Memorial Day Weekend Meat Fest.

Look, I finally managed a timely holiday post! EnD, live from Memorial Day Weekend 2011!
I don't generally get three day weekends off, & I didn't this one either, but still I like to be festive. It was 90 degrees almost all weekend & I have definitely been ready & waiting to celebrate a weekend truly summer style, with, obviously, lots o' meat products.

Bacon Many Ways: Memorial Day Weekend 2011. 

Friday night we got old fashioned & grilled burgers in the driveway behind my 1989 Toyota Cressida (homemade bacon sausage cheddar jalapeno burgers using leftover ground bacon sausage we conveniently had lying around). Sitting on the hood of an old car at dusk drinking PBR & cooking meat. Sigh. Good times.
Then Sunday night dinner with Izaac rolled around, & that always means something special. A bacon weave wrapped around ground steak & then deep fried, bacon & collards, & garlic roasted marrow bones & toast, in this case. & the champagne of beers, since it was a holiday, after all.
Besides eating bacon, I cleaned off the front porch & hauled a table & chairs out there, & that's where I did this drawing just now, mojito in hand. The dog & I swam in the river, I planted dragon beans & repotted lots of tomatoes, & I spent as much time as possible in the sun. It's currently Monday afternoon, the dog is passed out exhausted from all the fun (he enjoyed a lot of marrow bone activity last night) & I am going to take advantage of more good porch time.
The drawing happens to complete this particular sketchbook, begun last November with these drawings.
Here's to opening my new sketchbook & another season of eating & drawing.

Cape Cod Summer.

That last post got me thinking, & going back through my summer sketchbook, back to this past summer's family visit, to Cape Cod. & about my family. Yes this did indeed happen on this blog last year. I am apparently quite the creature of habit. So my family, we gather in a little house by a lake in the woods in Brewster, Massachusetts during the summer months, & we spend a great deal of time in the water & in the sun, & being us, we eat things.

Meals on the deck (this happens frequently):

Mum's Famous Panko Fried Cod, Purple Beans & Snap Peas & Basil from our garden, sauted with olive oil & garlic, a broccoli cheese casserole (cause hey, you can't leave your fridge in Noho full of those things while relaxing on the Cape for a week, can you?) & "yummy crusty bread" from the Underground. Good way to arrive anyplace, right? Mum never disappoints with the fried fish thing.

Owen reading with Stella on a summer evening.

No visit would be complete without a visit to Clancy's & drinking white wine with Gramma at the bar. Here it is in all it's glory, the Fisherman's platter. Yes, Owen & I both ate one. Yes we did. & A Fried Oyster appetizer, too.

HELLS YEAH FRIED SEAFOOD!!!

Owen, Grilling On the Deck.

& Owen & Mum, On The Porch, With Wine & Cigarettes. Oh Summer.

Now that Ali & I have been to Cali & back, & now that it's SO FREAKING cold & time for roasting ducks & not grilling on decks, I like to remember these warmer times. Here's to surviving another winter, & getting back out there on the lake in about six months.

Cali Part Two: Grilled Cheeses at Old Spanish Missions, Burger Arguments, & BACON.

So Diamond Daughters in the great state of California, continued.

In which Gramma drives us to Riverside, & we get lost & end up at the city limits with the auto parts stores, & we eventually arrive at the Mission Inn, see some parrots, & eat grilled cheeses in Mum's (allegedly, Gramma tells these stories sometimes) favorite lunch spot, Simple Simon's.

Grilled Cheeses In Old Spanish California, After Being Lost In The Urban California Desert.

At some later point, we had this burger conflict. First, Grampa Diamond is self-admittedly terrible at grilling. Only burgers he is good at. This makes him a burger crazy person. I, as an adult, have formed my own burger preferences, & mine include Hellman's mayonnaise as a must & Sriracha as yes yes please & crazy additions as hells yeah what have you got? As you can see here. Sooooooo...I wanted my mayonnaise, some chopped jalapenos, & a sliced perfect avocado & whoah was I shot down. Oh families. PEOPLE FROM BROCKTON, MA DO NOT PUT FING AVOCADOS ON MEAT. END OF STORY. I forget this.

(Note, Ali, a burger girl is anyone is, did agree with him, so I give his taste buds the benefit of the doubt).

Anyway, I present,

Grampa's "Perfect" Burger.

To comfort us from all this terrible family burger conflict, Saturday morning breakfast. The most essential one, the Platonic ideal of breakfast, why bacon smells good like nothing else to me, & why I can never be a vegetarian.

Breakfast with Bob

(Fried Eggs, Bacon, Thomas' English Muffins, Always & Forever).

Coming up: We find our perfect Liz & Ali restaurant after almost dying of depression in a giant California mall, we purchase sparkly discounted things while drinking smoothies, have a more odd than even usual for us family evening, & a moving & memorable in emotional terms but so upsettingly bad foodwise Anthony Bourdain would cry Macaroni Grill experience. Seafood Linguine. Shudder. All coming up next. Stay Tuned.

A 2nd Vegan Spring Dinner Party (Grills & Gardens).

A 2nd chapter in the Liz & Rin Have A Dinner Party With Our Cute Boyfriends saga.

The rules, as always, go as follows: 1. no pre-planning of the menu. 2. spend little to nothing on ingredients. 3. Be wildly decadent & excessively creative anyway.

The themes for this occasion? The grill Owen & I had bought the night before & hadn't had the chance to try out yet & the beginnings of our garden produce & a delightfully hot, midsummeresque late May evening.

The menu: 1. Mesculin Salad with Radishes & Silvered Almonds, & a Fresh Herb Vinegrette.

2. Garden Greens & Pickled Radishes: Spinach & Napa Cabbage sauted in kimchi juice with picked radishes & a vidalia onion.

3. Shit On The Grill: Vegan Sausages (only for Rin will I consume a vegan sausage), & zucchini, corn, & green peppers.

4. Beer, Wine & the Latest Issue of Cosmo.

Finally, this meal was almost entirely fregan, composed mainly of free things from my work or things we grew or made.

Spinach, napa cabbage, radishes, dill, cilantro, & Mesculin mix = garden produce.

Zucchini, green peppers, corn, oranges, olive oil, silvered almonds= free from work.

Onion, garlic, sausages, shallot, & white wine vinegar, plus condiments = purchased (mostly from the asian market or Deals & Steals).

Kimchi & salad dressing=homemade.

Cost of meal= maybe $2 or $3 a person. Not a bad way to live.