Don't Rain on My Grill

All ready for a grilling extravaganza and here comes the bloody rain again. We have the cedar planks soaking, new barbeque tools, a slab of salmon from the ocean, not the farm, some squash and zucchini, everything for the grill. The salmon will receive a fab mint/mustard sauce that's to die for. Now rain, rain, go away.

I forgot to take a photo of last night's tomato bread salad; remembered when the bowl was, like, empty. It was all red, white and green just like the flag of Italy. And good! The tomatoes were like the platonic form of tomato--everything a tomato should be. Big, ripe, sharp and juicy. My god the juice! This was a winner.

Tuesday evening we motored down to Woods Hole to meet friends for dinner. Tried a fish place under new management. The Fishmonger. Was it ever good. Did I say good? It was superb. The Atlantic salmon was so toothsome that I just had to have some more tonight. The people who had scallops loved them, and the sea bass eaters were more than satisfied. So hie yourself over to the Fishmonger right in the port area in Woods Hole and have a fantastic feast before the rest of the world discovers it and the line it out the door.

Wine was good, too. Grilled asparagus exceptional. Done just right. How many times does THAT happen? I had a couscous salad as a side, and it tasted to bright and right, somehow, with the salmon.

I am a salmon snob, which is to say I turn up my nose at farmed, which has a weird color, a bizarre taste, and a suspcious texture. Sorry, the girl can't help it.

So here's to all the wild fish in the ocean and may they live a joyous life until the fisherman's hook or seine lands them. Fishy, fishy in the sea. . . . Does anyone remember how this goes?

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Woods Hole on a cold November Saturday

The inner harbor at Woods Hole, MA. Obviously, the fall sailing has been so good that many boats are still in the water.


The breeze s frisky and the air is cold as a boat passed through the drawbridge into Buzzard's Bay.

The Last Rose of Summer

Crisp cool late fall day with winter-blue skies and a brisk breeze that called us to leave the confines of the house and set forth.

We drove to Woods Hole, first stopping at Silver Stand beach to watch a para-sailor and a big group of seagulls who were just hanging out.

On to Woods Hole. The ancient drawbridge in the middle of downtown creaked up to let a sailboat pass. The crew, a man and a woman were togged out in down jackets with baseball caps. Looked to me like a cold sail with the wind whipping your face until your eyes watered. I recalled such a sail many years ago, 6 adults on a sailboat in Buzzard's Bay in mid-November. The coast guard actually stopped us to conduct a quote "life preserver check" unquote. We always thought it was a pretext to determine if we were drug runners, but we were just cold and suburban and offered the crew of the Coast Guard boat some brownies, but not the Alice B. Toklas kind.

En route to Landfall, our lunch destination we passed a rose bush that had a few blooms and beautiful pink buds. Indeed the last rose of summer.

At Landfall, we snared a table by the window with the sunlight sparkling on the harbor water and the ferries docking. We both had the broiled seafood plate with swordfish, shrimp and scallops, which was very fine, as was the Pinot Grigio. The placemat had a lovely quote by Joseph Conrad about "landfall," and I hope that sailors and landlubbers alike take the time to read it.

The Cape is nice this time of yeat with no wait for a table and just the locals around. The fall colors are still good, with plenty of deep red and yellow among the brown. I've never seen so many leaves this late in the season.

Back home with a stop by the supermarket to pick up Thanksgiving supplies. I'm making a pie with apples and dried cherries macerated in Scotch. From scratch crust for this occasion. Drooling slightly just thinking about it.

My Gather entry is an humiliating bust so there is plenty of sucking it up going on right now. So what else is new?

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