Monday, August 19, 2013

The Fisherman's Feast

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Festivals in the North End are one of the highlights of summer in Boston. This past weekend was the Fisherman's Feast, so when Manoli emailed to say that he would be in town, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to see some of my favorites and eat Italian food from a street cart.

There were a gajillion people there, which just added to the festive atmosphere. The temptation at any of these festivals is to buy the first food item that looks delicious, but we knew that the tastiest arancini and sausages would be somewhere in the middle of the crowd, so we pressed forward, looking at all of the stands before we made our decision. At the edge of the celebration, we found a stand that made absolutely the most delicious sausage with peppers and onions that I have ever had. We all got them, and we at them while admiring the Madonna statue at the center of the feast and being a little jostled by the crowd and dancing to middle-aged Italian-American singers, and they tasted like summer in a sub roll.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Lakes and Oceans

Anna recently wrote about how you are either a lake person or a beach person, and while I lean in the direction of ocean, I have a foot pretty solidly in each camp. Last weekend, Elizabeth and I decided to confirm that hypothesis.
 
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We started the day at Devereux Beach. We loaded up on rasberry-lime rickeys, fish sandwiches, and blueberries, and mostly succeeded in dissuading the seagulls from eating our lunch. We read books and got sunburns and I jumped in the waves.

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In the late afternoon, we traded ocean for lake. Chris joined us and we grilled steak and bread and corn and drank pink wine and ate the first tomatoes of the season. We jumped off the high platform and slid down the slide and watched the sun set.

I'm still not ready to make a commitment to one or the other, but any opportunity to spend a day in both salt and freshwater is a perfect day in my book.