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Food For Thought: Hot-Weather Food Faves

Nancy Leson
Nancy made this chilled cucumber soup. Recipe below.

When the mercury rockets past 85 degrees, even I forgo pot roast — which is why I turned to Nancy Leson for some of her favorite hot-weather recipes. Vietnamese salad rolls are one of Nancy's hot weather go-tos. 

"For me, it's a whole dinner in itself and so easy to make," she said. "I buy a soft lettuce like a bibb, fresh herbs – cilantro, basil, mint.  I slice up cucumbers lengthwise and make little bowls full of chopped jalapeno, peanuts"

And here's her secret ingredient: chopped up lime.  To those ingredients she'll add shredded roast chicken from the supermarket and/or Chinese barbecue pork form the Asian market.

To prevent problems with the rice paper wrappers sticking together after soaking, Nance dips one at a time and hands them out to husband, Mac, and son, Nate, who then assemble their own from the ingredients.  Want to give those salad rolls a try?  Here's astep-by-stepfrom  cookbook author and teacher Andrea Nguyen.

Cool as a Cucumber Soup

Cucumbers, grapes, cream cheese.  What could go wrong?  Here's one of La Leson's favorite recipes.   It's mid cuke season at the wonderful Duris Farm.  I've brought home several loads of Kirbys already for myNY half sours.  It's a crispy, cool refrigerator pickle perfect for these dog days. 

  "It's a sure sign of summer if the chair gets up when you do." – Walter Winchell

Dick Stein joined KNKX in January 1992. He retired in 2020 after three decades on air. During his storied radio career, he hosted the morning jazz show, co-hosted and produced "Food for Thought" with Nancy Leson and wrote and directed the Jimmy Jazzoid live radio musical comedies and 100 episodes of Jazz Kitchen.