liamsaunt

Sunday I made crispy fried chicken. Served with sliced tomatoes and sweet corn Tuesday I chopped up some of the leftover chicken and put it in a big salad Last night we had....a big salad with chicken. This time chicken coated in panko and everything bagel seasoning and served over greens with a honey vinaigrette. I saw the recipe in Eating Well magazine and it looked easy and tasty. Both were true

Sandwich Saturday. Niece asked for a prosciutto, fig jam and gruyere panino Lobster was $4.99/lb. (new shell) at Wegman's yesterday, so I bought a few and made my sister and my husband lobster rolls And I made a shrimp burger for myself

That was what the recipe was called, so that is what I wrote. It differed from my usual recipe-free pizza in that you cooked the dough on an oiled pan, which resulted in a thicker crust than I generally prefer. Plus, it is (sort of) square 🙂 Tonight, miso marinated black cod with rice and sesame spinach. I scraped the miso marinade off before searing the fish, but not well enough because a stupid piece of marinade hurled itself projectile like across the kitchen and adhered to my face just under my eye. Luckily I keep an aloe plant in the kitchen.

Last night, flatbread topped with sun dried tomatoes, artichokes, mozzarella, pesto, arugula and olives.

Garlicky shrimp spaghetti with cherry tomatoes

Sunday family linner serving plates. Chopped salad Chicken shawarma Jeweled rice with cauliflower grilled pita

Just by coincidence, my husband brought a bag of those burger buns and a slab of tuna home from the farmer's market last night and asked me to make a spicy tuna sandwich, with the tuna cooked really rare. So, here is rare tuna with Asian flavored slaw, avocado and spicy sriracha aioli on an Iggy's black pepper brioche bun. I sliced my tuna instead of eating it as a steak

Ah, no. My bread baking skills are amateur at best. Those are ciabatta rolls from a local baking outfit, Iggy's Breads of the World. They sell at local Whole Foods and farmer's markets. They also make a delicious cracked black pepper brioche burger bun that I use for salmon burgers in the winter. I always have some of their francese bread somewhere in the house too. Dinner tonight was a recipe for coconut crusted cauliflower tacos with mango-cabbage slaw. Do you know what is tasty? Tacos with something other than cauliflower in them. I like cauliflower a lot but using cauliflower in all dishes as a substitute for everything "bad" is getting old, at least for me....

I serve my corn that way too, and for the same reason as you (mom and grandma did it that way). It really does seem to keep it hot. I think that is a potholder 🙂 Got home later than planned so my original dinner plans went out the window. Sandwiches to the rescue. Leftover ribeye from Saturday, parmesan cheese, truffle butter and greens for husband Homemade turkey sausage (from the freezer), egg, tomatoes and greens for me. Half of each sandwich is wrapped in the fridge for a lunch later.

This was my niece's birthday weekend, so she was allowed to choose all of the dinners. Yesterday she asked for steak, mac and cheese, summer squash, and eggplant. I found some prime dry aged ribeyes and porterhouses at Wegman's. I also made a cauliflower gratin as my sister and I don't like mac and cheese and we both choose not to eat red meat. No photos as my parents were dining with us and they hate when I take food photos. Today my niece asked for homemade takeout style "Chinese" food. I made vegetable egg rolls and crab (less) rangoons (I've mentioned on here before that my nephew has an anaphylactic allergy to crustaceans, and so she won't eat crustaceans either out of solidarity, even when he is away at college), plus sticky wings and vegetable lo mein. wings Lo mein (served in Deruta style bowl haha)

Grilled cornish hen with mango salsa, heirloom tomato-mozzarella salad, and potato gallete (dug out from the freezer and reheated)

Tuesday, grilled scallops and zucchini with Smitten Kitchen's farro with tomatoes Last night, striped bass reubens

Last meal for the trip. There are thunderstorms in the area so we decided to stay close and go to Mac’s Shack. Blueberry lemonade cocktail. I normally dislike sweet drinks but this was ok. Halibut turadito tuna tostada seared halibut over over lobster mashed potatoes with lobster sauce grilled swordfish with roasted fingerlings, Swiss chard and tomatillo sauce And that is it for now. Tourist season is over. Friends of the owner came up on our beach boardwalk today looking for him to go with them to Reggae on the Bay and were disappointed to find out that the renters were firmly installed until tomorrow morning 🙂 But no worries, we will be back in this same house next month to attend Oysterfest and I will be sure to share photos here. Beach house rental last bit of sunset back to work Wednesday.

Yes, it is a red-tailed hawk. This type of hawk used to sit on the ledge of my office window to hunt rats and pigeons in the parking lot adjacent to my building. I have some cool pictures of them. Eventually a building was put in there and now they sit on that building instead. They also have a nest in the iconic CITGO sign that you can see from Fenway Park, so I still get to see them flying around as that is also part of my office window view. Yesterday my sister requested that we return to Winslow's Tavern. Drinks: summer in a glass, spicy G+T, and crush and blush Same roasted oysters as last time Tuna confit with saffron aioli Lobster sandwich Proscuitto sandwich Crab burger Cacio e pepe Triple chocolate mousse Sunset Crescent moon Today is our last day of the trip. We leave for home at 10AM tomorrow. My sister and niece have already left, and I think my brother and brother in law are leaving soon too (only my husband and I took tomorrow off from work). I'm not sure what we are doing for food yet. It is supposed to rain later, so we won't be venturing far.

Yesterday we had a terrific whale watch. We saw 15 humpback whales and two fin whales. Here are a couple of photos. The pier that the boats leave from looking back towards town Humpback doing a chin breach. This one actually did a full body breach but I was not fast enough with the camera. Mother whale with her calf Hello people Afterwards, per tradition, we had dinner at Mac's Fish House. Drinks Shrimp and grits Oysters (and it was happy hour so they were indeed $1 each!) Salmon hand roll Sushi (note the dreaded cream cheese again, yes this was my niece's plate) Roasted cod with a clams casino crust and crispy kale Broiled striped bass with mashed potatoes and vegetables Grilled striped bass with smoked mussels and mussel veloute Swordfish curry Niece had fried plantains with ice cream for dessert Back at the house we tried to go for a beach walk but were thwarted by the presence of this fellow on our deck. He's been hanging around here a lot and dive bombed my brother the other day so the nest must be close

Yesterday we were able to get parking at the Beachcomber. Fried clams Mozzarella sticks (for the niece) Steamers Caesar salad with shrimp Fish and chips Oyster po boy Heading out for a whale watch

We ate at home again last night (grilled halibut topped with butter poached lobster, sweet corn, tomato salad). I don't have any pictures of dinner, but here are our cocktails from Wednesday and Thursday: crush and blush and porch swing This next part is only interesting if you like oysters 🙂 Yesterday we toured the largest oyster farm in Wellfleet. The tours are run by SPAT, which is a non-profit organization that promotes Wellfleet oysters and supports the aquaculture industry in town. They run the somewhat famous annual Wellfleet Oysterfest in October (which we will be attending this year after taking last year off). Here are some photos from the tour. The oysters are grown on "hats" that are coated with a calcium and concrete sludge that the oysters like to adhere to. Here are the spats, you can see how tiny they are: Lots of spats They grow like this for a year, and then are removed from the hats and moved to bags, where they grow for another year. Bags After that, they are dumped right on to the harbor floor, where they grow in the muck for another year. This is Jake Puffer, the son of the original owner of this oyster farm. He now works with his Dad to raise the oysters The Puffer family also farms clams. The clam seed is buried in the muck, and left to grow for three years before being harvested. These are the clam beds. They are covered with plastic mesh to keep the birds and crabs from preying on them In this photo you can see Irwin Puffer and his helper Linda working on cleaning the oysters for sale. They cut off any barnacles and trim off any other growths such as sponges. Then the oysters are bagged and returned to the water for 24 hours before being hauled out and transferred to the wholesaler. I learned that this farm processes 15-20,000 oysters a week for sale, and the famers work 335 days a year. Oysters sell for about 70 cents a piece to the wholesaler. Of course then we turn around and pay $3.50 a piece in restaurants! They are worth it. My breakfast of local tomatoes and bacon from the Wellfleet farmer's market And our path to the beach at somewhat low tide

Haha yup, that was my niece’s roll. I do not like cream cheese in sushi either. We cooked at the house last night due to bad weather (swordfish pasta) and I think we are cooking at home tonight too, but this afternoon we are touring an oyster farm so I might have some photos from that to share later.

Yesterday we went to Provincetown to stock up on more books to read, and at my niece's insistence we went to lunch at Mac's Fish House. I figured she was a decent sport about the Pearl yesterday so indulged her. Drinks Tuna mango martini Jalepeno yellowtail Salmon poke Assorted sushi My brother does not eat sushi so he had a lobster roll.

I had a sizable (for an oyster) rock in one of the oysters I ate this week. Not from Mac's. Luckily I did not bite into it. My husband actually broke a crown on a steamer clam from our fish share a few years ago. Eat with caution! 🙂 Today we tried to go to the Beachcomber but the lot was full, so we ended up at the Pearl, much to my niece's chagrin. She has a grudge against this restaurant for reasons unknown to me. The rest of the group likes it and majority rules. Drinks Steamers Fried "calamari" I put calamari in quotes because we ordered fried calamari but there were also some random fried clams on the plate. We did not mind. Baked brie for niece. She said it was "fine." Ah, teenagers 🙂 Spicy cod wrap Oyster tacos Shrimp tacos Fish and chips Sister and niece went to free Shakespeare in the Park this evening (they are both theater geeks). The rest of us went to the sunset.

Last night we went to dinner at Mac’s Shack. We did our usual strategy of showing up before the start of service and having a drink in the outdoor bar to be sure to make the first seating. Unfortunately, a LOT of other people had the same idea. This place had a write up in the New York Times a few weeks ago and the secret is out! Here are a few of the things we ate: drinks oysters Hamachi aguachile Ritz cracker crusted bluefish Coconut curry sea scallops

Yes, they were definitely oversauced with avocado crema. Both siblings opted for the knife and fork approach.

Yesterday we had lunch at Winslow's Tavern to kill time while waiting to get in to our Wellfleet rental house. Drinks: crush and blush, te amo tequila, and summer in a glass We got two kinds of roasted oysters, our usual tabasco-lime butter ones and one from the specials list that had blue cheese butter and bacon jam some people got their usual, such as my niece's prosciutto-fig jam-gruyere panino with herb fries and my husband's lobster-prosciutto-saffron aioli sandwich Sister and brother opted for a fish taco special brother in law opted for a kale salad with shrimp and I had the summer ravioli special only niece had room for dessert, her usual triple chocolate mousse Everyone ended up getting hungry again later, and I had brought my pizza stone and peel with me, so I made pizzas for dinner using fish I picked up in town. Clam Fresh mozzarella and bacon Lobster Today's food is unplanned. Brother in law wants to go to the Beachcomber but parking there on a weekend can be challenging to say the least.

Have you ever seen the house he lived in? The window that he used to look out to get inspiration for the light of his seascapes is now boarded over to block the view of a monster house that was built illegally nearby. I am not sure what the current status of that property is, I know it was in court for a while because Truro wanted it torn down. Fun fact, one of the first houses we used to rent often in Wellfleet is in a Hopper painting. The second one from the left in this image: https://iartprints.com/buy/edward_hopper_cottages_at_wellfleet_art_print-35726.html?ds=11x8&gclid=Cj0KCQjwwIPrBRCJARIsAFlVT8_vSq590aN5toFo6k4B1JFX86jnR-wTK8C4a5LPEDjmuBnV8TQM07EaAlN3EALw_wcB The guy who owns it is a direct descendant of Walt Whitman. Unfortunately, he dramatically raised the rental rate and t's out of our price range now. Our last meal in Chatham was at the Squire. Drinks: dark and stormy, Sancerre and salty dog Oysters Fried sole Fishwich Fried shrimp And now this morning we pack up for our move to Wellfleet, where we will be through Labor Day.

Yesterday we had a late lunch in town at the Blue Coral. Drink--two kinds of margarita and a glass of Whispering Angel rose A goat cheese and ricotta dip with mushrooms and pistachios Tuna poke Tuna melt Crab cake burger Lobster and beef burger Tonkatsu ramen with pork belly Despite eating all the poke and ramen my niece was still hungry after lunch so we took her to Brick House where she selected this cappuccino chip ice cream And here are some scenic pictures from last evening’s sunset walk. A panorama of the dunes and Light House Beach Chatham Light