Few things are more evocative to me than the smell of a cookout on a warm, sunny day. Just one whiff and I’m transported back to any of a million happy moments in my life. Baseball games in the street until sunset. Grilling by the light of fireflies. Tossing a Frisbee or football in the park. Making new friends over hot dogs and potato salad.

There are so many things I love about this time of year, especially as a month of historically miserable weather comes to an end, but few of them resonate quite the way food, friends and family do.

While humans have been cooking over fire literally for hundreds of thousands of years, barbecues and grilling somehow seem to be uniquely engrained in the American psyche. Maybe it’s because our days around campfires on the wild frontier are more recent than those in other countries. Or maybe because our vast expanses of land make possible the kind of animal agriculture that has yielded so much to throw on the grill.

Either way, the onset of summer holds the promise of many memories to come—memories that someday will also be strongly evoked by the smells and tastes of food.

Speaking of food, in this month’s Food Insight newsletter, we’ll fill you in on what you need to know about newly announced food labels; we’ll take you down on the farm as we continue our “Future of Food” series;  we’ll give you a taste of Switzerland; we’ll explain a major, new scientific statement on GMOs; and we’ll tell you why when it comes to food, you should go with your gut.

Here’s to new memories!