This year, 22 February happened twice for me. The first time, I was flying from Auckland to San Francisco, crossing the international date line somewhere over the Pacific. I’ve never fully understood what actually happens at the date line. There’s an explanation – something about a group of men in Washington deciding where one day would end and another begin, drawing a line down the middle of the ocean. Knowing that doesn’t make it feel less strange. You fall asleep, and when you wake up it’s still yesterday.Groundhog Day, except the groundhog was me, in my plane seat, eating something that had been described on the menu as a “warm pasta dish”.I had been midway through my Crowd Pleaser tour – four weeks of travelling, cooking, talking about food across Asia, Australia, New Zealand and now North America. I had left late summer in New Zealand – cherries at the market and a sunset that hung around until gone nine – and stepped off the plane into a San Francisco February that should have felt like winter. Instead it was warm and sunny. I had a case of seasonal jet lag, on top of the regular kind.We tend to think of eating seasonally as something signposted – lamb at Easter, strawberries in summer, the first pumpkin soup in October. The holidays and occasions do a lot of this work for us, nudging us towards what’s ready, whether we’ve noticed it or not. But we all know that the real thing is mainly physical: the set of signals your body has been quietly receiving all along – the cold that makes you want something warm, the heat that makes watermelon, eaten over the sink, taste perfect. Cross enough time zones and hemispheres and those signals get scrambled. You’re hungry, but you don’t know what for.So on my second 22 February, I took the train to Oakland to visit my friend Samin Nosrat – the best possible prescription for a scrambled appetite. There was banana bread when I got there – from her latest book, Good Things – sparkling with sugar and cinnamon, whole bananas caramelised on top. We had coffee in the garden, walked the neighbourhood, and went in and out of small shops. I ignored Samin’s warning and bought ceramics I knew I would have to carry with me for another two weeks.For dinner, Samin bought chips and rotisserie chicken from a specialised restaurant. She also got some leaves from the market, opened her fridge and brought out a few bottles and jars with dressing she had made: a vinaigrette, a lemon and miso dressing, tahini and herb-based, something yoghurty and creamy. We dressed the leaves, pulled the chicken into pieces and sat down to eat.Samin writes in Good Things about attention – about how time, and its fast companion attention, are the most precious things we can give or receive. And that cooking for someone is only a small part of a larger exchange: one of presence and of showing up.I admit it took me a moment to settle into this way of thinking. My instinct, arriving at a friend’s house for dinner, is always towards more – towards offering to help, doing something, justifying my presence with effort. There is a particular kind of cook, and I am one of them, for whom restraint doesn’t come naturally. We express love through labour. So a shop-bought chicken can feel like a small defeat.But this is precisely what summer asks you to unlearn. Winter gives you cover – something in the oven, the kitchen full of steam, and the effort itself is the point. The darkness justifies the production. Summer is less forgiving. By June, tomatoes, courgettes, cherries and nectarines are at their peak, and the best thing you can do is get out of their way. A tomato salad, lightly dressed, left to sit in its own juices until the plate is streaked orange-red and crying out for bread. A good peach, on its own, or grilled with some brown sugar and a splash of rum.The cooking is in the decisions you make early, so that by the time people arrive you are actually at the table with them. A bunch of condiments left over from earlier meals, or made specially when you have a moment to spare – a dressing, an oil, a quick pickle, or even a citrussy sugar sprinkle like the one I use in my mango mess – are all you need, really, for a particular kind of summer meal.Eating what is ripe and cold and juicy in August is not an act of virtue, but of attention. And the reason summer cooking should be simple is not that simple is easy, but that simplicity is the only approach that leaves you present enough to actually taste it – and to be with the people you’re feeding.My summer cooking plan: to accept a little help – shop-bought birds or meringues, a perfectly ripe mango – and spend more time at the table. The second 22 February was much better than the first.Vadouvan coronation chicken salad with lime yoghurtFood styling: Ellie Mulligan. Prop styling: Max Robinson. Photograph: Steven Joyce/The GuardianCoronation chicken sometimes gets a bad press, but this version – lime yoghurt, sticky apricots and cashews – makes a strong case for it. It centres on a shop‑bought rotisserie bird, and everything else comes together pretty quickly. The kind of thing you put in the middle of the table for everyone to help themselves. Vadouvan is a mild curry mix with a French influence originating in Pondicherry. There’s a sweetness to it, from onion and garlic, but also a strong savoury note from cumin and fenugreek. It’s worth seeking out, but you can use a mild madras curry powder as a substitute.Prep 20 min