The front end of Tropical Storm Hanna has been hovering over us all day. It’s muggy, overcast and drizzing pouring.

For dinner, we’re planning to roast some pork chops with a hot ginger spice rub, steam some chard and make a big bowl of polenta. We wanted something bright and cooling to combat the humidity and play off the heavy, spicy dinner. A search turned up this summer fruit soup, from Jesse Ziff Cool’s Simply Organic. I’ve been wanting to try it all summer, and the combination of strawberries, star anise and cinnamon sounds perfect for tonight.

Recipe: Summer Fruit Soup (Jesse Ziff Cool)
Reference: Root Source: Strawberry (Cookthink)

Raw onions can really perk up a dish. Still, a bite of too-strong onions not only leads to unpleasant breath, it can also overpower the taste of a salad or a sandwich (or whatever else you may be using them for).

But you can take away some of a raw onion’s shrill potency without losing its oniony flavor by soaking your sliced onion in cold water for about 10 minutes. Rinse well and dry and you will have taken out some of their bite. (This also works well when using shallots for a vinaigrette.)

I learned this trick from cookbook author Deborah Madison, who recommended soaking red onions for a wilted spinach salad in her wonderful The Greens Cookbook. I hear that the Spanish and the Greeks — who use a lot of raw onions in their respective cuisines — soak whole or halved onions as long as overnight to make them easier to peel and tamp down their sharpness, but I’ve never gone that far.

Anyone else have tips for taking the sting out of an onion?

I’m not much of a drinker. As I’m five feet tall, it doesn’t take much to make me happily tipsy. But the Labor Day weekend brought with it several dinner parties with rich food and lots of wine. So this weekend, I’m feeling in need of a recovery, something to put me back to center.

Problem was that I couldn’t quite think of the word to best describe what I was looking for. On Cookthink, I searched for something that was fresh, light, healthy and tasty, and that turned up some good results. As did a search for “cleansing.” But is it “spa” food I’m looking for? Or something “restorative?”

What mood tag works best to describe that craving you have for healthy food during that post-heavy-food funk?

Recipe: Fresh Lemongrass Ginger Ale (Steamy Kitchen)
Recipe: Sweet And Sour Turnip and Carrot Salad (Cookthink)
Recipe: Orzo and Wild Rice Salad (Running With Tweezers)
Recipe: Seared Beef Salad With Watercress and Grapefruit (Washington Post)
Recipe: Mixed Berries With Lemon Verbena Syrup (Cookthink)

1. Make cupcakes. In ice cream cones.

2. Combine your two favorite junk food treats into one dish.

3. Bone up on the Japanese art of bento.

4. No campfire nearby? Toast some marshmallows on a slice of pizza.

5. Maple Miso Bacon Ice Cream Bourbon Root Beer Float. Need I say more?

(Image courtesy of cakespy.) 

The most widely grown crop in North America, corn is used in everything from aspirin to batteries and latex paint. But more importantly, corn fresh off the cob is sweet and perfect, maybe — as Garrison Keillor once commented — “even better than sex.”

This week’s delicious Root Source entries made us take Keillor’s remark a bit more seriously. From corn relish to corn fritters, from fried chevre with corn to corn salad inside tomatoes and corn soup with bacon, it was a good week for corn and the Root Source both.

Our favorite, however, was a recipe for corn and broccoli calzones. Congratulations to reader Elizabeth Skipper, who sent in the recipe. If you missed this week’s Root Source, be sure to subscribe.

Don’t forget to get us your submissions for this week’s Root Source Challenge #30: Rosemary. Entries are due by noon on Tuesday, September 9.

Cookshrink is a weekly column that looks at the psychological aspects of how and what we cook.

One of my first memories is standing barefoot with my best friend Janet in her father’s raspberry fields, picking and eating the berries one by one. I still love fresh raspberries, but any other raspberry preparation — be it coulis, jam, syrup or those sugary liquid fruit candy fillings — makes my stomach turn.

On the other hand, fresh apricots disturb me; I prefer to eat them dried, or better yet, baked into a tart, where they hold their pretty shape but their sometimes cottony flesh breaks down into something lush.

I prefer prunes to plums, which have let me down one too many times with a wooly texture that makes me want to spit them out. Yet I prefer grapes to raisins. I like cherries, apples, blueberries, bananas, peaches, nectarines, tomatoes, garlic, onions, ginger, spinach, cauliflower, carrots, cabbage and grapefruit either raw or cooked, but made to choose, would go with raw.

I will eat any kind of fish, but my heart belongs to sashimi. Don’t care much for steak, but am fond of steak tartare.

I appreciate good cheese at room temperature, but find nothing more tantalizing than a bubbling mass of melted cheese. I don’t like to eat chocolate candy, but enjoy it in brownies or melted into a pain au chocolat.

Some of these eccentricities of the palate have traceable origins too boring to go into here. Many seem to be dominated by texture issues: I know why I don’t like Brussels sprouts steamed (bitter, soggy) and why I can’t get enough of them roasted (nutty, firm). But why some foods only work for me in their raw or cooked states remains largely mysterious.

Do you experience this, too? Which foods do you prefer raw and/or cooked?

Kalyn Denny is a third-grade teacher from Salt Lake City, Utah and the blogger behind Kalyn’s Kitchen. You can also catch up with Kalyn on Facebook and Twitter.

Sweet or salty?

Definitely salty.

Which ingredient(s) do you use most?

Cilantro, lime, chickpeas, tomatoes and eggs.

What’s the cooking sound you most love?

Onions sizzling in a pan.

What’s your favorite cooking smell?

Fresh basil, still warm from the garden.

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Like many Americans, I grew up eating corn grown in fields not far from home. One summer during high school, I had the house to myself for most of August and was a frequent accomplice on what my summer sweetheart called “corn runs.” I would wait, Bonnie-style, with the engine running, while my would-be Clyde leapt out of my convertible and snatched a couple of ears from a roadside cornfield for us to eat for dinner after we wore ourselves out with lust.

But I have spent many years away from where I spent my corn-fed youth. The French just don’t eat fresh corn like we do, reserving it mostly for farm animals. You can find canned corn (yuck) at the supermarket or added to cheap bistro salads, but there is no tradition of sitting around the table munching on ears of corn in summer. A few years ago, certain vegetable sellers around Paris started selling suffocated, shrink-wrapped and decidedly non-fresh corn cobs, but by that time, I had all but lost my appetite for corn.

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In a couple hours I’m leaving to spend a few days in DC. So l last night, with Elizabeth and Angus out of town, I wanted to clear out any meat and vegetables we had lingering in the kitchen: a few slices of bacon, half an onion, a pint of cherry tomatoes, two fennel bulbs, a couple cloves of garlic and a bone-in chicken breast (which I’d kind of forgotten about since buying it on Saturday).

I did a couple of searches on Cookthink.com and came across this recipe for braised chicken with fennel, cherry tomatoes and capers. I say it’s a recipe, but it’s really more of a technique: sear the chicken, add the vegetables, add a broth and simmer until the chicken’s done. You could pretty much add anything you want to the pan and have it turn out okay.

Instead of using oil to sear the chicken, I chopped up the bacon and cooked it until it was crisp. I scooped it out with a slotted spoon, poured off a little of the grease and then tossed in a pat of butter. (This is what happens when I’m left alone for too long.)

I didn’t have any broth, so I whisked together a little white wine, Dijon mustard, fresh parsley from the garden and water. I had a bunch of stuff to do (trash, packing) so I turned the heat down really low, covered the pan and let it simmer for 45 minutes. With so much liquid in the pan, the chicken stayed moist throughout, and the whole thing came out like a light summer stew.

Lauren Ulm, a member of the Cookthinktank, is the creator of VeganYumYum, which was voted Best Food Blog in the 2007 Blogger’s Choice Awards. (Vote for her right now in the VegNews Magazine’s Veggie Awards.) Lauren’s “Knit Night Cupcakes” were featured recently on the Martha Stewart Show. For a sampling of Lauren’s work, browse VeganYumYum’s recipes.

Sweet or salty?

Both, at the same time!

Which ingredient(s) do you use most?

Probably tamari.

What’s the cooking sound you most love?

Chopping kale or peeling oranges.

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