Break out the wool!  Summer is screeching to a halt and with it, the season’s best produce is enjoying its last glorious gasp.  But before the chill settles over our fine cities, we suggest you get busy indulging in the final fruits of summer’s blistering labor.  Don’t worry, we’re here to help.

Beets

Try: A salad of marinated red beets, fresh ricotta and fines herb at Cookshop

Berries

Try: The Berry Extreme smoothie made with strawberries, blueberries, pomegranate juice and raspberry sorbet at New York Burger Co.

Corn

Try: A Voce's Sweet Corn Ravioli with farona di bosco mushrooms, smoked tomato and summer truffle

Cucumber

Try: Gravlax with shaved cucumber, yogurt and grappa at Dani

Peaches

Try: davidburke & donatella’s Red Snapper with truffled peaches and a salad of mixed radish

Zucchini

Try: the Zucchini Chocolate Cake with walnut thyme gelato at Dona

Watermelon

Try: Rickshaw's famous Watermelonade.  The fresh, pure watermelon juice is squeezed on premise daily.

As the summer heat becomes more stifling than a Darren Aronofsky film, let’s take a moment to reflect on tomato season—the only reason we aren’t summering south of the equator!

The tomato is a storied fruit. Arguably originating in the highlands of western South America, it weaved its way through the Spanish colonies eventually arriving in Italy and France where it served as a culinary symbol for the French Revolution.

Long considered to be a powerful toxin, tomatoes didn’t fully take hold in Western diets until the early 19th century. In an effort to prove their safety (as a dubious legend contends), Colonel Robert Gibbon Johnson invited more than 2,000 spectators to watch as he consumed an entire basket of tomatoes in front of a Salem, New Jersey, courthouse in 1820.

The fear of tomatoes eventually died out, replaced by a brief but maniacal focus on their alleged ability to treat diarrhea, dyspepsia and even cholera. Today the medicinal qualities of the fruit (largely a product of their natural antioxidant, lycopene) are overshadowed by their abundant culinary powers. There is seldom a chef who doesn’t acknowledge the beauty of a flawlessly ripened heirloom tomato (an open-pollinated, non-industrial cultivar), and the fruits now populate top menus the world over.

But is it a fruit or a vegetable?

Both! Much like a berry, a tomato is the ovary and seeds of a flowering plant, so in terms of its botanical status it is considered a fruit. However, owing to a U.S. Supreme Court case in 1893 that dealt with a law imposing a tariff on vegetables but not fruits, the tomato now holds a vegetable classification according to the USDA.

Leave it to these masters to do justice to the tomato’s arduous battle for legitimacy:

The Risotto Pomodoro at A Voce is made with heirloom tomato, pesto and pecorino.

Enjoy Baked Prawns with roast tomato, couscous and fennel at Dani.

At Dona, Pan Roast Shetland Cod is served with little neck clams, spicy italian sausage, broccoli rape and a tomato fondue.

For those of us who don’t have the time (or talent) to make our own sauces, an upscale jarred product can be an excellent option. Donatella Arpaia’s preservative and sugar-free Essential Tomato Sauce is the only fresh jarred tomato sauce available anywhere, made with the finest artisanal ingredients.

BLT Steak and Equus Restaurant

This weekend we enjoyed a home-team meal at Bullfrog & Baum client and perennial New York favorite BLT Steak. Guided by an educated and knowledgeable staff, we enjoyed an exquisite and thoughtful meal that bore the mark of Chef Laurent Tourondel's expertise.

The meal began with a selection of delicate cured meats presented alongside a creamy duck liver mousse and hearty slices of country bread. A towering plate of the restaurant's notorious popovers followed. The eggy, crispy delights are presented with a kind of proud ceremony as they are marched to each table, a grand flourish suggestive of pleasures yet to come.

Our selection, the “BLT” Cut—bone-in double sirloin (for two)—arrived at our table cooked to perfection in a cast iron skillet, the juicy center finding its brilliant foil in a gently charred exterior. Truly, Chef Tourondel shines in the details—in our case neat pots of savory corn succotash, creamy spinach, asparagus coaxed into plump, expertly seasoned spears and—we couldn't resist—a cone of crispy shoestring fries served with a tangy aioli.

And the cocktails! A Caipirinha appointed with muddled kumquats let the signature flavors of the cachaça shine through while an icy Peach Lemonade was just the ticket after a day spent battling the sweltering New York heat.

The meal closed with a warm peach cobbler that evoked a kind of homey nostalgia and a mound of carrot cake under a scoop of ginger ice cream that melted into the crevices of the cake and mixed with the crunch of candied ginger as we wrestled with our better judgment to enjoy another spoonful. We lingered at our table long enough to let the experience settle comfortably in our stomachs before bidding farewell with the promise of a prompt return.

The meal was a flawless preamble to our cheery northward jaunt to Castle on the Hudson in the Hudson River Valley. At Equus Restaurant we enjoyed a nightcap courtesy of ardent in-house mixologist Julius, whose zeal for fresh seasonal fruit yielded two refreshing and rather energetic cocktails enjoyed in the restaurant's elegant, baroque interior which echoes the area's stunning estates. Though far too full to indulge in even a sampling of Chef David Haviland’s award-winning menu, we'll make a point of returning to indulge in items like the Lobster Truffle Brandade with shrimp, chorizo, tomato ragoût and brandy shrimp sauce, or the Crispy Sweet Breads and Butter Poached Lobster with spring peas and brandy lobster froth on the richly appointed patio that affords diners a breathtaking panorama of the Valley and the serene river from which it draws its name.

Thanks to the world’s feverish attraction to haute cuisine, many chefs are now in the public eye as much as any celebrity. But unlike their Hollywood counterparts, even the most established chefs are mysterious beings, turning out their edible art from the solitude of their kitchens. And because we love nothing more than sating the curiosity of our hungry (that’s a pun!) audience, we present:

10 Things You Never Knew About…

Alexandra Guarnaschelli, Executive Chef of Butter Restaurant  

1. Containers of shredded carrots, or any cut vegetables stored in water in her refrigerator, make her incredibly nervous.

2. She is obsessed with Formula One car racing.

3. One of her finest memories is standing in a swimming pool in Provence plucking cherries from a tree that hung over the water.