Shrayemp & Greeyits

If you look closely , you'll see sausage in there. That's not andouille from New Orleans, that's landjaeger from Willi's Meat Market in Frankenmuth, MI. It worked perfectly. We drank Australian Shiraz with it all. Num Num Nummy.

Summer Food Triptych

A few days ago, I made Italian Bread Salad;

Yesterday, Independence Day, we ate, drank and loafed all day. A group of us went out to breakfast at Cracker Barrel. We drank Dale's Pale Ale next to a friend's pool after that. Next, we came home and started cooking. I smoked some ribs, roasted some sweet peppers for a lovely assortment of appetizers that Lindz assembled, and made some mojitos. Among the many things we ate were artichokes:

Bryan made a fine, patriotic cheesecake, which we enjoyed with some Michigan Port:


It was a fine Fourth. Lindz, our guests and I strolled to our nearby lake to discover neighbors shooting off really cool, not exactly legal fireworks. I regret that I was too busy watching them, talking and drinking to run back to the house and get the camera.

It is truly a fine thing to be an American.

Sushi and Rolls

My brother and I got sushi for lunch at Sushi Thai in Cary (superlative food, by the way).

Our late grandmother on our father's side was a huge sushi fan. She could often be found at Frankentrost Sushi, drinking Sapporo with her hamachi. One time someone asked to taste a piece of her unagi and moved their chopsticks toward the plate, presuming consent. Grandma grabbed the chopsticks out of the man's hands and snapped them in two. She threw them on the floor and said, in her heavy Italian accent, "You toucha my sushi, I breaka you face! I serva you lungs to you onna plate, capeesh?" *

*Except for the fact that Grandma was not Italian, had probably never even heard of sushi, and never said an unkind word in her life, this is all true. I don't think there are any sushi restaurants in Frankentrost, Michigan either, now that I think of it.

A Good Meal and Old Shoes

Last weekend, a good meal came together. Lindz and I hit Costco like a ton of bricks, so we had lots of food in the house. We drank a very good bottle of pinot noir, Sanford Santa Rita Hills.

I skewered a bunch of scallops and seasoned them with my handy-dandy Trader Joe's lemon pepper grinder. I grilled them.

The salad you saw up there featured, in addition to roasted sweet peppers and toasted pine nuts, these marvelous little beasties of Lindz's creation:

They are balls of goat cheese, coated in panko crumbs and fried. Yep. Luxurious. Good-ass crap, as we like to say around these parts.

And now, how about a jarring transition to a different subject? I bought these shoes six or seven years ago at Carlsbad Company Stores (an outlet mall that was home to a Starbucks where I used to work):

That's where and roughly when I made the brilliant decision to start smoking. Good times. Anyone who has spent time working for Starbucks knows that working at a mall store is a highly concentrated version of the unrewarding, hectic and demeaning experience that typifies a regular neighborhood store. Yes, I know it's my own damned fault for working retail in the first place, but that's another story. Anyway, combine the shitty job with a couple of shitty relationships, and smoking cigarettes on your ten minute break from Busloads-of-Asian-Tourists-and-Rude-Americans-Frappuccino-Ass-Rape starts to make sense.

These shoes are the ones that I wore running every day when I tried to get into the army (this was after 9/11 and before Vietnam II, uh, I mean the Iraq War). I failed to get the security clearance necessary to get the assignment I wanted, which probably saved my life. I was crushed at the time.

I still had these shoes when my life was saved again. I fell in love with Lindz, and I asked her to marry me. She said yes, but it was never in doubt that she would not actually marry me until I quit smoking. So I did.

These shoes were on my feet, if I recall correctly, when I drove across the country. It's silly to attach too much sentimental value to material things, and yet I do. They were good shoes, and a lot of water has gone under the bridge since I've owned them. Today, I threw them away. I take comfort from their successors, a pair of Merrell Moab Ventilator hiking shoes.

Cigarette ashes will never float down upon them, and I doubt they will pound the gravel of the train tracks at Del Mar.

Say.....

could it be that this thing isn't salmon?

Sweet Peppers, Blackened on the Grill

I skinned these and dressed them with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper. I pureed some parsey and capers with oil and salt-preserved lemon. I put the peppers and parsley goo on a roll with fresh mozzarella. Good sammidge.