I’m in the honeymoon phase of summer cooking, the golden time before I can’t even look at the six zucchini that are in permanent residence in my fridge. Right now I’m especially enamored of nectarines and peaches — for breakfast, for snacks, for dinner, for dessert. (Nectarines are in fact superior to peaches, but both are so much better than other summer fruit, with the possible exception of watermelon, that we should just think of them interchangeably here. Email me at dearemily@nytimes.com if you have feelings about this!)



There’s a recipe below for roasted peaches with chicken, but you could also have grilled peaches with pork; grilled peaches with shrimp; grilled peach toast with pimento cheese (the chef who wrote that recipe, Todd Richards, likes to have it for breakfast, but I say live dangerously and have it for dinner). This arugula salad pairs peaches and goat cheese, or do what I do and tuck slices of peach into a caprese salad: heaven.

And one more bonus recipe: Mashama Bailey’s pecan pesto. She’s one of the extraordinary chefs featured in this list of 16 Black Chefs Changing Food in America, and if you can’t get to her restaurant, the Grey in Savannah, Ga., you can at least taste her food.

Lastly, I try never to talk to you about the weather, but it’s too hot to ignore. Two of the dishes below are served cool or cold; one is grilled; all are fast.