Normal people have “to do” lists with projects they need to complete at the office or around the house. I have a “to eat” list of everything I want to gobble up.

The list gets longer in the summer. Of course, there are local fruits and vegetables like strawberries and asparagus, just now coming in season and covering tables at farmers markets. But there are also the treats you usually only find in warmer weather — things like pit beef at the hardware store or snowballs with marshmallow on top.

For chefs, summer changes the game. When restaurants rely on locally sourced produce, the period from late fall to late spring is a time of making do with a limited range of fresh local fruits and vegetables. Once May hits, the challenge is the opposite: keeping up with what Spike Gjerde calls the “cavalcade of produce” that area farmers bring in to restaurants like his Woodberry Tavern.

But for as long as Gjerde can remember, nothing compares to the simple glory of a tomato sandwich. “It’s kind of the definitive thing that I love to eat in the summer in Maryland,” he said, particularly when the tomatoes are grown by his partner and Woodberry’s communication director, Lisa Held, who has a plot at the Rockrose Community Garden. Start off with some great bread — Gjerde usually reaches for Motzi Bread’s people’s loaf — lather on some Duke’s mayo and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Don’t slice the tomatoes too thick: Gjerde says a quarter-inch is optimal.

Tomatoes and sandwiches similarly go hand in hand for Damian Mosley of Blacksauce Kitchen. “I really like to do a barely roasted tomato with a fried egg and some kind of cheese,” said Mosley, whose biscuit sandwiches are a main attraction of the 32nd Street Farmers Market. Summer, he said, “magnifies the simplicity of what we do: take these really beautiful, peak ingredients and do not that much to them.”

Another highlight of the warmer months is corn, which he roasts to make salad and even smokes to make doughnuts. Corn is in Mosley’s bones: His maternal grandparents farmed it in Mississippi, and he learned to treasure its short season when his mother might sauté whole corn cobs with butter and cream or turn the kernels into corn pudding. “I actually wanted to name my first child ‘Maize,’” he said. (He was overruled by his wife.)

“We tell people all the time, Maryland has the best corn in the country,” said Tonya Thomas, chef and co-owner of the H3irloom Food Group. While some people like to boil it, Thomas prefers to roast it in the oven or on the grill. The corn she gets from Knopp’s Farm on the Eastern Shore is so sweet it doesn’t even need butter.

Summer is Thomas’ happy season. “Everything is in abundance,” she said, and local produce is at its peak. It brings up memories of visiting her grandmother, who made simple cucumber salads with some onions and vinegar. They’d buy fresh tomatoes from arabbers in her grandmother’s West Baltimore neighborhood, and eat them like apples. Thomas still enjoys biting into them that way. “I think it’s one of the best ways to eat produce, just eat it and experience it without you doing anything to it.”

While Mosley and Thomas find their corn at local farmers’ markets, Charleston chef and owner Cindy Wolf grows sweet corn on her own property in Baltimore County. The day it’s ready to be picked “is the best day of my life in the summertime,” Wolf said. She harvests the corn in the morning, using it in dishes that diners will enjoy at her Harbor East restaurant the same evening. The quick turnaround means the sugar level doesn’t drop, making it extra sweet and delicious.

Speaking of sweet things: Wolf loves the “million things you can do” with black raspberries, whose flavor she compares to a cross between a raspberry, blackberry and cherry. “They’re so hard to find,” she said, though Wolf has a farmer who grows them in Baltimore City, near the former site of Memorial Stadium. Wolf’s mother used the fruit to make black raspberry pie, but the chef uses them in clafoutis, crème brûlée and to serve with foie gras. “It’s the best.”

While Wolf is eagerly awaiting the arrival of the berries, chef Chad Wells counts the days until local peaches arrive. At Walker’s Tap & Table, the Howard County restaurant where he is head chef, the stone fruits are grilled and smoked; they go in desserts, in barbecue sauce and on pizza. “My cooks almost make fun of me, because I want to put peaches in everything,” he said.

Each summer, Wells heads to the beach with his family, where he has another food on his mind. “When I think of Ocean City, I can almost smell Thrasher’s,” he said, referring to the storied french fries boardwalk stall, which dates back to 1929. “I just think they’re perfect. They’re just so unbelievably good.” And he pays homage to the dish at Walker’s: The seasoning for their fries has a malt vinegar base, which lends the dish a subtle tang. “That’s just because when I think of my favorite french fries, I think of Thrasher’s with vinegar poured all over them.”

For Sumayyah Bilal, whose Codetta Bake Shop recently relocated to East Baltimore, summer months are full of celebrations. Just about everyone in her family has a birthday sometime between May and July, herself included. That usually means ice cream cake, one of her favorite summertime treats. “To celebrate a birthday with ice cream cake just feels a lot more special,” she said. “It’s not your average cake.”

Bilal’s quest to recreate a version of the Carvel dessert at home inspired her business. At Codetta, she sells ice cream and ice cream cakes made of just a few basic ingredients: cream, sugar, salt, vanilla and milk.

Because when it comes to nostalgic summery goodness, nothing compares to the simple things.