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Bibim Gooksu Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from restaurateur Jenny Kwak's book, Dok Suni: Recipes from My Mother's Korean Kitchen. Kwak also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. To read more about Kwak and Korean cuisine, click here. This noodle dish is very gratifying on hot summer days when you want to eat something light, healthy, and refreshingly cold. The crisp, clean texture of the cucumber combined with the spiciness from kimchi, the tang from the rice vinegar and a subtle sweetness from the sugar makes the dish so good. The noodles are served over a bed of ice, then topped with this spicy salad-like mixture.

We adapted this recipe from Big Bowl Noodles and Rice, by Bruce Cost with Matt McMillin (HarperCollins). Cost likes to stuff dried black Asian"flower" mushrooms. Because these can be expensive and hard to find, we asked if we could try fresh shiitake mushrooms instead. Cost agreed, and we loved the results. Look for shiitakes with caps that have rounded edges to better hold the stuffing. Active time: 25 min Start to finish: 1 hr

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Thanks to a generous amount of basil, mint and dill, this salad is quite refreshing. It can be taken to a picnic in a covered container that is stored in a cooler.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

This bruschetta tastes best with tomatoes fresh from the garden. This recipe can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less but requires additional unattended time.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less.

Can be prepared in 45 minutes or less but requires additional unattended time.

Thanks to the addition of some shrimp, coleslaw becomes a light main-course salad. Flaked cooked fish would also work nicely.

Some advance preparation is required for these wings: The yogurt needs to drain for 2 hours and the wings need to marinate for at least 2 hours.

Active time: 45 min Start to finish: 3 hr.

Zia Maria is a simple but delightful restaurant in Alghero, a popular tourist resort on a part of Sardinia's west coast known as the Coral Riviera. The dining room is very basic; a large fireplace and some antique cooking equipment are the only things to distract you from the traditional Sardinian menu. But that's a good thing, because once you start in on pickled artichokes and mushrooms, wild boar in sweet-and-sour broth, or ricotta ravioli with tomato sauce, you'll appreciate having few distractions. Each dish, like these tangy onions from the restaurant's selection of antipasti, is cooked and presented in straightforward fashion.