salmon cakes over creamy corn in a tarragon sauce

• 1.5 pounds salmon (fresh, frozen, or canned will work)
• 1 egg
• bread crumbs
• fresh parsley, chopped
• 1 bag frozen sweet corn
• garlic, chopped
• heavy cream
• Dijon mustard
• fresh tarragon, chopped fine

To make the sauce, whisk together about equal parts mustard and cream. Add tarragon and refrigerate. Chop salmon into small pieces, mix together with egg, bread crumbs and parsley. Form into cakes slightly smaller than the size of your palm. In a skillet over high heat, fry the cakes in a swirl of oil for about 1+ minute per side. Once all have been browned, transfer to a 275 degree oven in a covered dish. Meanwhile, saute the garlic (to taste) in a little olive oil over a medium high flame for about 3 minutes. Add corn and continue to cook for about 5 minutes until corn is cooked through. Reduce flame to medium and add a touch of heavy cream. Season to taste with coarse salt and pepper and add any of the parsley or tarragon if you have any left over. Assemble by placing corn on plate, placing salmon over it and drizzling it in the sauce.

The dish: Much like the crab cake sandwich I posted, these cakes are pretty forgiving about exact measurements and spices so feel free to experiment and improvise. The corn was a nice touch, but the sauce was the star of the show. I'm not sure I ever used tarragon before, but I got the idea from something I read and the result was great. To create the cool drizzle effect I used one of those plastic condiment bottles people put ketchup in for picnics and just chopped a little off the top for the herbs to flow through. You can find those at the dollar store (Sam's dollar is the best around if you're local to the New Windsor area) and they're great to have on hand for such occasions. This entry is a little out of order as the cakes were actually served as a appetizer to our meal with the rents, but whatever. You could really serve this as a main dish just by increasing the portion sizes a bit.

corn with roasted poblano

• 1 bag frozen white and yellow corn
• 1 whole poblano pepper
• 1tsp Olivio (or butter, if you want to die)

Roast whole pepper in 300 degree oven for 20 minutes, remove. Once cooled, chop into little pieces. Cook corn according to package. Mix cooked corn, chopped pepper and Olivio together.

The dish: Growing up I didn't own one single baseball card. My childhood heroes were not men who threw balls and swung sticks, but rather men of social and business importance, specifically, Lee Iacocca. Against the advice of my fourth grade teacher I did my biography book report on his best selling autobiography and when he got canned from the Ellis Island project I wrote him to let him know at least one fifth grader was pissed off. Amazingly, he wrote back; it was the proudest moment of my young life. My love for Lido has not faded over time. I proudly own an old Chrysler and when it looked like there was going to be a "car czar", I was ready to go to Washington and lobby like hell for him. If you know anything of Mr. Iacocca, then you know of the immense love and profound sense of loss he holds for his first wife, Mary. Mary died nearly 30 years ago after a long struggle with diabetes, and to this day Lee is probably the strongest advocate on the globe for diabetes research, donating millions of dollars towards research and treatments. Olivio is a buttery spread made with olive oil that is much less destructive to your internals than either butter or margarine, and it tastes and spreads awesome. Developing and marketing the spread was just Lee's way of giving people a healthier, better tasting alternative, while furthering his philanthropy. I'm proud to say that my 10 year old self did a pretty good job at picking hero's.