Linda Bassett

I like to keep my refrigerator door shelves orderly. Nothing irks me like sticky bottles and jars of condiments and pickles haphazardly arranged. I keep a single shelf for “fixings” for burgers, hot dogs or sandwiches — mustard, relish, ketchup, mayo, pickles, olives. I group jams, jellies, etc. with similar ingredients. On another shelf, I keep soft drinks and bubbly water. No bottled salad dressings: I create mine on the spot. And space for my Diet Coke. Food 101 columnist Linda Bassett COURTESY PHOTOS Some…

Fresh local asparagus exists for only a moment in time. The pencil-thin spears show up in grocery bins and farmers’ market stalls every spring. I gather large bunches for myriad recipes. Stored in the vegetable crisper until time to cook, they only need a fast rinse or quick bath in cool water. I bend each spear and this intelligent veggie shows a cook precisely where to trim. It will snap in the right spot. The slender stalks cook quickly when dropped into a skillet of…

New Englanders are “pick-your-own” enthusiasts. When autumn waves its glorious color, we drive to the nearest orchard carrying baskets to fill with sweet ripe apples. Late spring finds us wandering fields peeking under vines for red and blue treasure — blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, blackberries. Some of us with little proximity to fields pick these jewels at the weekend farmers’ market. While fresh berries are perfect eaten out of hand, cooks find myriad other ways to enhance them. Piled on homemade (or storebought) biscuits and dolloped…

Back in the day, college students cooked up ghastly dinners of fast-boiling rice, beans and canned mixed vegetables that I suspect were scraps from the assembly line. We dumped grated Parmesan cheese from a green cardboard jar over it. “Survival food,” we called it. Linda Bassett / COURTESY PHOTO Today, students are more intentional, globally sophisticated. Recently, a grad student introduced me to the meal that sustained her and classmates: North African shakshuka, a skillet of eggs poached in tomatoes with peppers and onions, warmly…