Here we are again—on the cusp of summer, on the eve of grilling season, keeping watch for fireflies, swatting early mosquitoes, and planning the Memorial Day cookout. I’m looking forward to a gathering of old friends on the back porch, with songs from college playing in the background as we laugh and scarf bowls of chips like it was still the good old days of few consequences.
As we catch up with our merry band, hearing about new babies, new homes, young lives in big cities, I wonder, as one does, if we made the right choices along the way. Maybe we would have been happier with an urban life. And then I read magazine articles and feel smug about our life decisions. I was never destined to be a West Village Girl – looking for frozen espresso martinis while posting influencer content to TikTok. I was never going to be someone who worked in finance, and I never would have strolled into the short-lived Brooklyn Mischa restaurant this Memorial Day Weekend, and plunked down $29 for a hot dog. Nope. I think I plunked down about $29 for our entire cookout. For that kind of money, I’d rather learn to love caviar.
Instead meeting at an au courant bistro in the West Village in NYC, we will gather on the back porch, where we have a few Adirondack chairs (which are never as comfortable as they look). I love these al fresco nights, as we elude those pesky mosquitoes and enjoy fluttering candles and swaying strings of white lights. We can watch the last of the sun’s rays gilding the tops of the pecan trees, and the bellies of the robins as they squabble in the back yard. There is time to slow down and the enjoy the lengthening navy shadows. There is no television news in the background. It is a pleasantly warm and humid summer evening. Far away you might hear a hint of distant thunder growling.
We aren’t going to serve anything extravagant this weekend, just our old reliable favorites: hamburgers, hot dogs, corn-on-the-cob, potato salad, green salad, and strawberry short cake. Also, chips and classic 1950s French onion dip, with WASPy bowls of radishes, cucumber spears, celery and carrots for karmic balance. There will be beer. No Aperol spritzes or frozen espresso martinis. Welcome to summer. Welcome to ordinary America— no fancy pants West Village girls here!
This is the best sort of holiday meal, one that doesn’t require numerous trips to the grocery store for elusive exotic ingredients, or perusing cookbooks. Jacques Pepin and Alice Waters can sit sullenly on the bookshelf – these are tried and true dishes that vary little from year to year, or really from family to family. I sometimes miss the dry, charred, hockey-puck-hamburgers of my childhood, but I must say that Mr. Sanders can flip a mean burger. And I still make my mother’s potato salad. Maybe you’ll grill brats, or have a watermelon or lemon meringue pie. Maybe your family always grills chicken. Be sure to enjoy yourselves!
We will be trying one new dish as Mr. Sanders does love a challenge: grilled artichokes. In preparation, he has even cleaned the grill for the new season. Bring on summer! We’ll see you at the farmers’ market!
Food and Wine Grilled Artichokes
We will be sticking close to home this weekend – we are painting a bathroom for a well-intentioned family project – so we will be flipping our burgers and watching the fireflies dance here. Heat up your charcoal briquets, enjoy your crab feast, fry up a batch of chicken, spike a cold watermelon, melt a batch of s’mores, enjoy the Chestertown Tea Party, wave your flags at the parades, and remember the brave souls who gave their all.
“Summertime is always the best of what might be.”
― Charles Bowden
Hints from the New York Times for effective grill cleaning.
Jean Dixon Sanders has been a painter and graphic designer for the past thirty years. A graduate of Washington College, where she majored in fine art, Jean started her work in design with the Literary House lecture program. The illustrations she contributes to the Spies are done with watercolor, colored pencil and ink.
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