can lead to misery, even though my affliction is only an intolerance. I long for a third way, which would be to eat the darned things and to suffer no ill effects. However, at my age, I know this is unlikely and that I have to stiver through as best I can.

This brings me to my own cooking, and, in a round-about way, to a recipe for chickpea burgers. First, and I thank the gods for this on a regular basis, I am able to eat garlic. (Raw garlic can be as problematic as onions, but as long as it is lightly cooked, I am fine.) Second, and this is probably why I love Italian food so much, many dishes, especially pasta, can be made using garlic rather than onion. According to Mark Bittman, there is even a notion among some Italian cooks that no dish should include both onion and garlic. (He does not subscribe to this notion.) Finally, I have come to realize that as long as a dish is flavorful, the lack of onion will not be such a problem.

Obviously, then, garlic is one of my prime substitutions for onion, but there are also other flavorings that will jazz up a meal—fresh herbs and a bit of cheese can really make a difference, and I use both in the following recipe for chickpea burgers. This recipe has been adapted from one of Mark Bittman’s in How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. His recipe called for onion, for which I substituted one clove of garlic. Then, following some of his suggestions for flavoring bean burgers, I added fresh basil and some grated sharp cheddar. The results were all that I could have hoped for—a veggie burger that was full of flavor, so good, in fact, that these burgers will be a regular part of our diet. The garlic, the chickpeas, the basil, and the cheese all come together to produce a terrific Mediterranean taste. Thus far, we have only pan fried the burgers, but we are looking forward to grilling them, too. Another nice feature is that a single recipe makes four patties that can all be cooked at the same time. The leftovers reheat beautifully in the same way they are originally cooked—in a frying pan with a bit of oil.

Before giving this recipe, I want to note that although fresh basil can be expensive, there is no substitute for it. Dried basil just isn’t worth it. At many grocery stores, large packs of fresh basil are available at a fairly reasonable price. The big pack I picked up at Trader Joe’s was about $2.50, and I have seen similar prices at our local Hannaford. And for those who can’t find big packs of basil at a good price, take heart. Summer and farmers’ markets are coming, and for cooks who have a bit of sunny space in their yards, basil can planted in pots as well as in the garden.

Chickpea Burgers
Makes 4 large patties

2 cups of cooked chickpeas
1/2 cup of whole basil leaves
1 clove of garlic
1/2 teaspoon of salt
Pepper to taste
1/2 cup of rolled oats
1 egg
1/2 cup of sharp cheddar, grated
Olive oil for frying

In my above preamble, I forgot to mention how easy it is to make these burgers. You do need a food processor, which, in my opinion, is an indispensable piece of equipment in a home cook’s kitchen. Food processors don’t even have to be expensive to work well. Ours was cheap, and we have gotten many years of use out of it.  (And it’s still going strong.)

Put all ingredients, except for the oil, in a food processor. You don’t have to chop the basil or the garlic. The food processor will take care of that for you. (You do, of course, have to grate the cheese before adding it to the food processor.) Pulse this mixture until it is fairly well chopped and combined but not totally smooth. There should be rough chunks in the mixture. If the mixture seems too dry, add a bit of water. (I haven’t had to do this.)

Form the mixture into four patties, and chill for an hour in the refrigerator if you have time. Even after chilling, they will be a little crumbly, but they will hold together in the pan. Heat the oil in the frying pan, and when it is hot, add the patties, cooking on one side for five minutes. Flip carefully, and cook on the other side until brown and crispy, about five minutes, maybe a little less if the pan is hot.

Serve on a bun, and any of the toppings you would use on a meat burger would be good on this one as well. Lettuce, tomato, ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, and, yes, even a slice of onion if you don’t have a touchy digestive system.

After a long wet, rainy May, we had the warmest, sunniest, most-perfect Memorial Day that I can remember. The weather was hot but not stifling, and there was nary a dark cloud to dampen our day. For the most part, the dratted black flies were gone (and good riddance!), and the mosquitoes didn’t come out until dusk. This meant my husband, Clif, and I could spend the whole glorious afternoon on our patio, and we were joined by our daughter Shannon and her husband, Mike, for the first barbecue of the season.

At our house, barbecues follow a certain ritual. First comes the appetizer. We try not to go overboard on this, knowing that more food, lots more food, will follow. Yesterday we kept it simple with chips and salsa and a pitcher of margaritas to toast not only the beginning of summer but also those who have passed away and are very much missed.

Next comes grilled bread, which has become one of our specialties. So much so that guests actually request grilled bread when we invite them for a barbecue. Clif has become a master at stretching the dough, rolling it, flipping it, and making sure it doesn’t burn. A little olive oil for dipping, and you have yourself a pretty good treat. We take the easy way out—buying pizza dough from our local Hannaford—but ambitious cooks could certainly make their own. Perhaps one day I will. Regardless of whether the dough is made from scratch or purchased at a grocery, grilled bread wows most guests at pennies per serving. Now, how often does that happen?

After the bread has been dipped and eaten, we move on to the main meal. For this Memorial Day, we went traditional—grilled chicken, steamed corn, and the best-ever potato salad. (Yes, a recipe will follow.) There are three elements that make this potato salad especially good—bacon, sour cream, and, most important, the hot potatoes are marinated with a vinaigrette. The resulting potato salad is so flavorful that it really doesn’t need onions, although they certainly could be added. As raw onions do not agree with me, this is a real plus in my books.

It is our habit to linger over the main meal until the citronella torches must be lit, dampness settles over the backyard, and, finally, the mosquitoes come out. Then in we go for tea and dessert. Shannon made chocolate thumb-print cookies, which she filled with a cream-cheese mixture and topped with chopped strawberries. A delectable ending to a splendid Memorial Day.

Best-Ever Potato Salad
Adapted from a recipe given to me by my friend Dawna Leavitt

7 medium potatoes
1/3 cup of vinaigrette or Italian dressing
4 or 5 hard boiled eggs, chopped
1/2 pound of bacon, cooked and crumbled
3/4 cup of sour cream, or to taste
1 tablespoon of mayonnaise, or to taste
Salt and pepper to taste

Peel and cut potatoes in quarters. In a large stock pan, boil the potatoes until tender. As soon as the potatoes are done, chop them into bite-sized pieces, put them in a mixing bowl, and pour the vinaigrette or Italian dressing over the still-hot potatoes. Put the bowl in the refrigerator and let marinate a few hours, at least until the potatoes are cold.

When the potatoes are nice and chilled, add the chopped eggs, the crumbled bacon, the sour cream, the mayonnaise, and the salt and pepper. Mix well, put in a pretty serving dish, and ideally chill a bit more so that the flavors will mix. However, if you are pressed for time, the potato salad could be served immediately.

Full disclosure: I do not measure the sour cream or the mayonnaise. I add a bit of sour cream and then mayonnaise until I get a consistency that I like.

Also, 3/4 cup of chopped celery could be added, and for those who love onions, 1/3 cup or so of chopped onions. Parsley might be nice, too, but I never do. I just stick with the basics, and even onion lovers have requested this recipe.

We have had such a spell of wet, cool weather that many of us are wondering what this summer will be like. Is this a sign of things to come? We sure hope not. Etched in our memories is the summer when it seemed as though it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, and blight struck the tomatoes hard. A summer with no fresh tomatoes is a miserable summer. Their reign of glory is brief but oh so welcome. In Maine, we do have greenhouse tomatoes from Backyard Farms in Madison. They’re not bad—better than what is usually found in grocery stores when tomatoes aren’t in season—but greenhouse tomatoes certainly can’t compete with tomatoes grown outside in the good earth.

This weekend, between showers, my husband, Clif, and I managed to go to the transfer station, where we could dump brush into a giant pile waiting to be composted as well as pick up some of the rich, black humus from a pile that has been composted. Unfortunately, because of all the rain, that area was a mud pit, and we couldn’t park too close to the compost. This meant slogging through the mud with our heavy, compost-filled garbage cans. What fun we had! We were just grateful that it didn’t start pouring until we had returned home, taken the garbage cans from the car, and cleaned the muddy mess left behind in the car boot. We gardeners certainly live on the edge.

However, all was not doom and gloom this weekend. On Saturday, our friends Jim and Dawna Leavitt invited us over for dinner, and they served us grilled wild salmon with a white sauce and chopped egg. I will admit that this is the first time I have had this traditional Yankee dish, and I am also not ashamed to admit that I loved it. Really, I could have lapped the plate. The moderately strong taste of the salmon blended so well with the white sauce and the eggs. A milder fish, such as haddock, would have needed some cheese in that sauce, but not the salmon. Just thinking about the salmon with white sauce and eggs makes me want more, and it was certainly the best meal we had all week.

Then, on Sunday, our friends Kate and Bob Johnson stopped by for a visit. I was able to lure them to Pete’s Roast Beef for the incredible roast beef sandwiches, but I also wanted to make a little something to serve at home with tea. My daughter Shannon is a big fan of frozen puff pastry, and it is very good indeed. For some reason, I had never used any, but I just so happened to have a box in my freezer. I also had apples in the refrigerator, brown sugar, and cinnamon. In other words, the fixings for a dessert that was not only simple to make but tasty as well. From finish to end, which included 40 minutes to thaw the dough, this dessert was made in about an hour’s time, with 10 minutes devoted to slicing the apples, mixing them with sugar, and arranging them on the puff pastry. If there is an easier, more delicious dessert, then I haven’t had it.

Apple tart with puff pastry

1 sheet of frozen puff pastry
4 small apples, or 3 medium, cored and sliced very thin
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
A pinch of salt

Remove one sheet of puff pastry from the box, and, without unfolding, let it thaw on the counter for 40 minutes. While the puff pastry is thawing, core and slice—as thin as you can—the apples and place them in a mixing bowl. Combine the sugar, cinnamon, and salt and mix with the apples. Do this enough in advance so that the apples and brown sugar can sit for a bit so that apples are really coated with the sugar. When the puff pastry has thawed, unfold and cut it in half the long way. Put the two halves on a parchment-lined cookie sheet, and arrange the apple slices so that they overlap and leave a nice edge. Bake in a preheated 425° oven for 18 to 20 minutes. Serve with either whipped cream or ice cream. While serving this type of dessert warm is always best, the apple tart is perfectly good served cold as well.