Photo Credit Svetlana Kuznetsova
I’m back to work this year, so our meals will be crazier than ever. My kids will be in an assortment of camps most mornings. Luckily my schedule is pretty flexible, so we’ll be able to have some afternoon adventures. I’m sure that will include lots of hot dog stand lunches (don’t forget the milkshake!), soft pretzels at Cubs games, paletas procured from carts in the park, and smores enjoyed around the backyard firepit as we watch the fireflies and recap the day.
We’ll share summer meals together, with lots of cooking on the grill. My favorites are brats from Gene’s in Lincoln Square, served with charred veggies and fresh sweet corn dripping with butter. We can entertain friends and serve plank-grilled salmon with rice and asparagus. We’ll peel and eat pounds of shrimp dipped in spicy cocktail sauce and enjoy mozzarella with fresh basil and tomatoes from our garden.
Since it stays light for so long, dinner can start at 7 so we don’t cut into time at the park or on the trampoline, so dessert (maybe some homemade peach ice cream?) is also late, and so goes bedtime, too.
As I said, the rules are different in summer. I let go of the calendar and my guilt about crafting a perfect food pyramid every day, too.
Eventually, school schedules will loom, and we’ll have to get back on routine, but I can’t even think about it yet.
Until then, in late afternoons, you can find me hiding in plain sight on an Adirondack chair on the front porch, absorbed in one of my summer reading books, a sweating can of something close at hand, possibly dozing in the late afternoon sun. I’m probably dreaming of our next summer adventure and the treats that we will inevitably happen upon.
That’s the magic of summer: Dreams can come true.