menus July 3, 2013

You have to love a nation that celebrates its independence every July 4 not with a parade of guns, tanks, and soldiers, but with family picnics where kids throw Frisbees, the potato salad gets iffy, and the flies die from happiness.

Erma Bombeck

And I have to love Erma Bombeck, for with this observation she has declared herself the fond admirer of most of the nations on this planet. On Thursday, as we in this country will dig out last year's sparklers, and deliberate the merits of chicken, ribs, burgers or hot dogs, and vow that this year we will not even try to photograph the fireworks,but will simply watch them, people all over the world, on a different day, will do the same.
Just look at this funtastic map of national days!!
 Countries that celebrate a day of independence from a ruling power are in dark green, countries that have no independence day, but celebrate a day of national identity are in light green, and countries with no recognized national day in gray:

Can't find the gray?
Look closely and share my history-nerd delight
when you realize that the country without a national day
is, ironically, Great Britain!

People all over the world have a day on which they celebrate, basically, that We are Us, and Us is Awesome. We here in the searing south could wish that our forefathers had gathered to argue out their Declaration of Independence in more temperate weather, and perhaps in parallel universe America, southerners are spared picnicking in 100 degrees plus. Hmm... The thought of a universe in which our own National day is not in midsummer.....it makes one wonder how things might have been, had the delegates gathered one of the steamy Carolinas instead of in Philadelphia.....

"I say ya'll.  It's just too dang hot for all this palaverin',
I move that we resume this assemblage in,
let us say......October. 

  Parades, music, fireworks and community celebrations are on the party agenda no matter when or in which land that patriotic picnic blanket is spread, and the community part is no surprise- there are no major holidays anywhere that do not involve gathering together with those of like mind or common history.

 I've checked.

 There is no such thing as National Solitude Day.

We lovers of solitude could start a campaign for one,
but it would mean working together
 with so many people....

And no surprise about the food either- there are, I think, no feastless celebrations, whether it's a party of two, or a party for an entire people. 

The food of this particular holiday, however, fills me with a particular fondness for the land of my birth. We commemorate this quintessentially American holiday with a buffet of treats, among them sandwiches and burgers and potato salad and hot dogs- that's hamburgers, immigrants from the Hamburg region of Germany,   hot dogs, whose ancestors came from Frankfurt, potatoes, which were born in Mesoamerica and popularized in Ireland, sandwiches, named after an 18th-century English aristocrat-  perhaps the only true native on a fourth of July table is corn, which has been American grown since way before America grew.

This melting pot of a country celebrates itself with food that started somewhere else and became All-American.
And I find that really rather wonderful. 

 I could think about that for a long time.

But instead, perhaps we should think about dinner.

Wednesday: Grilled pork chops and grilled potato salad

Grilled potato salad! What a great idea! My friend Linda sent me a suggestion for sliced grilled potatoes last week, and they were scrumptious! Combining that method and making a salad? Well, I'm pretty excited. I'll be cooking one or two extra pork chops for a salad on Friday. 

Thursday: Grilled Sausages and Corn Salad
Here's this kitchen's spin on a Fourth of July menu- we're inviting sausages, which are the ancestral cousins of the good ol' hot dog, and corn off the cob. I snapped the sausage counter pic at Pete's Fruits and Vegetables in Denver, and boy, do I miss their imaginative and inexpensive selection. Denver peeps, go thou, get some, grill a few, and think of me as I drive out to Central market to see if they can do half as well for twice the price.


Friday: Greek Salad with Pork

The leftover pork chops from Wednesday top this main-dish salad which should take about 15 minutes to prep- easy peasy and fun to eat. Perfect. ( I hope)







Saturday: Barbecued Chicken and sweet potato salad

I'll be using chicken breast here, probably with bone in and skin on, and making a little extra for tomorrow night's salad. The sweet potato salad is one we've tried and loved before- a tasty and much more nutritious alternative to the usual white potato version



Sunday: Barbecued Chicken Salad

Last night's leftover chicken transforms into a  slimmed down copycat version of the best-selling California Pizza Kitchen chicken salad. If you prefer the more authentic, full on mayonnaise and buttermilk dressing version, you'll find it here.








If you find yourself volunteering to cook for a crowd this week, here's a handy-dandy link to grilling the perfect steak, a guide to grilling amazing burgers, and a few suggestions from Real Simple regarding food to take to a picnic and how to keep it from poisoning your friends. Oh, and a few red white and blue dessert ideas too.
 Just in case you find yourself invited to a moveable feast of the patriotic persuasion.

It's funny isn't it, how sometimes, in a huge crowd of people,
It's possible to feel disconnected and lonesome?
I hope it's not that way for you. At least not this week.
I hope that this week, of all weeks,
whether you find yourself in the company of two or two thousand,
that you feel yourself in community.
I hope you, on a day named for independence,
gain peace and pleasure from interdependence.
That you know beyond doubt that you are you,
and a part of an us.
and that together,

we may be more powerful than we imagine.