Ah, July, the season of garden parties, summer fetes and cozy picnics. Whether it's a lavish spread under a froth of white canopies, or a simple meal served on a checkered cloth, a party is just the ticket to rouse us from the doldrums of a wretched recession and midsummer's lazy heat.

If only we had the energy to, you know, cook something.

The trick, say some Bay Area caterers, is to make do-ahead salads that showcase the season so spectacularly your main course can take a back seat. Fortunately, by committing to fresh, local produce you will be serving food so fabulous it needs no heavy dressings and sauces. A favorite combination for Daniel Capra, executive chef for Paula LeDuc Fine Catering, is fresh peaches nestled atop a basil puree - like a pesto, but without the garlic - and garnished with arugula and shaved Parmesan. Capra compares it to that summer classic, melon and prosciutto.

"It's successful because of the saltiness of the ham against the sweetness of the melon," Capra says. "In this case, the salt from the cheese is an excellent balance for the sweetness of the peach. It's easy to prepare as long as you have outstanding produce, which isn't hard to come by here in the Bay Area."

The Emeryville company, which has catered thousands of events, including Hollywood premieres, a reception for British royalty and San Francisco's Black and White Ball, is known for dishes that play with sweet and savory whimsy. A sense of surprise, says Capra, can be found in an herb-infused Tomato Kiss cocktail, paper cones filled with late night "nibbles," or a peach and basil still life.

"I always have fun with fruit," says Capra.

The peach-basil pairing is particularly popular this summer, says Barbara Llewellyn, another East Bay caterer whose events take her from Atherton to the wine country and Lake Tahoe. The notion of local, sustainable, organic food has become a Bay Area standard at lavish parties, as well as at smaller events. And Llewellyn's clients have become increasingly conscious of what they're eating.

"More and more," she says, "they're going to farmers markets and understanding the value of things that have just come out of the ground."

Llewellyn loves creating themed salad bars where guests can build their own creations, such as an avocado salad bar where they can add fresh greens, herbs, tomatoes, chicken or crab salad to perfectly ripe avocado halves.

When you use fresh herbs and plump, juicy produce, the Orinda resident says, there's no need to drench things in dressing. Llewellyn's most popular salads this summer feature lettuces and basil, peach slices, pine nuts and chevre lightly tossed with a Champagne vinaigrette; or rosy watermelon, ripe blueberries, kalamata olives, feta and fresh mint.

"You walk up to a salad with mint in it, and you immediately know it's there," Llewellyn says. "There's just a minimal need for salad dressing when you have all those wonderful things you're putting in your salads."

That casual, carefree approach is the essence of summer, says Menlo Park's Vicki Vaughn, whose Perfect Taste Catering company does parties at Stanford University, as well as weddings and other events. Increasingly, Vaughn is getting requests not just for organic fare, but for food grown within the same 150-mile limit that Alice Waters so famously started and Google's cafes all boast. The emphasis, Vaughn says, is on "fresh, fun, local."

Vaughn brings that approach to a Blooming Garden Salad of edible marigolds, Johnny-jump-ups, nasturtiums, pansies and carnation petals. (If you want to replicate such a salad, make sure you use edible, organic flowers sold in the produce section at specialty markets. Blooms grown for the floral trade are not intended for eating.)

Her variation on a Caesar salad also forgoes the typical heavy dressing in favor of a light, lemony vinaigrette and homemade, garlicky croutons, and her current favorite - a Baby Blue Salad - is a showstopper. Vaughn uses a very dark, jewel-tone lettuce, such as the deep purple and almost blue-hued leaves found in a spring mix, and mixes it with crumbled Pt. Reyes blue cheese, fresh blueberries and blue pansies.

"We serve it with a blueberry chutney vinaigrette," says Vaughn. "It's a very blue, summery garden-looking thing. And if you want to make it extra naughty, we put spiced pecans in it."

With salads like these, one hardly needs an entree.

No, Vaughn says with a laugh, what you really need is a main course that goes with the salad, not the other way around. The blue salad, she says, is lovely with a simple grilled chicken breast. Serve it with some of that blueberry chutney. Then go have fun with your guests.

After all, it's summer.