With You There is No Wrong

Giant Chicken Panzanella Salad

I may have a hard time recognizing potential friends these days, but one look at this salad and I knew we were destined to be best buddies.  It helps that I made it.  Fresh corn, red onions, tender chicken, mushrooms, and herbed-up giant croutons.  This salad is like eating the top off a pizza.  I topped it with a little Queso Fresca.  Each bite is a mouthful of your favorite vegetable side players dressed for the night in a light vinaigrette.  It's festive, it's fun.  Your tastebuds need to party too and your eyes get to feast on the excitement.  I love when there's no guilt of a giant second helping. 

Do you recall your first salad bar memory?  Depending on your age, you may have been present for some of the first, like at the Sizzler Steak House or Pizza Huts of the 70's.  You could choose anything you wanted to put on your cold iceberg lettuce.  You were hungry but the main entree was coming, so even though you loaded your plate, you left some room for that, and bread, lots of bread.  After mushrooms, tomatoes, and olives, I always went for bacon bits, plenty of cheese, egg slices, croutons and a disgusting amount of bleu cheese or Ranch dressing over the top, in other words I avoided most of the icky vegetables.  It wasn't the healthiest time in history but it did introduce people to the idea that you could eat a plate of cold vegetables and it became intriguing to see all the color on your plate.  Before that, you would normally have just one faded boiled to death vegetable on the plate either from a can or frozen to accompany your meat and starch.  Fresh vegetables were a summer treat, when we grew our own or bought corn and fruit from corner Farmer's stands. 

Now, we have the luxury of putting almost any vegetable available to man on our salads and we make our own dressing, we grate our own cheese.  We even make our own croutons, like I did here.  I shucked and removed the fresh corn from the cob. 

We've come a long way, baby. Hopefully this doesn't end in supply issues, crop fails, contaminated harvests and damage from flooding or drought.  But I know I truly appreciate this salad today. 

Seeing You Or Seeing Anything As Much As I Do You

P's 54th Birthday. He's younger than me and so he's not feeling the whole 55 dread yet.  But just wait, he'll see the light next year, when his balls reach the floor, just how scary it is to hit one of them big markers.  I actually think about his birthday, consider what he'd enjoy, what would be special, not just actual gifts but the food and little excursions. I've been so broke for years that I can't make the big travel plans of yesteryore.  Yeah, I think about it all, and then wait until the last minute and get him something awkward.  Like this year, a piece of luggage??? and a couple of small insignificant items.  Seemed to make sense, he was traveling a lot and needed a good tight place for his camera.  But admittedly, not at all sexy.

Food-wise though, I try to hit it hard. This year it was slow cooked beef short ribs, Broccoli tater tots and a Panzanella Salad, Italian Bread Salad.

I did good on those slow cooked ribs and I threw in some potatoes and carrots due to my 'fear of never enough food' syndrome.

The salad with tiny heirloom tomatoes and toasted rustic bread chunks was right up my alley.

I got him Townes on green vinyl because how cool is that?

I made him Avocado brownies for dessert.  Was going to turn them into a brownie banana split but forgot.

Cajun breaded baked shrimp with homemade cocktail sauce

That morning I thought it would be fun to take a drive out to Coney Island and the Far Rockaways super early in the morning, feel the sea air and breathe in the future.

It was so incredibly cold it became comical.  We ran to the water and back to the car.  The wind wiped the smiles right off of us.

Such a creepy coolness to Coney Island still.  Thought we'd find it all developed because of the new theater but it looks as dreary as ever.

The night before we spent around our buds and great live music and conversation.  He has to be tricked into celebrating his birthday but really, any day to make a little party I'm all for because there is limited amounts of that big bold joy in your average week.  Having fun is something you never regret.