It’s once a year: lob­sters come from David Thomas Lob­sters in Isles­ford, Maine, our beloved haunt of years ago, before we moved to Lon­don. We are loyal to David. We wait all year, know­ing that we could buy lob­sters from many other sources (years ago when John and I were new­ly­weds in Lon­don, each Sat­ur­day night we bought a lob­ster and ate it with a baguette and gar­licky may­on­naise). Some­how though, lately, we just DON’T buy a lob­ster any other way or place or day, except for an August day in Con­necti­cut, from our favorite haunt in Maine. And so it was last night.

They arrive, in their card­board Fedex box, and I open it up with a knife, ever so care­fully as as not to injure any­body inside. I lift up the sty­ro­foam lid, and there they are: four wildly ges­tic­u­lat­ing dark-red lob­sters with their claws rubber-banded against their mau­raud­ing impulses. A huge tinny stock­pot on the stove with about two inches of boil­ing water, a pot lid on the bot­tom so no lob­ster gets stuck to the pot, and in they go, face down, lid DOWN with a giant can of chicken stock on top so their flail­ing (and there is flail­ing, I’m sorry to say) does not dis­lodge the lid. Twelve min­utes, done. Lid off, they come out onto a plat­ter with some gar­nish­ing pars­ley to hide the bla­tant car­nage. And with them:

Per­fect Aioli
(serves 4 with steamed lob­sters and baguette slices to dip)

1 1/2 c. may­on­naise
3 cloves gar­lic, minced
juice 1/2 lemon
zest of 1 lemon
loads of fresh black pepper

Sim­ply mix all and let sit for a cou­ple of hours, cov­ered, in the fridge. Serve with the lob­ster, plenty of bread, and a plat­ter of thick-sliced toma­toes dot­ted with pesto. Sum­mer on a plate, full stop.

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I think so much of our Maine sojourns with this meal: we used to rent an enor­mous boat-like stone house perched on the rocky out­post of a tiny island north of Bar Har­bor. This house pos­sessed a num­ber of unfor­get­table ele­ments: a huge wrap­ping porch over­look­ing the sea (I always felt it might sim­ply tum­ble off in a storm and be lost in the envelop­ing fogs), an uncounted num­ber of bed­rooms open­ing one onto another with end­less num­bers of beds that could be pushed up against each other if the sin­gle peo­ple who had stayed the night before mor­phed into a cou­ple the next night… a sil­ver salver on a small table by the front door that con­tained the call­ing cards of long-ago vis­i­tors to the Brooks House, with leg­ends like, “Mrs Henry Stockard Pen­ning­ton,” and their address some­where in Blue Hill, or New­port. A mas­sive, scratched, dented deal table that could accom­mo­date any of the many jig­saw puz­zles who, after weeks of slave labor from all who would enter­tain the notion, would reveal them­selves to be miss­ing two pieces. Of SKY.

On lob­ster evenings in THAT house (many of them with John’s mom and dad on their vis­its to us), and there were end­less lob­ster evenings since all we had to do was mosey down to the lob­ster Coop and find David, for­get Fedex! I can tell you with rel­ish that the rit­ual for dis­pos­ing of the shells was a mag­i­cal, whirling world away from the black rub­bish bags we now are forced to suc­cumb to. No, on those evenings, as you fin­ished a bite of lob­ster, you didn’t even look up, you didn’t turn around, you sim­ply flung the empty bit of shell over your shoul­der onto the rocks below, to the intense ecstasy of scream­ing gulls who descended with flat­ter­ing and com­pletely pre­dictable glee, to eat every morsel before it landed. No rub­bish. All food, for some­one. How many bowls of avocado-goats cheese dip, how many heaped plates of sauteed red pep­per strips, how many tiny crab cakes went with those lob­sters? I can­not begin to count them, in my memory.

But no mat­ter. Each meal has its ecstasy. Last night we dug in, and fur­thered our depre­da­tions with corn on the cob, but­tery and messy, and thought of John’s dad, for whom this was one of his meals “to kill for.” Left­overs for lob­ster rolls tomor­row, with just enough mayo and a bit of minced cel­ery, which will bring my mem­o­ries of John’s dad full cir­cle. That last sum­mer, the last lunch and one which was uniquely mine with him, John and his mom and Avery off at a rid­ing les­son. He and I sat our­selves down at the pic­nic table with our toasted, loaded rolls, and tucked in. And talked about every­thing we were think­ing: where he’d been in his life, where he was going, where we would be when he was gone, what he wor­ried about, what he didn’t worry about (there was a lot more of the lat­ter than the for­mer). It was like lunch with a vis­it­ing angel, some­one who was partly there in the flesh (the lobster-loving flesh) and partly in the life of the Higher Mind, who had been places I had not been and I could ask him about his expe­ri­ences. It was an after­noon I could never have had with him with any­one else around, and I knew it. Over our lob­ster we ques­tioned each other, came to terms with the way the world was for us on that after­noon, and he went to take his nap.

How I miss him.

So our lob­ster din­ner came, and went, here at Red Gate Farm. The giant can­de­labra we’ve res­ur­rected this sum­mer from the barn glowed over all, we whisked away the occa­sional daddy-long-leg who thought the bread was for him. Later that night, through the tiny square win­dow off the kitchen toward the bird feeder, we smelled skunk.

And today brought: kit­tens! But I’ll leave that sur­prise for another day.

Good­ness, we’ve been mad, mad, mad. I find myself stay­ing up later and later at night, feed­ing my need for quiet time at night after all go to sleep to process all that has hap­pened dur­ing the day. John does this in the morn­ing before any­one else wakes up, plow­ing through his blogs and pod­casts, Avery all through the day just retreats to her draw­ings, sto­ries and tram­po­line: and when does Rose­mary recharge her bat­ter­ies? You know what makes her Rose­mary (among many other qual­i­ties)? She gives all day to EVERY­ONE. I don’t know how she does it. She is the per­son who embod­ies that bit of advice every­one gives you about hap­pi­ness: the more you think about other peo­ple the hap­pier you are. Rose­mary seems to be proof of that.

My point being, we all have had an awful lot to process, in the way you have when you try to crush a lifetime’s friend­ships each sum­mer into six weeks of catchup. Among these was our after­noon with Olimpia and Tony, on the raini­est after­noon of the sum­mer. Seri­ously! As we always do dur­ing rain­storms, John and I both gaze out the var­i­ous win­dows of our grad­u­ally dete­ri­o­rat­ing house, say­ing in a desul­tory way, “We really should have cleared out the gut­ters yes­ter­day before it started to rain…” And yet the next sunny day, we’re out play­ing ten­nis, weed­ing, cook­ing for peo­ple, going to the dump, and not giv­ing another thought to the gut­ters until… the next rainy day.

So Fri­day found us watch­ing the gut­ters while cook­ing like mad. We opened up the front and back doors in a des­per­ate attempt to get some sort of cross-breeze of humid­ity. What a fab­u­lous job the switch of the din­ing room and entry halls have turned out to be. Plenty of room, room to stretch out and not think about the late­ness of the hour, or to feel crowded. You can see what I mean!

Sum­mer Salad of Beets, Pota­toes and Eggs
(serves 6)

3 tbsps may­on­naise
6 beets, oven-roasted, peeled
12 small pota­toes, steamed in their skins
10 eggs, hard-boiled, peeled
2 heads but­ter let­tuce (in UK called “lit­tle gems), leaves sep­a­rated
large hand­ful flat-leaf pars­ley, chopped

dress­ing:
6 tbsps sugar
1/3 cup canola or sun­flower oil
2 tbb­sps blue/black poppy seeds
2 tbsps Dijon mus­tard
juice of 1 lemon
plenty of fresh-ground black pep­per
1 tsp salt

To assem­ble the salad, find a large flat plat­ter and spread the may­on­naise across the bot­tom. This adds a lovely “up from the bot­tom as well as down from the top” sur­prise fla­vor when you spoon up the salad. Now, build six tow­ers of the beets, sliced, and pota­toes, sliced. Quar­ter the hard-boiled eggs and place them gen­tly around the tow­ers, tak­ing care to keep the quar­ters together as the white and yolks are very pretty kept together. Sur­round with the but­ter let­tuce leaves and sprin­kle with pars­ley. Just before serv­ing, shake up all dress­ing ingre­di­ents in a tight-covered jar. Driz­zle dress­ing across salad and serve.

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This salad is lovely! Com­plex, soft, crunchy, with a tangy sur­prise in the dress­ing: the poppy seeds are an unusual tex­ture and sim­ply gor­geous with the mustard.

I served this salad with chicken breasts baked in our favorite way:

Lil­lian Hell­man Chicken
(serves 6)

6 chicken breast fil­lets, well-trimmed

mari­nade:
1 1/2 cup each may­on­naise, grated pecorino cheese
juice of 1 lemon
zest of 1 lemon
2 tsps Pen­zeys Fox Point or Sunny Paris Sea­son­ing
plenty of fresh-ground black pepper

3 cups home­made bread crumbs

2 cups arugula/rocket

This is a messy job. Place the mari­nade ingre­di­ents in a shal­low bowl, and the bread­crumbs in another. Line a large cookie sheet with foil and smear each chicken breast, on each side, with the mari­nade, then roll in bread­crumbs. Place in a sin­gle layer on the foil-lined tray. Bake at 400F, 200C for 25 min­utes. Sliced thickly and serve on the arugula on a lovely platter.

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What a great dish this is: inex­pen­sive, easy, per­fect for a buf­fet of MUCH larger num­bers than 6. I have often served this dish to 30+ peo­ple to great suc­cess: every­one loves it! And the aroma as it bakes? Don’t ask: it’s just irresistible.

Olimpia and Tony were their usual selves, bring­ing wine, a superb new pep­per mill for me, a gor­geous sequined bag for Avery, flow­ers for Rose­mary, and… THANK YOU OLIMPIA, a huge dish of her famous meat­balls and pork ribs in tomato sauce, redo­lent with basil, superbly gar­licky. Why am I so lucky to have friends who, when I invite them for lunch, BRING FOOD? Or should I be fright­ened, that they’re afraid that unless they do, they won’t get any­thing decent to eat? No, it’s because they adore feed­ing peo­ple, and they count on my and John’s (and my this time, Rosemary’s and Avery’s) drool­ing inca­pac­ity at see­ing their contributions.

We chat­ted madly around the table, hear­ing their sto­ries of Ital­ian adven­tures we should repli­cate (for our 20th anniver­sary in Decem­ber, we hope), Tony’s end­less unbe­liev­able sto­ries about his life as an arson inves­tiga­tive fire­man in the Bronx, Olimpia’s Ital­ian rel­a­tives meet­ing her at the Naples train sta­tion with so many flow­ers that Tony thought the train must hold some major Ital­ian celebrity! We ate and ate, bask­ing in the annual friend­ship tra­di­tion. Through­out the after­noon, we gazed out the win­dows, say­ing, “I am really glad you’re not on the road right now,” and at one lull in the storms saw Anne, David and Kate across the road ten­ta­tively tak­ing a brief walk up to the lit­tle mini-waterfall aris­ing now from their pond, to travel under our road and become our stream and pond…

We closed the after­noon with Avery’s now-famous blue­berry tart: part cooked berries and part fresh, with a gor­geous short­bread crust. Here it is, but you’ll have to visit her blog to get the fab­u­lous details. She has real tal­ent with things sweet (not least of all, her own sweet self). Thank you, Olimpia and Tony, for giv­ing us your after­noon… and those meatballs.