Monday, July 6, 2009

Fourth of July + Book Winner + More Books

It's always so nice when dinner greets you with a friendly wave, eh? As usual, lobster was on the menu for the Fourth of July feast-ivities. We also ate some baby carrot salad (recipe via 101 cookbooks, I added feta and tossed it with quinoa).

Oh, and I made coffee-chocolate cake.

And some sweet and fluffy cloverleaf rolls.

We also tried out the jet skis, got caught in a rain storm, played cribbage, and ran into people playing cribbage. All in all a delightful way to spend the holiday weekend!

But now we're here to find out about the winner of my first book giveaway! I used random.org to generate a random winner because, well, it's 10pm and I'm here by myself. Also, I'm having a pretty bad hair day so I don't think you want to see pictures of me drawing a name out of a hat. I can't figure out how to show you how it works, so you're going to have to trust me: of the 13 eligible comments (I didn't include my own comments, people who commented after midnight, or people who said they didn't want the book), the random number generator spit out the number...... TWO! Congratulations, Aimee, you're the lucky winner of a paperback copy of Julie and Julia! Shoot me an email with your address and I'll get it in the mail.

What's that? You wish YOU had won the book? Well, let's see. How about I sweeten the deal a little bit? We'll go the nonfiction route, but this time it'll be a pair of books:


The United States of Arugula, by David Kamp, an essential history of the gourmet revolution in the US, and In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan, which if you haven't heard of by now... well, that's all the more reason for you to read it. I'll pick a winner at random on Friday. Two books for the low, low price of a comment left on this post before midnight (Boston time) on Thursday, July 9th. I want to know: what was the best thing you ate this weekend?

18 comments:

  1. Yay! I'm so excited!! Of course I had already forgotten I had entered.
    Thanks for brightening up my Monday :)

    I'll send my address asap.

    PS: What a weekend YOU had. Those rolls! That cake!

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  2. Best thing? Oooh, difficult. Toss up between the chicken and pesto pizza and the peach cobbler, both handmade by moi!

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  3. The best thing I ate this weekend (and possibly in quite some time before this weekend) was a dilled potato-cucumber salad very similar to the one I linked to my name. It was fantastic; the lovely neighbor with the impressive garden used creme fraiche, bless her. It was the only thing that didn't seem to heavy or mayonaisse-y the 105-degree Oklahoma sunshine that fried me to a crisp. I was nowhere near as delicious-looking as your lobster.

    Do you use quinoa often? It's almost impossible to get around here, and I'm always curious when I see it in recipes.

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  4. The best thing I ate during the holiday weekend was some really awesome brisket. Mmm...it should be the 4th of July every week in the summer.

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  5. Yay, 2 books I haven't read and would love either of! Best thing I ate this weekend? Fresh tayberries from a local u-pick market (tayberries are a blackberry/raspberry hybrid). They were warm from the sun and I kept popping them into my mouth, loving their sweet-tart flavour. Yum!

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  6. The best thing we ate over the weekend was kimchi fried rice at Super 88. Have you ever made kimchi? I've decided that's our next project-- I think it's my favorite thing! (Also, I've been meaning to read both those books, so consider me entered.)

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  7. Yum, that cake looks amazing!

    The best thing I ate... it's a tie between the freshly-picked sugar snap peas we picked up at the farmer's market and the poached salmon Mom made for our July 4th dinner.

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  8. Corn on the cob with sweet butter!

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  9. Your weekend sounds totally all American!
    What a great meal and a great time you had.

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  10. I didn't eat particularly well this weekend. Mostly leftover camping food. But I did remember that you can dunk a strawberry in sour cream (or creme fraiche if you're feeling expensive) and then in brown sugar, and it's pretty much the best, simplest, most life-affirming thing ever. So, that.

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  11. I wish lobster was on the menu this past weekend...but I spent Sunday at the Newburyport Farmers Market snacking on home made marshmallows from Savory Kitchen. YUM.

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  12. Fresh local strawberries - I don't mind looking like a fool with juice dripping down my chin when it tastes that good.

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  13. Oh man. You guys are making me drool.

    Meg, I have NOT made kimchi but it sounds like an awesome project. All things brined make me feel like a culinary Dr. Frankenstein in the best possible way.

    Adrienne, have you checked a Whole Foods or Trader Joe's, or is there a hippie-mart in your part of OK? It's available in my regular supermarket but they move it from endcap to "ethnic" aisle and all over the place so sometimes I have to ask. Also available online from ranchogordo.com - and if you order, make sure you get some beans, too!

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  14. The best thing I ate this weekend was a delicious rack of ribs, marinated in an espresso and beer-flavored barbecue sauce, slow-roasted for an entire day and finished on the grill.

    Yum!

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  15. the best thing i ate this weekend? a can of vintage sardine!

    chef gui alinat

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  16. Count me in! Best thing I ate this weekend was definitely raspberries, fresh from the market. Narrowly beat out the organic local bbq from Friday night...

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  17. The best thing I ate this weekend was bass (caught by yours truly) from Browns lake, Bracebridge, Canada. Beautifully cleaned, seasoned, and grilled by Doug McCreery. :)

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