Baked Figs with Gorgonzola, Walnuts, and Prosciutto; Penne alla Puttanesca

I relied on two celebrity chefs to come up with a way to use up some fresh figs and the first heirloom tomatoes of the season, which we found at Whole Foods and Trader Joe's for a remarkably good price.

As spelled out in Mario Batal's Simple Italian Food, quartered figs stuffed with a mixture of gorgonzola, walnuts, and parsley and baked in a 450 degree over for 8 minutes make a great appetizer.

One might think it strange to rely on an Englishman for a pasta alla puttanesca recipe, but Jamie Oliver has a real knack for doing justice to traditional Italian recipes - usually adding a special little twist that enhances, not detracts from, the familiar. His step of adding crushed basil, lemon juice and lemon zest to the tuna and letting it marinate for a ten minutes before adding to the sauce is, as Jamie might say, "brilliant." His recipe comes from one of his early must-have books, Jamie's Dinners.