Dinner Inspiration

"What do you want for dinner?" I said making two eggs sunny side up.
"Can I decide after breakfast?" Mr. Wonderful said sipping the first espresso of the day.
"That depends."
"On what?"
"On how long it takes you to finish breakfast."

Of all the seasons I love summer the best. Reason? A gajillion of them including: School is out; The sunny days are long; and the only way to cool down is by eating ice cream every night. With perks like these who wouldn't love summer?

I also like to eat. CORRECTION: I love to eat. And drink wine, and water ski, swim, run on the beach, collect seashells, gather sunflower bouquets, read books by the pool, and-- But I digress.

With so many summertime activities happening right now, I find that deciding what to make for dinner gets pushed to the proverbial back burner. Therefore it's become a personal tradition that every summer I treat myself to some outside inspiration for mealtimes.
 
One summer I only made meals from Gourmet magazine. I had been a subscriber to the now defunct paper-copy of the magazine for several years but because of my grueling work schedule never got around to making any of their delicious-looking recipes. So rather than eating, I would just page through the monthly periodical drooling over the food photographs. It was real food porn. But before anyone accuses me of getting Gourmet for the sexy food pictures, I say I subscribed for the articles. I swear.

There was another summer where I was inspired by the raw food movement, which declared that raw food has 16 gazillion times as much nutrition as its cooked-food cousins. Then and there I decided to eat only raw vegetables all summer. By the Fourth of July I couldn't look at another leaf of raw kale. By the way, eating a raw diet helped me lose weight because I just couldn't stomach the thought of eating another raw potato.

One summer I only cooked French food. I prepared toutes les choses: from Salade Nicoise to roasted peppers to "Voulez-vous choucher avec moi ce soir?" That summer Mr. Wonderful and I had a lot of fun.

This summer I'm going Greek or at least I'm cooking Greek with the new cookbook It's All Greek to Me by Debbie Matenopoulos. A Greek-American, Debbie is a TV personality with lots of charm and even more old Greek family recipes. Last night I made Lemonati kai Regenati Kota AKA Lemon and Oregano Chicken Legs. It was delicious!

So Mr. Wonderful better finish his fried eggs so I can plan dinner. Hmmm maybe tonight it will be Spanakopita...