Watermelon! Chilled and salted slices of watermelon. And then you spit the seeds out, because if you swallow them a watermelon will grow in your belly and you'll explode. At least, that's the word on the street.

Fresh heirloom tomatoes are one of my favorite things about summer. They're best if you eat them straight from the vine (with a sprinkling of salt!), but the ones from the farmers' market are fantastic too. Mmmmm.

Lotsa grilling out. Fresh Italian sausages, side-by-side with big slabs of zucchini drenched in olive oil. Beer in hand. Life is good.

I prefer cold dishes in the summer like salads and such. Hot dishes in the winter. I know, that's so yawn.

We've got tons of arugula and mesclun mix popping up in our garden plot, with a nice flat of tomatoes and squash happening in Miko's kitchen, so it's going to be salads all the way.

Plus, we have home-grown oregano, basil and rosemary so you know it's all about the home-made pizza this summer too! YUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Anything fresh, really. Jicama is my absolute favorite, and I can get them year round, but the winter ones are soooo stale and dry. I love the great big fat summer ones. I just eat it plain. No chili powder or lemon for me.

Lemons with salt. I think I mentioned that before. My mouth is watering right now.

Grilled steak. Something about a charred outside and chewy inside cooked over wood we cut down during the winter just does it for me.

Stonefruit. Mmmm apricots, nectarines, cherries, plums....

I love stony fruit too, especially peaches. Costco do the most wonderful peaches which they import from the South of France. They smell like being on holiday. I can only buy a tray of 14 at a time (they don't sell smaller quantities) but I can easily manage two peaches a day.

Oh, and English strawberries. I remember when I was a kid it was a HUGE treat to have strawberries, and we would only have them once or twice a year, in June.

Now nothing's seasonal and you can get strawberries all year round, tasteless, forced, pulpy things. But I love June and July, when Kentish strawberries are available.

And, of course, when I'm in New Zealand, tamarillos. Oh how I miss that fruit. My absolute favourite.

Watermelon always means "summer" to me even though I've never really liked the taste of it.

I have a funny story with a twist on the racial overtones of watermelon. When I was in elementary school, my friend invited me to come along to her family's reunion picnic. I was the only white person there. After playing and running around all day with the other kids, we decided to visit the buffet table for a bite to eat.

My friend's grandmother started to put a giant slice of watermelon on my plate and when I said "no, thank you" her grandma winked at me and said "I should have known. White girls don't eat watermelon!"

Everyone else laughed like it was the most hilarious thing in the world that I didn't like watermelon, but I didn't really "get" it until years later when I learned about the history of the related stereotypes.

Barbecued prawns.

Of course, it's coming into winter here, so I'm all about the roast beef. (Except for when I'm all about the roast lamb...)