Adapting a Recipe
Today’s the day to take a few hours and do something particularly meaningful in the kitchen or on the grill — take a great recipe and adapt it to your own taste, and make it a personal trademark. Grill instead of sautee. Double the amount of cocoa powder. Throw in some diced dates. Add some cayenne. Instead of water, add a Belgian beer. Mess around, fail, learn something new.
Gardening
Get out there with a weeder and wreak havoc on unwanted visitors. Turn over the soil, hack up some underbrush, plant some seeds, water the hell out of everything and get your hands dirty. Drink a lemonade. Take an appropriately temperatured shower, or something slightly cooler. Go nuts: It’s a three-day weekend, and there are only another four or five weeks until it’s below zero again. Possibly slightly longer.
Making a Jucy Lucy
If you’re curious about technique, we’ve got you covered.
Drinking a Local Craft Brew (or two, etc.)
Whether Summit, Surly, Brau Brothers, Schell’s, Lift Bridge, Flat Earth, something homebrewed or brewpub-crafted, imbibe with local style.
Reading a Damn Book For a Change
Pull up a chair (indoors or out) and read something printed on a dead tree. Five suggestions: Cooking from the Heart, Heat, On Food and Cooking (well, it’s browsable, if not readable per se), Kitchen Confidential, or The Physiology of Taste. The MFK Fisher translation is the way to go on that last one.
What? Oh.
Honoring the Veterans and Fallen American Soldiers Who Defended Our Great Democracy
Well, yes. This too. It should probably go without saying. Here’s a quick overview of what’s happening on the “original spirit of the holiday” front.
I did 3 of those 5 things AND read Heavy Table. It was a very good day.
Oh you make me smile, Heavy Table.