Last spring, I had the pleasure of spending a day cooking with Daniel Lorca, the bass player and resident gourmet of Nada Surf. Daniel blew me away with his laid-back production of a multi-course sit-down meal for 28 band members and various friends. We left that night with full stomachs and 5+ hours of video footage.

Although I'm not proud of how long it's taken to get it edited and published (there was a long queue of previous interviews ahead of it), I'm thrilled that the first installment of the Nada Surf interview--and the first all-cooking episode of Cooking with Rockstars-- is now online.

In this episode, Daniel prepares a salad of arugula, smoked tomatoes, tomato jam, and grilled avocado (it's as good as it sounds!). I jokingly called it "6-hour Salad" because that's how long he worked on it, but I wrote up a streamlined adaptation of his recipe that requires far less time and serves 6 people instead of five times that amount.

If you are taking advantage of this bountiful tomato season, I can think of no better treatment for in-season tomatoes.