Explosions in the Sky. And in the Kitchen.

Let's just start by saying, Hi! Happy belated Fourth of July. Hope you had a great one! S and I did.

Let me follow up by saying that we spent seven hours (that's SEVEN hours) in the kitchen making food for our small cook out to celebrate our nation's independence from England. Which is ironic; I'd rather be there to be honest.

Anyway, we fixed a feast. And if I do say so myself, it was delicious.

The menu?

• A red, white, and blue potato salad
• A melon salad featuring watermelon, cantaloupe, and honeydew
• Homemade sweet potato and Idaho potato chips
• A tomato and feta salad
• Hamburgers and hotdogs with all the fixins.
• Lemon cheesecake squares with fresh berries
• Chocolate cupcakes with ganache and praline topping (tip: stick the extra praline in the fridge - it makes for a good candy)
• Vanilla ice cream

We got a lot of our ingredients - potatoes and tomatoes, especially - at the local farmer's market. The blue potatoes were remarkably elusive, however. We went to or called a grand total of five places before we received the suggestion to try the international grocery store. They were very particular about the potatoes being called PURPLE -not blue- and potatoes, if you're not aware, are very definitely not white. And owing to the fact that red potato skins like to slide off, it really ended up being a white, yellow, and purple potato salad.

But it was awfully pretty nonetheless:

No one, by the way, told me how unbelievably pretty purple potatoes are. For the record: they are really, really pretty.

S came up with the brilliant idea to use the emptied watermelon as bowls, so we had quite a festive summer spread:
S was a seasoned pro at homemade potato chips, I was an eager learner. And they were yummy. Our chips were circles of crispy, smooth, olive-oily goodness:The tomato-feta salad was fresh tasting a light, due to the gigantic, sweet tomatoes from the market. And the dense hamburgers and hotdogs cooked on the grill were the perfect compliment to all the veggies and fruits we had assembled. Speaking of assembled, the kitchen was a regular assembly line:


Dessert was the grand finale before we took off for the fireworks. Even though S is usually the prime pastry chef, I took these babies on by myself and was pleasantly surprised by how well they went. The lemon cheesecake bars were perfectly paired with plump blackberries and raspberries. The dense chocolate cupcakes with buttery praline and smooth ganache practically melted in your mouth.A spectacular evening, absolutely. If anything, those seven hours just encouraged us to do another dinner party (or two). We'll keep you posted.

We'll both be out of town for the next week or so. We'll have lots of stories, I'm sure, when we return.

Till then....