Summertime - okay it's not really summer till 6/21, and it's still a cold,wet spring, but it is coming and we can dream and put ourselves on the beach or under the Tuscan sun, so here goes:
5 drinks:
- Margaritas made in my own blender, with fresh strawberries, tequila, and lots of ice. We make them with watermelon, raspberries, mango, even peach, and this year, we will be making them with pomegranate juice, of course! The set up in the Pom household is one blenderful with alcohol and one without for the girls, though for the first time, The Princess is over 21 and will be demanding her drink. We have cute compote glasses in neon colors from Target that make the whole affair quite festive. I am instituting it as a Friday night ritual.....or Friday morning, depending on whether we are going to work....
- Iced Coffee - whether from my own leftover morning pot, whether with milk or without. My favorite is from Starbucks, made with double espresso and cream, plus whip, but we have to save that for a once a summer special as I can feel the fat congealing in my arteries. Once the temperature goes over 80, though, I switch from my usual grande skim cap to grande iced latte. When we were young, I remember my mother buying a bottled coffee soda that we would freeze into ice cubes.
- Homemade lemonade - very old fashioned, but when it's done right, with not a lot of sugar, I could live on it. I love citrus and tart and tastes like summer going down.
- prosecco with muddled strawberries - a perfectly ripe strawberry at the bottom of a fizzy glass of prosecco, a slice of chocolate angel food cake - summer celebration.
- anything icy cold out of a thermos on the beach on a sizzling day after having eaten a peanut butter sandwich.
5 foods
- hot dogs with sauerkraut and mustard - I don't know why the first hot day triggers the need for salt and nitrates, but just does. I try to keep it to once a month. Oh, and to be perfect, have to open a can of B&M Baked Beans. What can I say, I have simple roots (and gray ones if in between hair appointments)
- hamburger on the grill, pink on the inside, with onions melted in butter and a little crumble of blue cheese that is allowed to melt from the heat of the burger. I see no reason to eat hamburgers anytime of the year except from a grill. We never make them unless we can grill.
- oysters - to be eaten raw on at a restaurant with a deck on the water, on Cape Cod, with fresh lemon and cocktail sauce. Can be accompanied by shrimp and cherrystones clams on the half shell. When I was a young attorney, a very cool female investigator had a t-shirt that she wore on casual day, in front of cops and make investigators, that said: "I shucked them, sucked them, and ate them raw at Benny's clam bar." She was that cool.
- a cold supper - tuna nicoise, spinach salad, Greek salad, black olives, slices of carrots and celery, wedges of parmigiano reggiano, a Maytag bleu, a perfectly ripe brie with walnuts and grapes, slices of peaches grilled and drizzled with balsamic vinegar, eggplant with garlic sauce served at room temperature, cold sesame noodles, proscuitto wrapped around slices of melon, watermelon, in short, anything simple and cold that can be eaten on the porch from a plate on our laps.
- ice cream. The perfect summer meal.
5 summer activities
- Go to the beach. Go to the pool. Go to the lake. Make certain that you have a book, a sandwich, a straw hat, and a floating device.
- Go to Wave Hill and sketch.
- Go to Cold Spring and have brunch overlooking the Hudson, and feel completely lazy.
- Watch fireworks with sand in your hair and a sunburn after a long beach day.
- Drink coffee at 7:00 a.m. on the bay side of the beach and watch a heron delicately pick it's way through the grasses to find breakfast.
- Live on my porch.
