spontaneous barbecue

My friend Carolyn and one of her high school friends decided one summer to make it the Salt ‘n Pepa summer. Every day, whenever they got into a vehicle, they blasted Salt ‘n Pepa.

Inspired by this, I am declaring this summer the summer of the spontaneous barbecue. Had another last night. It was magnificent.

When work is tiring, it is oh-so soothing and contemplative to spend one’s quiet evening hours staring into smoldering charcoals, smelling the blissful aroma of foodstuffs transformed into blistering goodness.

 

(that odd looking thing on the foil was a spontaneous veggie burger- mashed up some leftover white beans with some leftover pesto and put ‘em on that to grill. Made a great topping for my lunch salad today!)

The protein element of the meal was from the farmer’s market- buffalo burgers! I try to keep my burgers low-fuss: I just added finely minced onion, Worcestershire sauce, and salt and pepper.

In a frustrating moment, the grill that was WAY TOO HOT a few minutes earlier was reluctantly cool when the burgers actually went on. I always fear cooking mistakes (I judge my value as a person at how happy the most recent meal I’ve cooked has made those around me) but an overcooked burger due to an inadequately hot grill was particularly frightening because local and organic farmer’s market meat is so damn beautiful and also so damn expensive.

Anyway, I pulled through and they were great.

Also toasted up English muffins and mini pitas… because they were what we had. Spontaneity means sometimes not having burger buns.

 

Gorgeous local asparagus also turned out quite sublimely.

My adorable boyfriend joined us and brought a ton of food. We snacked before dinner on the mulberries he’d picked from the dish near his yard, and I grilled in a foil packet (with just salt, pepper, and olive oil) his beautiful elephant kale. And stuck that leftover tomater on the grill, for kicks.

 

Like a still life, eh?

My sister joined us (along with her friend) and incorporated something that tasted like Thanksgiving dinner… in May… delicious, delicious Thanksgiving dinner.

Carrots, pecans, honey, butter… don’t really know what else but it was awesome.

 

And my mom made the light of my life, her potato salad. She makes it Greek-style, with fresh oregano (it wintered over and is growing in profusion on our deck!), red wine vinegar, and scads of delicious olive oil.

My mom’s potato salad is one of my favorite things in the entire world ever.

 

And a shockingly abundant and classy Tuesday night dinner was served, al fresco, with good company and laughs.

   

The evening concluded, as these things always do, with the toasting of marshmallows.

 

And spontaneous grilled bananas!