Kitchen Monkey just returned home from a week-long adventure in southern Utah and Las Vegas, NV (more on that trip next post) to find Washington, D.C. sagging in the haze of record temperatures. Firing up the iMac and longing already for the dry desert heat, I've decided this is as good a time as any to post on some recent summer adventures in and around D.C.
A couple weeks ago KM and the Missus (who will be doing some guest posting and has yet to choose her blogname--suggestions welcome!!) followed some friends to Ocean City, Maryland. I typically go more for the quaint beach villages such as Chincoteague, Virginia over the giant boardwalk, Jersey-Shore, kitsch-fests such as Virginia Beach and Ocean City, but there's no denying this was a great trip.
Our small group split a fifth-floor room overlooking the ocean. Our day was divided roughly into four acts. Act One: scarily gigantic cocktails while watching the ill-fated U.S.-Ghana World Cup Match (a moment of silence please). Act Two: wave-jumping in the Atlantic. Someone swears they saw a shark, and at least three of us were pinched (surprisingly hard) by crabs while swimming. As you can see in the above pic, we had our revenge. Act Three: lunch (on both Saturday and Sunday) at "On the Bay" - a great little seafood shack about a block from the beach. Ignore the fact that it is not actually "on the bay," and ignore the fact (if you can) that they appear to have the same Jimmy Buffet CD playing on constant rotation. They have high quality and reasonably large oysters, which are getting more expensive (just another reason to hate BP). They also have excellent king crabs and shrimp, but the specialty would be the local blue crabs, of which I ate far too many.
Act Four: as night fell, we retired to the hotel and grilled some delicious marinated vegetables and lamb cubes and watched as a red moon rose above the water, which you can see here.
Going further back in time, I wanted to post some pics of a recent grilling. The burger you see here was produced solely with locally grown or raised ingredients purchased at the Mt. Pleasant farmer's market just down the street from us. It includes ground beef and greens from Truck Patch Farms, and my favorite, Monocacy Ash goat cheese from Cherry Glen Goat Cheese Company, which recently won a bronze medal at the 2009 U.S. Championship Cheese Contest.
This burger was really truly delicious. The Missus also made her trademark ice cream sandwiches (which she says New Englanders call a Chipwich), with chocolate chip cookies sandwiching home made vanilla ice cream, with the edges rolled in chocolate chips. Perhaps she'll post the recipe here soon.
Hope you're all having a great summer, and feel free to send links to or comment on your own favorite grilling ideas for this summer.
Next up, Vegas, baby.
2 comments:
your blog is too fine, Looks nice and very creative.
Kitchen Monkey Missus!
Post a Comment