I just had a tentative peek inside the refrigerator, which is packed and groaning with leftovers and good intentions.

I honestly meant to bake the annual Fourth of July cake yesterday, but Mr. Friday was using the oven to bake ribs. All afternoon. Half of a rack of leftover ribs is contained by a large Baggie, and it is taking over a shelf in the fridge. Also two pints of blueberries, and a pint of raspberries for my holiday-themed cake. Not to mention the large container of heavy whipping cream. The stuff is packed in there. Tight.

Teetering on a top shelf, next to the container of whipping cream, is a quarter sheet cake pan, still half full of Ghiradelli dark chocolate cake, slathered with the best buttercream icing I have EVER made. No wonder we are Weeble People! There are two pint containers of blueberries (One which I upended and scattered all over the kitchen floor on the Fourth in the heat of battle. The takeaway – Luke the wonder dog has no interest in blueberries.) and one of raspberries. There is a wedge of watermelon, and half a cantaloupe.

Sitting boldly in the middle of the fridge is a huge mixing bowl full of potato salad. And right next to that is a Tupperware container of cole slaw; a gallon o’cole slaw.

Crammed into a drawer are half a dozen ears of corn, and an elastic-bound bunch of asparagus.

Also on the top shelf are rye bread, a can of raspberry La Croix fancy fizzy water, a stainless steel tub of extra buttercream frosting, three bottles of store-bought salad dressing, and one Pyrex cup of homemade vinaigrette. I am not happy with any salad dressings these days, and am searching far and wide for a good recipe. Keep watching this spot.

Scattered into any nooks are bottles of middling white wine, and in the crannies are the cheap white wine, milk, Diet Coke and mayonnaise.

There is a package of salted butter, and another of unsalted butter. Also eggs; brown and white.

The Fourth of July cake goes in the Might Have Been a Good Idea category of good intentions paving that slick route to hell for me: https://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/flag-cake-recipe-1941624, thus the raspberries and blueberries. I have read that Ina Garten and Martha Stewart can’t agree who first came up with the now ubiquitous Fourth of July flag cake. I am inclined to believe Ina Garten, but only because she and I grew up in the same town. Martha was late to the Connecticut scene.

Since I could not bake anyone’s Fourth of July cake, we managed to get by with slices of leftover chocolate cake. There are still quite a lot of cake leftover, so stop on by later.

Mr. Friday stepped away from the grill this Fourth of July, and brought his cooking skills inside. It was the heady combination of a new, sure-fire baby back ribs recipe, and the stinking temperatures outside. And it was easier for him to monitor the ribs while they cooked, from the comfort of his sofa, and the World Cup games he had TiVo-ed… https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/220987/baked-bbq-baby-back-ribs/

No Fourth of July could be complete without someone’s mother’s potato salad. This year I chose my mother’s. Of course.

Potato Salad

I don’t always have green onions – Vidalias work just fine. No red potatoes? Go for Russets. A little fresh thyme? Why not? It is dependable, tasty and can be adapted and stretched to feed the masses. Just add more potatoes, and more mayonnaise. Particularly fine for large picnic gatherings. Plus you can make it in the morning, and it is just right by suppertime.

• 2 pounds little new, red potatoes
• 1 cup Hellmann’s mayonnaise thinned with milk
• 1 bunch green onions, chopped
• Sea salt and pepper to taste

Boil the potatoes until tender. While warm (but not still steaming hot – I have melted my fingerprints by slicing too early and my life of crime may start any minute now) slice potatoes and begin to layer them in a large bowl – one layer of potatoes, then a handful of green onions and salt and pepper. Pour on some of the mayonnaise mixture. Repeat. Gently stir until all the potatoes are coated. You may need to add more mayonnaise mixture when you are ready to serve, as the potatoes absorb it.

Also necessary for summer holiday feasts is cole slaw. My mother’s won. Again.

My Mother’s Boring (Yet Reliably Deelish) Cole Slaw

• 1 cup Hellmann’s mayonnaise (Duke’s if you live father south)
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar vinegar
• 1 tablespoon celery seed (not celery salt)
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• 1 half teaspoon coarse black pepper
• Some people add carrots for color. I don’t think my mother would approve.
• 1/2 largish head of cabbage, green or purple, your choice, you will have to live with the consequences. You will be dissecting the cabbage to make workable pieces for slicing.

In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the mayonnaise, vinegar, celery seed, and salt until smooth.
Mix in the shredded cabbage and fold over with spatula until completely coated. Cover and refrigerate 2 hours, or overnight.
It is always better the next day.

We were in California last month and had the great pleasure of eating at the Bouchon Bistro. I bought the Bouchon Bakery Cookbook which is a beautiful, yet weighty, tome with intimidatingly precise recipes. I thought I would be whipping out professional-looking macarons and pain au chocolat immediately upon our return home. Instead, I grabbed a box of Ghiradelli dark chocolate cake mix, and turned to my friends at Food52 for icing guidance. I don’t know why I entertained the notion that I would find time, or oven space, to bake a Fourth of July cake. The chocolate cake is something we know and love, and was perfect for watching Macy’s jubilant fireworks, before we returned to our Independence Day film fest.

Basic Buttercream Icing
https://food52.com/recipes/70448-buttercream-frosting-adapted-from-wilton

Tonight we will not be tossing our usual Friday night pizza. Instead I am rooting around in the freezer for some hot dogs. We will top them with leftover slaw, and have a side of potato salad, and yet another slice of chocolate cake. Oh, and some of that cheap white wine. We need to clear out some space. Happy July!

“The most remarkable thing about my mother is that for thirty years she served the family nothing but leftovers. The original meal has never been found.”
― Calvin Trillin

Summer is here, and with all those hot, languid afternoons come the cookouts. As my Gentle Readers will remember, I live for summer and delegating the cooking responsibilities to Mr. Friday, who actually enjoys standing outside on the back porch, in 90-degree weather, hovering over a hot gas grill, tenderly flipping burgers, adjusting ears of corn, and prodding susurrus steaks. It is a fine seasonal division of labor.

I get to stay inside, enjoying cool air and cooler wine. I do my outdoor bit first thing in the morning. After I walk Luke the wonder dog for half an hour, I spray all exposed wobbly flesh with insect repellent, and then I charge out into the mosquito-infested side yard to water and weed the raised garden bed. And I harvest the crops.

This small garden has been our first proper vegetable garden in years. We had been getting by with container gardens of spindly tomatoes and etiolated bean plants. This year we are jokingly worried that Jack’s beanstalk will be tapping on the kitchen window soon, as the bean plants have grown up and out and soon we will find a magic goose in the back yard, pecking around with the robins. And yet – we have only harvested five measly beans. There must be more to this gardening than just planting seeds and rigging up strings for the beans to climb. We might have to analyze the soil, and consider when we should have planted the beans. In the meantime, though, the tomato plants are going to town.

We have been enjoying a surfeit of tomatoes: heirloom tomatoes, patio tomatoes, Tom’s Big Boy tomatoes. There are a dozen ripening tomatoes lining one of the kitchen windowsills right now. This is the second dozen that I have picked this week. It is probably just as well that we didn’t plant zucchini this year, or we would have been reduced to even more of a suburban stereotype than we already are. I guess this means I am finally going to have to introduce myself to the new neighbors, and hope that they like tomatoes.

Consequently I have had to do research and find more to do with tomatoes. I can’t just quarter them and throw them on top of a bed of crunchy iceberg. Luckily I can reduce our considerable tomato inventory if I make something large enough to share at a Fourth of July cookout. I have been pouring over this handy dandy cookbook,The Southerner’s Cookbook, from Garden & Gun Magazine. I love the folks at Food52, but the clever cooks from G&G indulge in gracious living. At least in the summer. (This is a killer cocktail: https://gardenandgun.com/slideshow/summer-south-20-must-try-recipes/7/)

If you, too, have tomato overload, try this recipe. It was divine. Even if I did have to steam an ear of corn, and cook two pieces of bacon. I always need something to complain about…

Heirloom Tomato Salad with Green Goddess Buttermilk Dressing

(SERVES 6)
6 ripe garden tomatoes, sliced inch thick
1/2 cucumber, thinly sliced
Kernels from 1 cooked ear Silver Queen corn
2 thick bacon slices, cooked and crumbled
1 tablespoon sliced fresh chives

Green Goddess Buttermilk Dressing

(MAKES ABOUT ¾ CUP)
1/3 cup whole buttermilk
1/3 cup mayonnaise
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon sliced fresh chives
1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill
2 teaspoons chopped fresh tarragon

For the Heirloom Tomato Salad:  Arrange the tomato and cucumber slices artfully on a platter. Drizzle with half of the dressing. Sprinkle with the corn kernels and bacon. Garnish with the chives. Serve with extra dressing on the side. (Any remaining dressing will keep, refrigerated, for up to 1 week.)

For the Green Goddess Buttermilk Dressing: Combine the buttermilk, mayonnaise, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, chives, dill, and tarragon in a blender. Blend until smooth.

https://gardenandgun.com/slideshow/summer-south-20-must-try-recipes/1/

“It’s difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato.”
– Lewis Grizzard

We have a holiday family tradition. If the holiday is not food-centric (i.e. Thanksgiving=turkey) we usually try to have a good, buttery, messy, celebratory lobster dinner, complete with corn, beer and lots of laughter. I think a lot of laughter is called for these days, and so we will celebrate mightily on Father’s Day as we toss some bugs into the lobster pot. It will be an Instagram moment!

I read a lovely tribute to Anthony Bourdain the other day. Actually, every story about him has been a moving paean. What an incredible force of nature with an appetite for all the wonderful and mundane that the world offers up. I’m adding a link to a story about his daughter, and a food choice she made which delighted him. Lobster used to be the working man’s food of New England, not fussy or rarefied, or expensive. No candlelight is needed, nor is there any call for a maitre d’. I think Bourdain would approve of a simple lobster fest for Father’s Day. He would enthuse. Read this and see if you don’t agree with me: https://www.bonappetit.com/people/chefs/article/ever-wonder-how-anthony-bourdain-came-to-be-anthony-bourdain-and-what-he-looked-like-in-1972

A two-pound lobster, serving one, fetches $9.99 per pound this summer. (Conversely, ground chuck is $3.99 per pound, and I bet I can get four hamburgers from that pound.) Before lobster became a pricy treat, it was considered food good enough for servants and prison inmates. Colonial dock workers had a contract stating that they would NOT be fed lobster more than three times a week. People fed lobster to their cats. (https://psmag.com/economics/how-lobster-got-fancy-59440) Lobsters were abundant, easily caught, and simple to prepare. Lobster grew in popularity as the nation expanded west, and it began popping up on restaurant menus in hotels and on trains. It developed cachet. And as lobsters are not caught in South Dakota or Ohio, both the demand and appeal grew.

We steam our lobsters in a huge honking pot. Heartless as we are, we usually stage a lobster race on the kitchen floor. Our children have been deeply scarred as they watched the race participants being tossed into pots of boiling water.

Choose a pot large enough to hold all the lobsters comfortably; do not crowd them. A 4 to 5 gallon pot can handle 6 to 8 pounds of lobsters.
Put 2 inches of salted water in the bottom of a large kettle.
Set a steamer inside the pot and bring to a rolling boil over high heat.
Add the live lobsters one at a time, cover pot, and start timing.

It takes about 10 minutes for a 1-pound lobster, 12 minutes for 1 1/4 pounds, 18 minutes for 2-pounds. The shells will be bright red. Be sure to melt plenty of butter. https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/perfectly-steamed-lobster

Or, you can broil lobster tails: https://sweetcsdesigns.com/10-minute-perfect-broiled-lobster-tails-recipe/

You can skip right to the lobster roll and discover if you come from the butter camp or the mayonnaise camp: https://www.chowhound.com/recipes/lobster-rolls-29308

Or you can get Food52 fancy and poach them in oil: https://food52.com/recipes/4155-olive-oil-poached-fish-or-shellfish

I’m sure you and your group will find the ideal lobster recipe, and will write your own family’s chapter about lobster races on the kitchen floor. Enjoy your Father’s Day. Don’t spend money on a tie, buy a lobster! It will be much more memorable! Grab the gusto and torment your children!

“Lobsters display all three of the classical biological characteristics of an insect, namely: 1. It has way more legs than necessary. 2. There is no way you would ever pet it. 3. It does not respond to simple commands such as ‘Here, boy!’”
-Dave Barry

https://www.history.com/news/a-taste-of-lobster-history

Now that we are finally drying out from all the May and early June showers, it seems appropriate to turn our thoughts to summer and the last day of school. Faithful (or long-suffering) Food Friday readers will remember that once the heat of summer sets in, I do my best to skeedaddle out of the kitchen. I do not enjoy hovering around the stove when I could be lounging gracefully in the shade, clad in floaty white linen, reading important books, and drinking cool wine.

The reality of my humdrum existence, however, means that I still have to plan for night-time meals, because Mr. Friday must be fed. And so I must find foods that meet the basic summer criteria: one-dish meals which don’t heat up the kitchen. And despite my deeply-flawed and lazy-damn-git nature, I do enjoy sitting down at the end of the day, sharing a meal, and catching up. I will even open a can of tuna for that man.

I do rely on a heavy rotation of salads in the summer. Last night we had a chicken salad that is always in a summer staple. I’m not sure it serves any healthy purpose – it contains mayonnaise, bacon, and croutons fried in bacon. But it is deelish. I boiled the chicken while I was eating a lunch sandwich made from Monday night’s leftover tuna salad. (Mayonnaise is a valuable commodity in our house in the summer.)

Chris’s Chicken Club Salad
serves 4

1/2 pound bacon, crisp and crumbled (save the fat)
1 cup bread cubes
3 cups cooked chicken, cubed and chilled
2 large tomatoes, quartered (or a handful of cherry tomatoes, halved)
1 head Romaine, torn (not cut) into bite-size piece

Dressing:
3/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 tablespoon fresh parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon fresh chives, chopped
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon Lawry’s Seasoning Salt
1/2 teaspoon dried basil
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 tablespoon capers

Sauté the bread cubes in the bacon fat, tossing constantly to toast all the sides. Drain on paper towels. Sprinkle with garlic powder, Lawry’s Seasoning Salt, and dried basil. Put the chicken in a bowl, cover with dressing, add the capers and toss to coat each piece with dressing. Chill for half an hour. Arrange lettuce on individual plates and mound the chicken salad on the lettuce. Crumble the bacon on top, surround with tomato quarters and top each with the crunchy, wonderful croutons. Serve with a delectable Chardonnay. Yummm. Perfect for picnics.

Here is a variation on that salad which might actually be good for you:

Kosher salt and pepper
1 1/2 pounds cooked boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cubed
1/4 cup low fat sour cream
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
4 radishes
2 stalks celery
1 small green apple
2 scallions

In a large bowl, whisk together the sour cream, mayonnaise and salt and pepper. Add the chicken and toss to coat.
Add the radishes, celery, apple and scallions and mix to combine.

It is a spicier salad, incorporating peppery radishes. Normally I eat radishes sitting out on the back porch in the summer, filching them one by one from a bowl filled with ice water, the spicy radish bite tempered by the icy coolth of the water. And maybe sometimes I’ll be fancy, and swipe a schmear of butter on a radish, using the fancy French butter for something other than warm bread.

This is a very continental approach to take with radishes, which appeals to my languorous inner life: wash and gently dry a handful of radishes. Serve the radishes with slightly softened high fat content butter and a bowl of fleur de sel sea salt. Maybe it is Saturday night, and you could add some crusty French bread and the casual insouciance of a glass or two of Prosecco. Yumsters.

If you feel the ridiculous compulsion to serve a hot meal, here is an interesting pasta, with radishes added at the end: https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/strozzapreti-carbonara-with-radishes

Radishes are high in Vitamin C, are low cal (about 1 calorie per radish, until you add the schmear of butter) and provide cheerful color and bite to an everyday salad. You will thank me come August, when your crowd is surly, and will not eat one more cool vegetable, and is screaming for meatloaf and mashed potatoes. Until then, we have the radishes, chicken salads, and the occasional glass of wine.

Here are some radish varieties to tickle your tongue on your way to the farmers’ market: Watermelon, White Icicle, Cherry Belle (what we usually see in the grocery store), Sparkler White Tip, French Breakfast, Easter egg, Black Spanish, White Beauty, Early Scarlet Gold, Daikon Long White, Fire and Ice and China Rose.

Here are some more radish recipes: https://www.bonappetit.com/test-kitchen/ingredients/article/radish-guide

“Long stormy spring-time, wet contentious April, winter chilling the lap of very May; but at length the season of summer does come.”
-Thomas Carlyle