The sun just arrived. The morning had been cloudy, and I was hopeful for some rain, but then I noticed the sunlight. The paper said low 80’s for today. If the breeze stays, though, it will be a lovely day. Last night was chilly for a while then the night breeze disappeared and the evening got warmish again. We dined on the deck. I barbecued a pork loin, and we had potato salad and fruit salad then finished with chocolate chip cookies made by my friend Clare. It was a perfect summer meal.
I don’t remember summer suppers when I was a kid. In the winter my mother cooked everything, meat, potatoes and a vegetable, but our kitchen was small and would get really hot on a summer day if the stove and the oven were used so I figure we had hot dogs or hamburgers and maybe ears of corn. We were big lovers of corn. My dad was the best corn eater, and we loved to watch him mow down the rows as if he were a typewriter. As he ate, small pieces of corn would fly in the air. That always made us laugh. If records for finishing an ear of corn in the quickest time were kept, my father would be high on the list.
After we moved to the cape and had a big backyard, my father barbecued most weekend summer nights. We had your usual menu: potato salad with hot dogs and hamburgers, and for the first time my mother added chicken with barbecue sauce. My father used to take orders for cheeseburgers. My mother made great potato salad. Those were always the best of summer meals.
When I was an adult, my parents no longer lived on the cape. If I visited them in the summer, my father always barbecued. He would sit outside on a lawn chair with a highball in one hand and a cigarette in the other and keep watch on the meat. Over the years the meat menu had changed. My father would barbecue sausages, including Chinese sausages, or steak tips and once in a while pork and chicken. One thing didn’t change: my mother still made her potato salad. I remember those dinners when the table was filled with food and the meat was cooked perfectly. After dinner, we’d sit around the table and play cards, usually High-Lo Jack, until it was really late. I remember the kitchen filled with cigarette smoke, glasses on the table and my father dropping his trump with a flourish and a grin. “Made my bid,” he’d say.
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