It’s chilly during the days. Even frostier in the evening, our heaters are on and we just celebrated Thanksgiving. This means, sadly, that summer is over. the sun is setting earlier and earlier and the leaves are slowly changing colour, curling off their branches, and falling to the ground. Autumn would be so much better if we could just have another summer after it, not the long, cold winter.

So now that summer’s gone, I figured it’s time to sum up the last few months and just be happy with how the time was spent.

With the exception of the time in Portugal at the end of May and the camping trip at the beginning of June, summer was spent in Montreal. Fortunately, Montreal is a great city to live in in the summer, as there are festivals happening pretty much every day. We took the opportunities we had to enjoy as much as we could, exploring the city and even making some new discoveries!

For the most part, I used my phone’s camera to get photos of everything, but there were a few days where I wandered around with the Nikon in tow. One of these days was a walk down to the Old Port (top row) and Old Montreal. It’s a top tourist destination, but I never, ever go there – there’s just not all that much to do. I got caught in a massive downpour (pretty much the only one we had all summer!) while on a tiny, cobbled side street and had to huddle in a tiny doorway with a ton of spiders for about 30 minutes to wait it out. I also checked out the Just for Laughs festival on a few occasions, The photos on the bottom row show them just starting to set up the festival at the Quartier des Spectacles.

Other random things in Montreal that were explored.

Top row
(1) On top of the hotel that overlooks the Quartier des Spectacles. We went up there to find the hotel bar, which was great, with an awesome swimming pool. This little spot was along the side, and so pretty and private.
(2) A rainbow spotted one Sunday evening on my parent’s balcony in the south shore.
(3) Sitting after a walk through parc Lafontaine, where I spent a few afternoons and evenings watching the water and reading books

Middle row
(1) Cloudy sunset from my front porch steps
(2) Blue moon from my front porch steps
(3) The sunset on my bike ride home from work one evening

Bottom row
(1) Graffiti behind Foufounes
(2) and (3) Visiting LaRonde on the hottest day of the year and feeling much, much too old.

Oh, and the food! Along with the meals at the Main and Diablos, we feasted every chance we could!

Top row
(1) Beef in red coconut curry from Kam Do in Ville St-Laurent
(2) My favourite poutine in the city – Montreal Pool Room on St-Laurent
(3) A great and cheap burger from Burger de Ville, a fallback when we discovered our favourite Vietnamese place closes early in the evening

Second row
(1) Sushi with uni(!) at Mikado
(2) Shish taouk while waiting in line for a Fantasia film
(3) Mont-Royal Hot Dog Special poutine, ordered in one evening

Third row
(1) 72% chocolate/raspberry soft serve from Kem Co Ba
(2) A sloppy double bacon cheeseburger from La Paryse, picked up after an exhausting day at F1 races
(3) Yet another poutine, from Decarie Hot Dog, in Ville St-Laurent

Bottom row
(1) Weekend breakfast at Place Milton
(2) Pizza from Pendeli’s in CDN
(3) Dumplings from Sushi 999

And dim sum visits! Nothing better than eating all the dim sum early Sunday mornings in the summer!

Not too mention that we also visited the food trucks who lined St-Catherine street during the Just for Laughs festival, sampling the tuna tartare and the pulled pork sandwiches:

The octopus balls and the BBQ rib sandwiches:

And mont-blancs and duck confit poutines:

We cooked at home a lot too, enjoying several BBQs in the backyard.

Top row
(1) Grilled fish
(2) Lamb, veal and beef burgers with brie
(3) Camping BBQ

Bottom row
(1) Burgers and thick cuts of bacon
(2) Corn, garlic, veggies
(3) Lobster!!

And the other food prepared at home over the summer:

Top row:
(1) Fresh salsa made in the late summer, with corn, tomatoes and jalapenos from the market
(2) Super chocolate chunk cookies – amazing!
(3) Ribs from Coco Rico, but Soli-fied, with a maple syrup sauce

Bottom row:
(1) Fresh pesto with the basil that grew in our garden all summer long
(2) Chocolate-cherry scones, with fresh cherries
(3) Zucchini and tomato bake

What else? We grew our own tomatoes, made jalapeno mint jelly with mint from our garden, and baked some cakes.

I think this hot summer of perfectly sunny days was well-spent, and am already looking forward to the next one!

We are no strangers to poutine here. Living in Montreal requires one to not only crave poutine, but to fufill such cravings on a somewhat regular basis. I lost track on how many poutines I ate over the course of the summer, but between the ones at Decarie Hot Dog and Mont-Royal Hot Dog alone, it was a fairly high number. I’ll focus on just one for today though…the smoked meat poutine at the Main Deli Steakhouse on St-Laurent (also known simply as The Main, or, the inferior smoked meat place across the street from Schwartz’s.)

While watching Foodnetwork’s You Gotta Eat Here, we saw that The Main offered up a smoked meat poutine that was supposed to be amazing, so during one of St-Laurent’s street fairs, we decided to take the quick 5-minute walk from our house to give it a try. We also split a veal sandwich, just because it sounded interesting.

The poutine, unfortunately, was not something I would return for, nor do I think it earns a spot on a television show. It was good, just not great, like one would imagine a smoked meat poutine to be.

The good parts included a pretty nice sauce, brown, salty and thick, and a lot of it. I love a lot of sauce on poutine. The fries were excellent too – thick enough to carry all that sauce and not turn to mush.

The not so great – the cheese curds were high-quality, but unfortunately, there weren’t very many of them. And the smoked meat wasn’t at all fatty enough, it was like strips of lean smoked meat. I guess given poutine is already a massive pile of fat and calories, a little lean meat would be okay….but if I’m going to eat a smoked meat poutine, I really want the smoked meat to be an important, not forgettable, part of it.

As for the veal sandwich, I really enjoyed it! The meat was very, very thinly sliced, with a somewhat fatty texture and a little bit of a gamey taste. A really fun and interesting sandwich.

I like The Main’s rib eye steak platter, and that’s something I would go back for. But I would probably skip another smoked meat poutine (or maybe, I’ll order a poutine, sneak some Schwartz’s smoked meat over there, and put some on it when no one’s looking).

Main Deli Steak House
3864, Boul. Saint-Laurent
Montreal, QC

We bought some of those coupons for Diablo’s BBQ in on St-Denis in Montreal a few months back. I got some for my dad for father’s day, and Soli and I got some for ourselves. The coupons we bought were a 3-course meal, valued at $33, and all we had to pay was $13. The coupon promised that we could use one for one person, so when we bought four, we had bought four 3-course meals.

Coupon details: You could choose one appetizer from a list of four, one main dish out of a list of five, and one dessert out of a list of two, and all of this would be covered by a coupon.

Well, when we got there, we were told that the rules had changed, and we had to take the normal menu and HAD to select enough food, PER PERSON, that equaled $33. Now, that is a lot of food. Not one of us at the table wanted to order $33 worth of food, EACH! But, if we ordered only $25, the coupon was considered invalid. Oh, and alcohol couldn’t be included, even though the coupon didn’t state that either. The restaurant decided just to make up its own rules all over the place.

We struggled for over 30 minutes, trying to figure out how to do this. Finally, we thought we had it. Soli and I decided to split a big platter that’s intended for two people…still weren’t at $33, so we had to order an oyster poyboy we didn’t even want. Well, at the end of the evening, the rather inept waitress informed us that we couldn’t each use a coupon, as we had split the platter. She knew we had coupons right from the beginning, so why she didn’t tell us this when we were ordering is beyond me. I guess money is more important than the customer’s satisfaction.

As for my parents, they were charged because my mother didn’t quite reach $33. So the coupon was invalid…we complained about that, had to wait over 30 minutes in the dark at the end of the meal, to get that charge removed. However, Soli and I were still only allowed to use one coupon, so we ended up paying $60 total, not including the original $13 pricetag of the coupon, for a meal that wasn’t very good. Had we known that would be the case, we would’ve spent our $60 in a restaurant we actually liked.

The waitress had gone to the chef, but too bad, so sad for us. The coupon we bought was not what we got at the restaurant, and the restaurant did nothing about it, except charge us. I still have a coupon left, but would rather lose my $13 on that coupon then step foot in Diablo’s again.

That complaint about the awful customer service aside, a brief review on the mediocre food we were served:

We started with a pitcher of this drink that had spruce beer in it. It was unremarkable. The bar had no spruce beer in stock, so someone had to run to the store, leaving us waiting for over 30 minutes for a drink. I couldn’t taste any alcohol in it, it was two sweet, and we couldn’t finish the pitcher, even among 5 people.

We ordered the smoked poutine (we were desperately trying to get up to that $33!), and this was probably the best thing there. The sauce was nice, and I enjoyed the sweet potato fries.

The oyster poyboy was bland, and there was too much bread, not enough oyster.

The mains had low points and okay points. The friend chicken was the best part, with a good, crunchy exterior. The pulled pork was mushy and too sweet, the ribs were forgettable, and the sauce was almost like straight up molasses. Each main comes with two “sides” – the corn salad was in a dish that was about 1 oz….hardly a side, but that was okay, as it tasted slightly rancid. The potatoes were bland.

The pecan pie tasted like an apple pie with pecans. Weird and kinda gross.

I hope this restaurant manages to improve its food, and work out its major customer satisfaction issues. I will never return though, and wouldn’t recommend this restaurant.

It’s been well over a year since our trip to Hawaii, and while cleaning up the site a little, I realized I had never finished my recap of the trip! I still remember it like it was yesterday, so let’s finish this up!

We set out early one morning to hike the Kalalau trail along the Napali Coast. The entire hike is 11 miles, and it rated a 9 by the Sierra Club – it can be quite strenuous and treacherous due to steep coast, crumbling rocks, muddy paths, etc. (not to mention, it is apparently difficult to get a permit to hike this and we did not have camping gear). Needless to say, we were not up for the whole thing, so we decided to do the 2-mile option, from Ke’e beach to Hanakapi’ai, which is already quite difficult.

The hike there was indeed a hard one, with lots of grappling down waterfalls and across slippery paths. A lot of it was a steep incline, and I needed lots of breaks and lots of water.

The views along the way were absolutely stunning though and worth every drop of sweat!

The climb down to the beach at the end of the two miles was across giant rocks, but we had already made it that far – no turning back here!

The beach at the end of the 2-mile leg has a lot of warnings, as rip currents can be quite strong and drownings occur regularly. The waves were big, but we were unable to resist swimming in the ocean. In fact, we spent so much time and so much energy in there that we got nervous about being able to make the hike back!

We did, however, make it back, and packed up our stuff in the apartment. We had spent the previous night trying to find a place on Kauai to stay for the next seven days, as we had decided in Hilo that there was no way we were leaving after just a week (our original plan when we left was to spend the last week driving the California coast). In Kauai, we called the airline, switched our flight for one a week later, and used Hotwire to find a “resort” on Kauai to stay at. We had no idea what we were getting, and the first room we got was awful. After a lot of complaining on our part, we got placed in a better room with a much better view (of the pool and of the ocean). We are on the eastern side of Kauai, right in the middle of the north and south shore, which was a great place to be, as it took no time to travel anywhere we wanted.

We spent a few days exploring the island, checking out beaches and just relaxing. Polihale beach was amazing – it took a long drive and a long empty road to get to this deserted beach.

We were lucky to see a monk seal sunning himself on Poipu beach.

And then there were palm trees, waterfalls, lighthouses and mountains. We had BBQs in the wind and the dark.

We also ate wonderful, wonderful food! This included shave ice, ramen and the best burgers in the world, the ono burger from Duane’s, packed with fresh pineapple and avocado.

The last two days on Kauai were spent doing those big-ticket things that one should do while on Kauai. The most exciting thing, and the most beautiful thing, was the helicopter ride over Waimea Canyon and the Napali coast. Just flying in a helicopter was exciting enough, especially a helicopter with no doors. Add the magical and awesome views, and it became the highlight of our trip!

We also flew into Mount Waialeale, which is the wettest place on earth, and it was damp, scary, dark and cold.

Finally, on our last full day, we took a boat ride around the Napali coast, so we ended up seeing the coast on foot, by air, and by sea. On the way in, I had a great time. The boat stopped near the Forbidden Island so that we could go snorkeling and eat lunch. On the way back, the boat went through a whole lot of waves, and I ended up massively seasick. I spent the whole trip back holding back vomit, with my eyes closed, and even passed out a few times. Not quite sure the view was worth it, but it was mostly fun.

Our flight to San Francisco was in the afternoon, so on our last day, we packed up the jeep and spent the morning at Ke’e beach, saying goodbye to our favourite spot and to our time in Hawaii.

Read the other Hawaii posts:
Big Island, Day 1 (Puako)
Big Island, Day 2 (Puako to Captain Cook)
Big Island, Days 3 & 4 (Kona to Hilo)
Big Island, Days 5 & 6 (Volcano and Mauna Kea)
Kauai and Waimea Canyon
Kauai and Getting to Hanalei
Kauai – The Last Week
And here’s our two days in San Francisco!

During the hot months of summer, I made sure to put our berries to good use, one of which was this berry-packed bundt cake. It’s one of those perfect cakes, where there’s actually more berry than cake, the cake itself is moist and flavourful, thanks to all the lemon zest, and where the glaze adds a punch of tart sweetness. This cake can be used with any fruit, but I used a combo of cherries and blueberries.
Not much else to say about this one…it’s a great bundt, and versatile and easy!

Blueberry-Cherry Buttermilk Bundt
adapted from Smitten Kitchen

CAKE
2 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon fine sea salt or table salt
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
3 large eggs, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup buttermilk
3-4 cups mixed berries (I used cherries and blueberries this time)

GLAZE
2 cups (240 grams) powdered or confections’ sugar
Juice of 1-2 lemons
1 tablespoon (15 grams) unsalted butter, very, very soft
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Generously grease a 10-cup Bundt pan, either with butter or a nonstick spray. Set aside.

1. In a medium bowl, mix 2 1/2 cups flour (leaving 2 tablespoons back), baking powder and salt together and set aside.

2. In a large bowl, add the sugar and lemon zest. Rub the lemon zest into the sugar with your fingers, until it becomes fragrant. Add the butter to the sugar and cream together until it is light and fluffy (between 3 and 5 minutes)

3. Turn the mixer down to low and add the eggs one at a time. Scrape down the bowl after each egg addition. Beat in the vanilla.

4. Add 1/3 of the flour mixture to the batter, beating only until just combined. Add half of the buttermilk, and then another 1/3 of the flour mixture, and then the remaining buttermilk and the remaining flour mixture.

5. Toss the berries in a bowl with the 2 tablespoons of flour. Gently fold the berries into the cake batter.

6. Spread cake batter into the prepared baking pan.

7. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, or until a test comes out clean.

8. Set cake pan on a wire rack and cool for 30 minutes. Remove cake from pan and cool completely.

9. Once cool, whisk together the powdered sugar and butter. Add lemon juice slowly, until it reaches the consistency you like (it can go from a glaze to a straight up frosting, whatever you prefer!) Spread or pour over top of cake and serve.

After attending Martin Picard’s Au Pied de Cochon cabane a sucre the past three season it has run, I was absolutely thrilled when I first heard that there would be an “apple season” at the cabane in 2012. I emailed them for reservations as soon as they started accepting them, and this Sunday, we were there for the opening weekend. The menu has been posted on their tumblr; I am will only say a little about the experience and let the menu and the photos speak for themselves. It did not disappoint!!

It was strange arriving to the cabane on a sunny and hot afternoon; we are used to heading over there on cold, icy evenings, in the dark. We had to 2pm seating, which was the ideal time, and we spent some time admiring the fat pumpkins and squash in the big green garden right in front of the restaurant.

We wandered in and started the afternoon with some of the apple cocktails being offered. Almost everyone at the table enjoyed an alcoholic apple slush kind of drink, which was sweet, tart, and way too easy to drink quickly.

Every table had three jars: marinated eggplant, a corn relish and pickled cauliflowers and pickles. My favourite was the corn relish, but others at the table preferred the marinated eggplant. I loved the eggplant’s texture, but the corn was so bright that is perked up many of the rather heavy dishes to come our way.

The service was slightly different from the cabane a sucre’s style of serving – the dishes came out in what seemed like three courses, so instead of having one dish at a time served, we were served three or four dishes all at once. One of the star dishes is one I couldn’t get a photo for, sadly. It was a big pot of cream of squash soup, garnished with crumbles of Amaretti, apples, and heavily au gratin with emmantal cheese. The soup was thick, thick, thick, loaded with cream and butter. The thinly sliced apples and the Amaretti were marvelous. We ended up bringing some of this soup home, and made a creamy mashed potatoes with it, using that instead of butter. It made amazing potatoes.

Also served at this time was the house-cured ham, draped over a skull, and topped with some pickled onions. Light and flavourful, not very salty.

We also got a fresh, creamy, light goat cheese topped with honeycomb, slivers of foie gras and thin, crispy grilled bread that had been rubbed with a healthy dose of garlic and rosemary. The honey made this dish.

The absolute star of the meal was also served at this time…ravioli stuffed with chicken liver gelee, and cavatelli apple sauce accompanied with a confit of foie gras, which was all combined in a massive Parmesean wheel at the table. It was so so so so good! The sauce was sweet, with hints of savoury, the pasta slightly dense and chewy, the pillows of confit foie gras meltingly, achingly good. I would’ve come just for that pasta.

Salmon “en papillotte” (in newspaper!) with escargots and apple cider sauce, apple slices and basil. This was a big hunk of salmon, very fresh, wonderfully cooked. Also one of my favs. It was served alongside salty eggplant pancakes, a dish of creamy clams, a massive saucepan of apple-glazed roast beef, carrots and warm oysters, some heavily hazelnut-crusted broccoli and a somewhat bizarre bowl of lettuce. Together, it all worked. But really, I just wanted more pasta.

This time, I actually had enough room to enjoy dessert. The warm apple pie’s crust was a heavenly. An ice cream and an apple sorbert was served in a cream carton, topped with apple cotton candy. There was a warm sticky apple-toffee pudding that was popped out of a can and drenched in a caramel sauce, and we all dug into an apple and chocolate soufflé.

Without drinks and with tax, this meal cost $57/person. That is pretty unbelievable, and so completely worth it. I wish I was going back, or at least, sneaking in for some more of that pasta.

Cabane 2010

Cabane 2011

Cabane 2012

Along with the Algarve (Parts 1 and 2), we spent several days in Lisbon (including a daytrip to Sintra). I preferred Lisbon to the Algarve area – even though the beaches along the shore were amazing, there’s just something appealing about a bustling, pretty European city. The views from our hotel room was pretty nice!

When we first landed, we had the entire afternoon and evening to explore the area around the hotel, which was pretty much as central as one could get in Lisbon. Right outside of the hotel was a small pedestrian cobblestone street that led right into Rossio Square, which was surrounded by churches, bakeries and little restaurants with as much cod as one person could eat in all the windows.

Along with sampling some of the cheeses and the fish, we tried the ginjinha, a cherry liquour that was definitely quite potent. I thoroughly enjoyed the cod balls!

Between all the snacking, we wandered around and checked out the touristy sites/sights that were close by.

São Domingos Church:

The amazing Carmo convent, a gothic church in ruins:

Our first dinner in Portugal was at the renowned Bon Jardim, apparently one of the best places to go for piri piri chicken. It took us a while to find the restaurant, and we had to traverse a gauntlet of unrelenting restaurant greeters trying to pull us into their restaurants, but we made it there and enjoyed some fine piri piri chicken and red wine. The wine was cheap and so good. The piri piri sauce comes in a separate klittle jar that you briush on your chicken yourself – and it was SPICY! Very delicouys though!

We sleepily walked back to the hotel as the sun set and explored the rooftop bar for a bit before falling straight to sleep.

We have visited and reported on many sushi restos in Montreal…from the more high-end ones like Jun-I and Mikado, to more middle of the road ones like Tataki, and then the all-you-can eat places, like the abysmal Odaki and the ridiculous Kanda (two locations). I’ve been thinking that all-you-can-eat sushi and Montreal are just never going to be partners, and if you want decent sushi in Montreal, you’re going to have to pay the high price tag. Well, this past weekend, I was proven wrong, and I enjoyed the best all-you-can-eat sushi experience that Montreal has offered me so far, at Sushi 999.

We stopped in for a late lunch on Saturday, around 2pm. We were worried the place might not be serving food at that weird time, but it was, and for $13.99 per person! It’s more expensive to eat dinner there (about $25/person, the Montreal norm), but for a weekend lunch, $13.99 is hard to beat. While the don’t offer sashimi during the lunch menu, they offer plenty of other choices that make up for it. They even give a card that they stamp, so that if you go 9 times, the 10th is free. And it seems as though the place is BYOW as well…and finally, the food is great! The sushi is fresh, the rice well-seasoned, and the fried food we tried were all perfectly done. I don’t have a single complaint about the place, only praise.

We started by sharing two of the salads, the wakame (seaweed) salad and the fish egg salad, and both were delightful and refreshing. The wakame salad was excellently seasoned, and the fish egg salad, with strips of “crab” and lettuce needed only a splash of soy sauce.

As I said, the sushi was perfect. The tuna was fresh, the salmon buttery and rich, the eel luxurious.

We also really enjoyed the sushi pizza, with salmon atop a crispy, fried ricecake. We had ordered a handroll by mistake, but it was fortunate one, since it was one of the best things to come our way (stuffed with shrimp tempura).

We indulged in some of the fried options, such as the scallops, topped with a dollop of Japanese mayo and the dumplings, wrapped in super-crispy wontons.

The edamame was lightly seasoned and the shrimp tempura had a sweet and light, crispy batter – both were excellent.

The fish head had little to it, but its skin was fun to eat. They even have a small dim sum menu, so we tried the shrimp dumplings and loved them. The wrapper was a tad gelatinous, but I enjoyed the texture.

I am seriously looking forward to returning this Saturday!! They are only about 6 months old, but I hope the place sticks around for a long time to come. Oh, and sorry about the quality of photos…all I had was my phone with me…

Sushi 999
405 Sherbrooke Est, Montreal, Quebec
http://www.sushi999.ca/

Gazpacho is one of the easiest things to make, and up in my top 10 favourite foods. If I had to pick my Desert Island foods, gazpacho would be one of them. I love the saltiness, the sweetness, the slight heat…and the way you just feel healthier after one bowl. When we make this, the massive bowl is gone in about two days…

This recipe makes a lot, so if you’re not like me and don’t want to eat three liters of gazpacho in one day, you may want to reduce it. However, it freezes well, so if you do make a lot, put the extra in the freezer.

I like the following recipe for a bunch of reasons. The watermelon is a great addition; it adds a lot of sweetness to the gazpacho, but none of the watermelon flavour. No need to add any sugar, which is something I usually do without any watermelon in the dish. It also adds a lot of liquid and more substance to the soup. Roasting the peppers and garlic is amazing – you can definitely taste the roast in the peppers, and the garlic is much milder and subtle. Also, roasting the peppers means you’re not adding any of the skin to the soup, which is important. Make sure you seed the cucumbers – they hold way too much water otherwise!

Next time, I’ll probably throw some parsley and basil into the party…

Gazpacho with Roasted Peppers and Watermelon

6-8 large, very ripe tomatoes, peeled and quartered
2 cups cubed watermelon
3 bell peppers (green, yellow or red), roasted and peeled
1 jalapeno pepper, roasted and peeled
4-6 stalks celery, peeled and chopped
2 English cucumbers, peeled, seeded and chopped
1 large onion, diced
1 bulb garlic, roasted and squished out
1 28-oz can tomatoes

The next ingredients should all really be added to taste…start with a little and add more as needed!

¼ cup red wine vinegar
3 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp hot sauce (or less, if you don’t like things spicy)
1-2 tsp Worcestershire sauce
Juice of one lemon
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Put everything into one big bowl (non-metal, non-reactive)

2. Using a hand blender, combine everything until smooth.

3. Taste, decide what’s missing (maybe you want more lemon juice, more olive oil, more salt, a little bit of sugar…), add and blend again.

4. Let chill (at least one hour, preferably overnight) and devour!

I don’t know how anyone can hate camping. One of my favourite things is to escape into the woods, put up a tent, start a fire, swim in a lake, drink wine, enjoy just being away and eat lots and lots of camping-appropriate food. Fortunately, Mont Tremblant and its 1500km of lakes, woods and rivers is only about one hour away from Montreal, so it provides perfect and ample opportunities for camping.

A photo recap of our camping trip and meals on Lac Provost in Mont-Tremblant:

Arriving – setting up the tent and starting the fire.

A quick hike down to the lake to check in out in the sunset.

Then dinner time…an appetizer of grilled corn, followed by grilled chicken sandwiches, ending with a roaring campfire.

The next morning, up early with an omelet made with onions, basil brought from our home garden, cherry tomatoes from our home tomato plants, grilled corn and local cheese curds. Paired with some fantastic white wine, it’s the ideal way to wake up on a hot summer morning in the forest.

A leisurely walk along the shores of the lake, including picnic table stops with Frisbee, swimming and vodka.

Lunch/dinner was beef and veal burgers, topped with more cheese curds, onions and tomatoes, and a sauce that was made by reducing the marinade that the chicken had been sitting in.

The rest of the evening was filled with more swimming, playing the ukulele, checking out other parts of the lake, more frisbee and roasting a whole lot of marshmallows.

The next day, exploring/climbing waterfalls on a rainy afternoon and sleepily making our way back home.