Fourth of July

Last winter, the Plow Guy plowed our firepit (aka ashy cooking hole surrounded by rocks), so this summer Tom decided to reconstruct it as an actual brick-and-mortar grill. We used it for the first time last weekend, and tonight we'll use it again for an impromptu Fourth of July feast with friends.

[For more on the Plow Guy, see this poem.]

[Patriotic interlude Global update Here's what Thomas Paine's Common Sense (1776) looks like in Polish: "Niektórzy pisarze tak zadziwiła społeczeństwa z rządem, jak opuścić niewielkie lub żadne różnice pomiędzy nimi, podczas gdy nie są one tylko różne, ale mają różne pochodzenie. Towarzystwo jest produkowany przez naszych zachcianek, a rząd przez naszą niegodziwość, byłego promuje nasze szczęście pozytywnie jednocząc nasze uczucia, drugi negatywnie ograniczania naszych wad. Jeden zachęca do współżycia, a drugi tworzy wyróżnień. Pierwszym z nich jest patron, ostatni Punisher."]

Tonight's dinner menu: hamburgers with beef from a Harmony cow; grilled vidalias, portobellos, and maybe asparagus if I can find enough in the garden; homemade buns; twice baked potatoes stuffed with ridiculously plentiful turnip greens; cold white wine.

[Patriotic interlude Educational update Here's "The Revolutionary Cow," a 1778 political cartoon, with the jokes handily labeled by an unknown high school teacher.]

Tonight's dessert menu: mascarpone cheesecake topped with black cherries.

[Patriotic interlude Dietary update From "Cuisine of the Thirteen Colonies": "Where Americans had a historic disdain for the refineries of French cooking, that opinion, at least in a small part, began to change with the American alliance with the French. In the first American publication of Hannah Glass's Art of Cookery Made Easy, the insults toward French dishes disappeared. A number of Bostonians even attempted to cook French cuisine for their French allies, sometimes with comedic results when entire frogs were put into soups rather than just their legs."]