Staff Free Meals

So, vacation = no staff meal, but I made it out alive anyhow. As you can see, when I wasn't underwater I was eating.
We started our trip out right with my mom and brother, sitting on a dock by a saltwater river, eating even lobster and drinking wine. We were at this great place right near my Mom's house where you bring all of your own stuff- salads, bread, drinks, desserts, and they make the seafood and that's IT. We had steamers and lobster rolls and it was excellent. Afterwards we had ice cream cones and I battled my brother. The next day we got to try my friend Molly's sweet biscuits and scones at her revamped Rocky Acre Farm Stand in York, Maine. If you are in the area you should go see her some weekend! She is an excellent baker and even has good coffee to go along with it all.

The reason we go home specifically every August is for my grandmother's yearly lobster bake. This year was fantastic- the lobsters were sweet, and the corn was too. The brownies were nearly raw and each weighed several pounds... Being a horribly disgusting and unstoppable family, we went to the Ipswitch Mass. Clam Shack the very same week, where we ate pounds of fried clams and onion rings. It was insanely good and also gave me a stomach ache (which tells me I'm still alive, so that's good).

This year we extended our trip down to the North Carolina shore for more family visiting. Here we spent most of our time having a SPF 30 tanning contest and then fighting about who was winning. We also cooked a few meals, ate some sno-cones and bought some really special southern teeshirts. Also, I fed a seagull a nacho cheese Dorito out of my hands on a boat!

It's always hard to get home after an awesome vacation, but I'm glad to be back in Portland. My tomatoes are ripe and beautiful, I got up the courage to rip out all of my zucchini plants, and the Portland Pie Off is only 5 days away. I need to start practicing recipes!

Brain Burn

We Oregonians spent this week frying our asses off. It has been in the 100's, including a special afternoon yesterday where it got up to 107 degrees. It's weird that this was the week that my friend from NYC was here for a visit. We spent the whole week underwater... in matching straw hats from the drug store...

What do you eat when it's stupid hot? We decided that wine was good. Also hot peppers, watermelon and pickles. One of the best moments of this week was when we were floating down the river on our backs with a bottle of wine, not a reasonable thought in our heads. We ate a whole box of popsicles in one sitting that afternoon... I miss that day-even if it was too hot for chips.

I am sure by now you are realizing that I am brain dead. Heat damaged. Forgot english and how the computer works. Please forgive me. Also forgive me for the fact that zucchini is visible in this photo of the purple bush beans that I finally got around to picking.

The Great Harvest

I went into the backyard yesterday to glance over the vegetable beds and find some zucchini to bring in for staff meal. It had been 2 days since I last picked the squash, so I expected to find just a few little guys. Well, I don't know what happened exactly, but shit went crazy back there. The squash I found were aggressively large. I brought some to my neighbors, and the rest to work. We ended up using them as a display and then my coworkers brought them home to make jokes with.
I went out to the beds this morning, full of fear, and found three more. It's going to be a long summer of squash recipes. I have included an image of the zucchini noodles and jacky on the zucchini phone, talking to his grandma.

Also: Buttermilk Pie. I can't give out this recipe now as I am still working on it for the pie contest, but this was my first draft effort. Not bad!