This time of year definitely signals the end of long summer days and a return to the school year routine. This year the end of summer will also mark the start of work on our new-to-us house, or, as we like to call it, “Casa de Renovation.” So, we’re definitely going to want a party to mark the occasion.
For us, a typical late-summer get-together means one last meal with the casual foods of summer – hot dogs, with a few veggie dogs thrown into the mix, served up with all the trimmings. We like to let our guests do up the dogs Chicago style, which means building up the foundation (as in the bun, not the one that supports my house), with mustard, tomatoes, onions, relish, pickles, and maybe sport peppers and a dash of celery salt. As a lifelong Chicagoan, I’m not supposed to do it, let alone publicly admit it, but I like a bit of ketchup on my dogs, too. Don’t tell!
We round off our picnic style dinner with chips and my favorite fresh summer salad, a cool combo of chopped cucumbers and tomatoes, sprinkled with chunks of sweet onion (cut large, so the kids can easily avoid them), and pitted kalamata olives topped with bits of feta cheese. I mix it all up with a dash of olive oil, a splash of balsamic vinegar and sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste.
I don’t have a written recipe for this dish, and in fact, the salad always grows larger than I intend as I try to find just the right ingredient proportions. “More tomatoes,” I think, so I toss in a few more, but then feel more cucumbers are in order. Suddenly, the onions are falling behind, so I add more of those and so on.
No matter. There are rarely leftovers, and if there are, they don’t last long. Kind of like summer, itself. The home renovations on the other hand feel endless.
What are your favorite end-of-summer traditions?
