In a Nutshell:

Summer salad

For me, summer is all about the produce; a fresh salad with diced cherry tomatoes, fresh corn (not from a can; from the ear that’s still enveloped in its husk and looks like it was just picked), cilantro, lime juice, lemon juice, salt, and pepper is such a treat! (And if it’s just for me, I’ll throw in jalapeño slices.)

—Sina Mizrahi

Just Sayin’

What’s the secret to the best sandwich in town?

If you’re not watching your calories, for a grilled cheese, smear the outside of your sandwich with mayonnaise and panfry it or toast it in a panini maker.

As kids, we’d go to my cousins’ cottage; their mother, Guita a”h, was the best cook — all she had to work with there was a stove top, and she would bring us out our favorite lunch to the beach. We called it a “favorite sandwich” and it had a smear of mayonnaise inside and out, as well as sliced tomato and lettuce inside, and was then panfried. You can add a slice of cheese so you actually get some protein in there, too.

—Faigy Grossmann

Restaurant Rave

I recently went to Fuego in Miami and I’d love to share my stand-out dishes with you!

Steak tartare is one of my favorite dishes to order when I go out, and my husband doesn’t eat raw anything — so I usually eat it alone. This was so outrageously delicious that even he enjoyed it.

I am an apple cobbler fiend, and rarely find a restaurant that gets it even remotely close to homemade caliber. This one blew my mind.

—Rivki Rabinowitz

FT, help me!!

Some people say it’s not safe to eat a medium-rare hamburger. Is this true? Please explain.

Eating a rare cut of beef is not the same as eating rare ground beef, for a simple reason. When fresh meat is cut, bacteria are largely exposed to the outside of the meat, and do not penetrate the inside (until it does, and then your meat goes bad). This is okay, because when you cook it, you expose the outside of the meat to high heat, killing the bacteria and rendering the beef safe for consumption.

However, when meat is ground, all the outside bits that were exposed to bacteria are distributed throughout the meat. For that reason, it’s safest to cook ground meat dishes to at least 140°F, which takes it past the danger zone in which bacteria can thrive: temperatures of 40-140°F.

—Michal Frischman

Ok, Quick:

Medium rare or medium well?

My answer is that it depends. Medium rare for any steak, and a true medium for roasts.

—Chanie Nayman

(Originally featured in Family Table, Issue 806)