I try to feed my dog, Willie, as best as I can to maintain his physical and mental health and I often make homemade meals and treats. Today, it is his 9th birthday, so I wanted to celebrate with a special menu.

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I often find new pesto recipes. Some use arugula or other greens or sun-dried tomatoes instead of basil leaves. Some use walnuts or almonds instead of pine nuts. As much as I love my basic basil pesto, I thought I would try to twist the recipe a little. I decided to try a new ingredient: hard goat cheese. The local farmer's market sold this cheese as a "goat parmesan" so I thought that would be a great substitution for regular Parmesan.

The result was ....... quite bad. The cheese taste was strong and salty. The star of a good pesto should be the basil not the cheese. But this strong goat cheese killed the lemony basil and it was extremely salty. I did not like it at all. Oh well, you can't learn unless you try and this week's lesson: no strong cheese in my beloved pesto sauce.

Thank you Metrocurean for posting my Five Bites submission today. I really enjoy that column and am thrilled to be a contributor. For those of you unfamiliar, each week, Metrocurean asks a chef or some other contributor in the city to pick their favorite five dishes from local DC restaurants. I thought a lot about my Five Bites in DC. So much, in fact, that it inspired me to think about my favorite "Five Bites" of my life. Here's my list:

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In Japan, one way to enjoy seasonal produce is by making a Japanese style pilaf ("Takikomi gohan" in Japanese). In the Fall we use chestnuts and mushrooms (Matsutake is best), in Winter, we use oysters, and in Spring we use sea bream, bamboo shoots, and wild plants. But the possibilities are endless.

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I own Madhur Jaffrey's book and I use it religiously. But I could not find a spicy coconut milk sauce recipe in my book recently so I googled it and was surprised to find a Julia Child show. This episode was so educational and I learned a lot even through I cook Indian food all the time.

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It is a wonderful time of the year to enjoy endless choices of beautiful produce at the farmer's market. One of my favorites, corn on the cob, just arrived and I can't resist. And all the berries that I love, many different kinds of eggplant, squash, peaches, tomatoes, beets, baby potatoes, carrots and artichokes and more. We are a family of two and it is impossible to keep up with the speed of new items even though I cook almost every meal at home. Sometimes it seems hard to figure out how to use all these things, and then I realize: what a wonderful dilemma I have. I just remember when I was in Africa, I was always trying to figure out how to make a certain dish with many missing ingredients. It was challenging but rewarding each time I came up the solutions. Each meal involved with a lots of creativity. Now I am so overwhelmed with the amount and variety of produce that it actually requires a lot of creativity and learning to figure out how to use up all the fresh items fast enough each week. Woe is me...