Sometimes the best dishes are the least complex.

I laughed reading a line in an Ina Garten interview in the New York Times yesterday: speaking of her preferred weekend lunches, she said, “I don’t like fancy food.” It’s a funny thing for a food professional to say, but it makes sense: as she instructs in her "Back to Basics" series, simple food, prepared well, surpasses extravagant dishes executed without expertise.

One of my favorite summer dishes takes very little time and almost no skill at all. I simply boil up an ear of corn and instead of slathering it with butter, I crumble some nice bleu cheese on top. Yesterday, I used Caveman Blue from Rogue Creamery in Oregon. It melted over the corn as quickly as drizzled butter and the tang of the cheese paired beautifully with the sweet kernels. On a hot summer day, it sure beats slaving over a hot stove.