On a recent trip to Hawaii, we went a little wild — for a traditional dish called poke, that is. Pronounced “poh-keh,” it’s often composed of sesame-soy dressed cubes of raw ahi tuna, a sustainable alternative to overfished bluefin tuna. In Hawaiian, poke means “to slice or cut crosswise,” and this salad originally consisted of slices of the day’s catch tossed with Hawaiian salt, seaweed and chopped kukui nuts. Nowadays, poke recipes are a bit like pizza — anything goes — and it all tastes great.

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We think mixing a tall pitcher of lemonade or stopping by a young entrepreneur’s stand is integral to an idyllic summer — on par with outdoor festivals, beach trips and porch swings. Varying legends place the origins of the popular beverage in 14th century Egypt as well as 17th century France, but stateside we can celebrate with National Lemonade Day on Aug. 20.

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The second-anniversary party for the green lifestyle website EcoStiletto.com was held at the Rolling Greens Hollywood nursery, and the women in attendance were as pretty as flowers themselves, attired in brightly colored skin-skimming summer dresses. (We missed the wardrobe memo and showed up in black ourselves.) We were all toting an extra handbag to donate to the new Los Angeles branch of Dress for Success, the terrific nonprofit organization that provides interview-appropriate clothing and accessories for low-income women seeking to enter the workforce. In exchange we got a recycled bag to fill with the latest green swag.

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Now that Earth Day has come and gone, it may be easy to forget those promises we made to always consider the environment. What better way to remember the importance of being green than enjoying the outdoors with a picnic? But dining outside often creates a significant amount of garbage, especially if we use plastic forks, paper plates and disposable cups. So we plan to picnic this year using biodegradable tableware, such as the WASARA collection available from Branch Home, and packing our food in an eco-friendly picnic basket. To ensure the greening of our picnics, we’re going to incorporate eco-friendly recipes, such as the ones found in Edible: A Celebration of Local Foods (Wiley, 2010).

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We took a break from eating foods prepared by LA’s top chefs to listen to some of the culinary masters talk shop during a recent gathering at the downtown arts center Redcat. During the roundtable, sponsored by dineLA, Josiah Citrin, Joachim Splichal, Mark Peel, Wolfgang Puck, Susan Feniger and Karen Hatfield answered questions about their “secret weapons” (“morels and asparagus,” according to Citrin), mentors ( “I learned as much from the bad ones who teach you what not to do,” says Puck) and their favorite at-home kitchen appliances (Peel’s is the pressure cooker).

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The taste of summer, in our mind, has always included the following trio: corn on the cob, watermelon and iced tea. We curled up with a warm cup of tea when we told you about National Hot Tea Month in January, and now we’re ready to cool down with one of our favorite summer beverages in June, which is National Iced Tea Month.

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Over the past decade, we’ve noticed that vegan diets have become much more mainstream, from the popularity of Skinny Bitch (Running Press, 2005) and its successors, to the American Dietetic Association’s updated position last year blessing vegan diets as healthful and helpful in preventing and treating chronic diseases. Most recently, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit that promotes a vegan diet, has come up with a new alternative to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s MyPyramid.gov — a Power Plate diagram in four sections: fruits, grains, vegetables and legumes.

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When it comes to dessert, we’re not among those women who demurely protest, “Oh, but I shouldn’t!” Firmly in the “I’d love some!” dessert camp, we were delighted to discover Deborah Madison’s Seasonal Fruit Desserts (Broadway, 2010), which contains more than 175 recipes for fresh, seasonal fruit dishes — such as pies, cakes, tarts and puddings — as well as tips for the perfect fruit plate.

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We skipped a recent screening of Sex and the City 2 to attend a poolside dinner party at the Beverly Wilshire Beverly Hills hotel to celebrate the movie’s release instead. (We know — how very L.A. of us!) So, in lieu of a movie review, we’re sharing some of the great tips we picked up at the event.

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Watching personal trainer Jillian Michaels whip the overweight into shape on The Biggest Loser fills us with admiration — and a little fear. We’re not sure we’d want this drill sergeant of a fitness coach to train us, much less move in with us. But that’s exactly what she’s doing this summer on Losing It With Jillian, a new NBC series in which she plays houseguest to a different family each week.

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