I love the simple pleasures of summer: hot sunshine, cool breezes, a chilled glass of wine, a dinner of salad and something from the grill.

I had some green beans from our Tantre CSA farm share, and I quickly turned them into one of our favorite salads: "Scaletta Green Bean Salad."

Scaletta Ristorante in New York City has long been a part of my family's New York celebrations. It's near my mother's former apartment, and the Croatian owners, Freddy and Omer, are two of the loveliest men you'd ever want to meet. Freddy was a former soccer pro and Omer is the wonderfully talented chef.

I won't even pretend to say that I've imitated Omer's recipe fully, but I guess this is my homage to my favorite place to eat in all of New York.

Scaletta Green Bean Salad

3 cups green beans 1/3 medium red onion, sliced thin 3/4 cup red, ripe tomatoes chopped 1 oz fresh mozzarella 1/3 cup canned cannellini beans, rinsed 1 TBS extra virgin olive oil 1 TBS white balsamic vinegar salt and pepper to taste

1. Snap and steam green beans until tender, but not overcooked. Rinse them in cold water to stop cooking. 2. While beans are steaming, rinse cannellini beans, slice the onions and chop the tomatoes. Cut the mozzarella into 1/4" cubes. 3. Toss everything together. Sprinkle the olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper and toss well. Adjust the seasonings. 4. Marinate in the fridge for at least 2 hours.

This salad is even better the second day.

Number of Servings: 6

Nutritional Info Fat: 3.3g Carbohydrates: 10.9g Calories:83.6 Protein: 3.7g Nutrition information supplied by Sparkrecipes.com.

We had a simple supper to accompany the salad: After making the salad, I threw some chicken in a bag with the rest of the red onion, cut into chunks, a few sprigs of rosemary from my container garden, 1 TBS olive oil, along with the juice from 1 lemon, and I left it to marinate while I chilled the salad.

At supper time, I lit the grill, took a baguette and brushed some olive oil and a garlic spice blend on it, wrapped it in foil, threw the chicken on the grill and halfway through cooking, put the bread on.