What's Your Favorite Taste Of Summer?

By NPR Staff

Published May 27, 2013 at 2:11 PM CDT

If your motivation plummets during summer's hot and sweaty days, a sweltering kitchen may be the last place on earth you want to be.

But despite the season, we still need to eat and drink. A good story and recipe can go a long way to raising your spirits and divert attention from how miserable you are.

All Things Considered wants to know which recipes give you that boost in the summer.

The recipe doesn't have to be original — it doesn't matter if you got it out of a magazine, off a box or a blog. But it's got to be good and have an interesting, true story behind it.

Maybe it's your brother-in-law's cousin's killer cole slaw — the one he brings to the Fourth of July party every year. He wouldn't give up the recipe, so you had to arm wrestle him for it. Or maybe your Aunt Shirley never smiled, except when she had your mom's homemade cherry ice cream, and you smile remembering that fact every summer you made the ice cream yourself.

Limeade Spiked With 'Pixie Dust'

Melissa Gray, the curator and producer of the Found Recipes series, says her quintessential taste of summer is a cold and bubbly glass of limeade; it takes her back to her college days:

"Twenty years ago, my best friend Dawn Benedetto and I are suffering through this heat wave in Richmond, Va., and we are getting super cranky; we are harping at each other because we had no air conditioning. But the 3 ^rd Street Diner did, it was open all night and it had limeade.

I think it was made with pixie dust and angel wings because we chilled out there all night long drinking limeade until well past midnight. We were girls gone wild. Wicked and wild, but we never melted."

Recipe: Sparkling Limeade

Makes 4-6 servings

1 cup water

3/4 cup sugar

Zest of 1/2 a lime

Juice of 7-8 limes

Ice

3-4 cups seltzer water

Mint (optional)

Combine water, sugar and lime zest in saucepan; bring to boil then simmer until sugar is melted. Pour mixture through strainer to remove zest. Let lime syrup cool to room temperature. Mix with lime juice and seltzer water, then pour over ice. Garnish with a lime wedge or sprig of mint.