Most Recent Posts

Patricia Mulvey discovered her favorite taste of summer during a disastrous trip to Mexico in 1995. The bright moment of that trip was the Ensenada Slaw. She describes it as "a lightly dressed, crisp vegetable salad with a touch of heat from hot sauce and a touch of acidity from lime juice."

Mulvey — who now lives in Madison, Wis., and runs a farmers market menu planning service — was on the trip with her husband. They had borrowed a Ford Escort from a friend in San Diego and were cruising down the Mexican coast when a large rock appeared in the road. It was being used by a construction crew in lieu of a safety cone. Mulvey had to act fast.

"Well, if I swerve left, I'm going to hit 60 mph oncoming traffic. If I swerve to the right, I'm going off a cliff," she says.

She elected to stay the course and drive over it. Mulvey's husband got out to survey the damage, which didn't seem too bad — but when she tried to start the car, she says there was "a hideous, shredding, shrieking, awful sound. [It] threw me into a tizzy and I just spazzed out."

Mulvey jumped out of the car and ran toward the construction crew. She waved down the man on the road roller and said, "Hay un gran pierna in la calle." Translation: "There is a big leg in the street." He ignored her. She then waved down the next car on the road and hitched a ride to nearby Ensenada.

Once in town, they called a tow truck and went back to the car. When they arrived, Mulvey was alarmed to see the area "teeming" with machine gun-wielding federales with drug-sniffing dogs.

"My stomach's doing flips as the guys come up to us with their guns and tell us we can go," she says. "And we so wanted to go."

When the tow truck driver examined the car, he found the entire oil pan had been torn out, and there wouldn't be a quick fix.

"We decide to just call it a night — find a restaurant, have a margarita, and we order the fish tacos, which are topped with this amazing slaw. It was a revelation to me. It was bright; it was crisp; it had just the right hint of heat," she says.

Vote For Your Favorite

This recipe is among three finalists in our Taste of Summer contest. Take a look at the two others below and vote for your favorite by sending a message to All Things Considered here. Make sure to put "Taste Of Summer Vote" in the subject line.

Nothing about where "NSA leaker" Edward Snowden may go next ever seems to be certain. Remember the flurry of excitement about that Aeroflot flight he was supposedly on (but wasn't)?

So it is with a large grain of salt that we pass along these reports:

— "Russia's Immigration Service has reportedly granted entry permission to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, who has been stranded at a Moscow airport since last month. 'The American is currently getting ready to leave. He will be given new clothes. Lawyer Anatoly Kucherena will bring the papers he needs to leave the transit zone of the airport,' says Interfax, citing a source familiar with the situation. The migration service would not immediately confirm the information." (Russia Today)

— "Former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden has been granted the papers that will allow him to leave the transit area of a Moscow airport where he is holed up, an airport official said on Wednesday. The official told Reuters that Snowden, who is wanted by the United States for leaking details of U.S. government intelligence programs, would be handed the documents by a lawyer later on Wednesday at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport." (Reuters)

If these reports turn out to be correct, that would seem to mean that Snowden has been granted the temporary asylum he's been seeking from Russian authorities. His next step, presumably, would be to seek permanent asylum in one of the nations that have said they're willing to take him — Boliva, Nicaragua and Venezuela.

From Moscow, NPR's Corey Flintoff tells our Newscast Desk that "if Snowden is allowed to leave the transit area, it could escalate tensions with the United States. That would free Snowden to visit the embassies of other countries that have offered him asylum. Some analysts have speculated that President Obama might cancel a planned visit to Moscow in September to show U.S. displeasure with such a move by Russia."

Anthony Weiner, the former congressman who wants to be New York City's next mayor, admitted Tuesday that the same behavior that led to his resignation from Congress in 2011 — trading lewd messages with women — continued into the summer of 2012.

That would be well after his June 16, 2011, announcement that he was leaving Congress — an announcement that included his apology for "the personal mistakes I have made and the embarrassment I have caused ... particularly to my wife Huma."

Politics

Weiner Says He Won't Leave New York Mayor's Race

Ask yourself: Are you addicted to technology — any technology? Do you check email obsessively, tweet without restraint or post on Facebook during Thanksgiving dinner? Or perhaps you are powerless in the face of an iPad loaded with Angry Birds?

Many of the most popular technologies of our time tap into powerful reward mechanisms in our brains. And while most researchers stop short of calling video games and modern tech addictive, there's evidence that these technologies alter how our brains work and change how we behave.

Research has even demonstrated that gamers will get a boost of dopamine when they play.

Many techies and marketers are tapping, sometimes unintentionally, into decades of neuroscience research to make their products as addictive and profitable as possible.

A couple of weeks ago I got a pitch from Uber, the creators of the car service app of the same name. Every once in a while when you open the Uber app, you are greeted with a surprise, and the company will offer an unexpected service.

"We've done pedicabs in Austin," says Travis Kalanick, Uber's co-founder and CEO, "[and] we've done on-demand Texas barbecue. We've done Uber chopper and we've done on-demand roses on Valentine's Day."

Last Friday, the surprise was on-demand ice cream.

"It's not our core business; it's not what we do normally," Kalanick says. "It's just fun."

The thing about these PR stunts is that customers love them. Traffic to Uber skyrocketed Friday. The other thing is that you never know when to expect these little rewards, so it pays to check Uber's app and click, and then click again.

And something about that reminded me of a very old, very famous psychology experiment known as the Skinner Box.