I'll say it again: FIRE EAGLE

Only one BA dish for you, but it's a three-parter and also the cover photo, and also there was a NATIONAL HOLIDAY that required I spend all day being obnoxious on Twitter, so quit yer whinin' already. BA#35 Slow-roasted salmon with BA#36 cherry tomatoes and couscous.

I am going to be slightly harder on this dish than the others, because I feel that as the cover photo it is emblematic of the 60 RECIPES and, by extension, of summer itself. First quibble: "slow-roasted" is not a phrase that I associate with summertime cooking. Don't get me wrong, I loooooove long, slow cooking methods, even in inappropriate seasons. But I am not an extremely popular cooking magazine! I need guidance on how NOT to have my oven on all afternoon when it's 100 degrees outside, because that's what I ridiculously revert to much of the time.

Second quibble: uncooked Israeli couscous, at least the whole wheat version,  looks and smells somewhat like those fish pellets you can buy at the zoo.

Counterpoint: that makes it more of a theme dish, which I like.

Third quibble: it all tasted fine, but also lacking. I really think it could be improved by the addition of something, but I'm not sure--OH WAIT maybe the BA#37: yogurt sauce that I made ahead of time and then forgot about.

A more conscientious recipe writer would add a reminder at the bottom to make sure you have not abandoned any elements of the dish in the refrigerator, is all I'm saying.

This year I on America's birthday I learned that I have not yet mastered grilling.

Wait, the most-cooked thing wins, right?

Obviously pretty disappointing. This is Dan's fourth.

The afternoon was redeemed by the Americanist-looking beer I could come up with.

I just think FIRE EAGLE bears repeating here.

We also spent some fun time at "Fourthfest" at our local park! I won't bother listing all of the child-oriented activities that were offered, since Anna's face says everything you need to know.

She was especially unhappy about being offered a wedge of watermelon.

It's not like she didn't have any fun, you guys. There were wood chips, after all.

And pants to put them in!

Anna used to be unimpressed by the level of the competition at the Nathan's Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, but now that she actually eats hot dogs I think she's coming around.

Wait until she gets a load of the bear. (H/T Elizabeth, that video made me prouder of America than anything else all day.)

And how was your first Fourth, Ivy? I know you're pretty low-key about holidays.

(Adds "independence" to Ivy's List of Exciting Things.)

You know you enjoy my process

I want to jump right in with these grilled flatiron steaks with tomatoes and tapenade, but I'm having a hard time figuring out which BA# it is. (Also, this is boring housekeeping to assure myself that I'm not cheating on this project, so feel free to skip. ANNA SURPRISES AHEAD.) Continuing from the last post, it would be #28, but this weekend as I was whining about thoughtfully contemplating aloud the fact that I wasn't even halfway through the 60 SUMMER RECIPES yet, Dan asked if I had actually counted to make sure there were 60, and I said "....." And then I tried to count. And based on my original recipe-classifying strategy, only came up with 54.

Remember when I decided that multi-part recipes should only count as one? That's not going to work, because the only way I could get to 60 was to break out things like 1) grilled flatiron steak with 2) tomatoes and 3) tapenade. That means I get to add two BA points to my total for chickens/peppers and corn/pistachio salsa, putting me at BA#30 grilled flatiron steak with BA#31 tomatoes and BA#32 tapenade.

I sure hope there are a couple of new readers today, because this is FASCINATING FOR EVERYONE.

Anyway, the steaks were pretty good, and I love anything made of chopped olives. Anna and Hopper were concerned that the grill session needed more vegetation.

Good looking out, guys.

I also threw these BA#33 Vanilla-roasted rhubarb and strawberry pouches on the grill. I think this was my first rhubarb, so I give BA props for forcing me to try something that I wasn't afraid of but just hadn't gotten around to yet. I would say these smelled better than they tasted, which was slightly bland. Dan said the rhubarb was "woody," so...there you go.

This is where I'm going to hide my confession that I only worked out 21/30 days in June. That's less failure than I expected!

BA#34: Cucumber salsa. My original vision for this pile of salsa, chicken, red peppers, guacamole and bread was "sandwich," as you can see.

A classic one-hander.

We spent Saturday evening with lovely internet ladies Natalie, Jennie, and Regan, and their lovely internet children. I considered only posting this picture of Anna in the pool:

But, as she is hatless, you can already see that something is amiss, so I may as well come clean and admit that she had a really good time playing in the water.

Like, a really good time.

And I think she was pretty impressed by Kyle's flexibility.

Don't worry, the giant swing snapped her back to normal.

Ivy says only suckers need a swimming pool to get soaked.

In other news, we are still wary of rain.

And asparagus.

My brave struggle against TDTM continues

I know you guys have been waiting for this news, so I'm just going to pull off the Band-Aid and give it to you straight: my softball team did not win the Super Social League (real thing) championship. I mostly blame Jillian Michaels, for breaking my ankles and causing me to hobble and wince around the field rather than lazily jog as usual. To distract myself from this SUMMER HEARTBREAK, I first made my house smell like fish and then covered that up with the smell of curry. The combo is really something special, if anyone wants to come hang out.

BA#26: Fish fillets with tomatoes, squash, and basil. All of the pouch-based meals have been very easy, although in this case you end up with a sort of sad, raw-looking lump of fish. It tasted fine, though, in a this-is-healthy-and-I-didn't-work-very-hard-on-it sort of way.

I call him Lumpy.

BA#27: Curried spelt salad. Except I couldn't find spelt, so this is actually curried farro salad. I thought the arugula was a little overpowering. Or I just don't really like arugula? No, that's probably not right, since I keep eating it.

File under: kale.

Overall not the most successful BA week. I want to blame triple-digit-temperature malaise, but TDTM is the WHOLE REASON for this very stupid inspirational project in the first place. Obviously I just need to step it up. Are there any cute babies around to give me a nudge?

Babies that are starting to look a lot like David Hyde Pierce, if possible.

This morning marked Anna's first trip to Chuck E. Cheese, and I'd say she ranked it somewhere between bouncy houses and carnivals. Also, I sincerely hope that you guys are half as entertained by My Child Strongly Dislikes Fun montages as I am, because I don't see this well running dry any time soon.

Surveying the land.

I think she likes what she sees!

Clapping along to the birthday song.

Digesting pizza. She needed to sit at a table by herself to focus (foodie).

 At least there was cake.

Yay, cake!

Also, my July issue arrived yesterday, just to taunt me

Well, the high today is 106, so here we are in the mouth of the beast at last. As you may recall, this is where my brain starts to melt slowly out of my ears, so let's take some dramatic measures and have dessert first.

BA#22: Pink lady milkshakes. To be fair to Bon Appetit, all of the ice cream recipes in this issue are contributions from what I'm guessing are very fine establishments across the country, and not something they cooked up in their secret underground BA lair. STILL, one of the major issues I've had with this project so far is my thwarted desire to leave well enough alone. What do you mean you want me to demolish this perfectly nice cantaloupe and then stir basil into it? What am I, a monster? Can't I just make a regular ice cream cone? Why do I have to sully this delicious adobo sauce with shrimp? And now, this: why mix rum and vinegar and pepper into already-delicious strawberry ice cream?

This strikes me as a waste of both rum and ice cream. And vinegar. I don't actually have a lot of call for pink peppercorns.

Having said that, the vinegar worked better than I was expecting. Anna got the no-rum, no-pepper kid's version. Let's see how she compares to the BA kid this time.

You know, that's actually...not too far off. Lucky for me BA picked some Very Serious children for this issue.

BA#23: Cocoa-date truffles. I was irritated at this one from the get-go because it required me to buy raw cacao powder, which is not inexpensive, and also it's billed as a "healthy dessert," and I had to roll sticky globs into crushed stuff and just, sigh.

Anyway, they're all gone now and I'm buying more dates at the store today.

BA:24: Grilled pork chops and peaches with pole beans. Honestly, when I took the 60 SUMMER RECIPES dive, this was pretty much what I was hoping for. Grilled deliciousness! I did not like the beans, because I believe green beans should be so mushy as to barely be considered a solid, and also taste mostly of bacon. Certainly not marjoram. Marjoram tastes like perfume.

But grilled peaches taste like summmmmmmmer. (In the good, mythical-fun-summer way. Actual summer tastes like hot asphalt and mosquito repellant.)

BA#25: Spiced cucumbers and coconut milk. I like how the guy who came up with this recipe is all, "I'm the only person in the world who has ever cooked cucumbers," and I'm all, "Hi, I'd like you to meet my deep and abiding love affair with fried pickles." So, I didn't find this weird. I did find it...lacking something.

Breading and a side of ranch.

Anna has branched out into self-portraiture.

How you doing, Ivy? Still got your embrace-face on?

My little summer stalwart.

She has also taken some pictures of the couch

Listen everyone, it's truly summer now, time to get this party started for real. Here's some good news--my softball team made it to the playoffs! And last night a guy on the other team made an unreal knee-sliding catch without spilling his beer! If that's not SUMMER FUN, I don't know what. The bad news is, I think Jillian Michaels broke my ankles. Because they have ceased to function correctly. But ankles are really more of a cold-weather necessity anyway, right? Summer is for lounging, not for supporting your own body weight! I'll just be here on the couch in case someone wants to carry me to the pool.

BA#20: Quinoa tabbouleh. This is exactly the kind of thing I would be all over on Pinterest. Seriously, my Healthy Recipes board is basically a festival of quinoa (with special guest appearances by kale and salmon). So this was a perfectly acceptable variation of quinoa-and-veggies and I did not mind having leftovers for lunch the next day.

Not minding leftovers is higher praise than it sounds like.

BA#21: Shrimp in adobo tacos YES I had to make shrimp AGAIN. I did not hate them. I mean, you could cover almost anything in adobo sauce, wrap it in a tortilla, and come out okay. It does take quite a while to chop up two pounds of shrimp, especially when you're a little squicked out by the process and can't even zone out because you are forced to answer the question "Mama, what are you doing?" over five thousand times.

I'M STILL CHOPPING SHRIMP I SHOULD BE DONE BY YOUR FIFTH BIRTHDAY.

Despite the fact that raw shrimp are not really not my bag, I did celebrate the Summer Solstice by eating about eight pounds of raw fish.

And three pounds of chocolate bread pudding.

And what's not to celebrate? It rained! On the first day of summer! It did not rain last summer. It did not rain last year. At all. It was alllllllll Blind Melon up in this joint. Anna wasn't exactly sure how to handle it.

But it did seem worth documenting.

I think she thought it was going to bite her.

She's actually documenting all of the main summer activities.

Okay, this is all we've got so far.

You know who's taking her EMBRACING duties seriously, though?

"Come here to me summer!"

"Where are you gooooooooing?"

For those of you keeping score, it is still not actually summer yet

First, let's clear the air: if you notice at the end of my thirty-day workout extravaganza that I am not, in fact, totally shredded, it will be because I skipped Day 15. And also...what's today? Also Day 19. I have some pretty medium hopes for the 20s, though!

I decided to revisit BA#15, watermelon and grapefruit agua fresca, and discovered that it is vastly improved with a generous supplement of vodka, not that I'm suggesting that is a metaphor for this whole stupid delightful season or anything. It's just that I'm supposed to be EMBRACING SUMMER, and everyone knows I get huggy-er when I drink.

Summer still life in yellow, pink, and booze.

I was starting to stall out on my Bon Appetit project a little, having been hit pretty hard by the realization that I was only 25% through the recipes at the end of last week. Luckily, I have Anna to shine her own enthusiastic light on things and help me through my times of doubt. "This is not at all a stupid idea, Mother!" she is clearly thinking. "I'm so impressed and inspired by you!"

"I'm not sure why MORE PEOPLE don't tackle entire magazines sight-unseen!"

So, very well. Forward ho! BA#16 and #17: Pico de gallo and Yucatan-style habanero salsa. Whoa, hey, wait a minute! Didn't I say I wasn't going to make the insane fire-sauce? I did. And I meant it. But then a friend talked me into giving it a shot by pointing out that I could fifth the recipe and only make a little dollop, which is exactly what I did. I am also being leaned on to abandon my other caveat (no live lobsters) by people who have obviously never witnessed what I go through just to deal with a dead chicken, let alone a LIVE SEA MONSTER. But the pressure is there. To the extent that in my head I have already purchased two of them, had a change of heart, adopted them as pets, named them, and solicited recommendations for appropriate pet-carriers on Twitter. All of this is true.

Oh, the salsa? Yeah, too hot.

BA#18: Cumin and ancho chicken tacos. Very simple, very easy, really delicious. I have yet to be disappointed by a taco recipe.

Possibly in my entire life.

BA#19: Tony's steak. This was good, but more importantly, it gave me a chance to achieve one of my major Goals of Summer Embracement: learning to use the grill.

By which I mean, my father grilled his own Father's Day dinner while I watched and drank watermelon cocktails.

In other news, Anna's still working out some kinks in her supervillan persona.

I think by next summer we should all pretty vigilant, though.

Hey, everyone who suddenly grew two teeth last week look over here!

Good thing too, teeth will make it much easier to scrape those puffs off her skin.

Only 45 recipes left! Summer's practically done!

Dan is out of town and things are breaking down pretty rapidly around here, so...quick and dirty Friday post, let's do this.

BA#13: Keilbasa with onions and poblanos. I'm a big fan of the wrap-it-up, throw-it-in-the-oven approach, and this was no exception.

Also a fan of cut-up-three-ingridients-and-call-it-dinner.

BA#14: Black rice salad with mango and peanuts. I intended to use the "optional" fish sauce, but was relieved to find that my bottle of fish sauce was expired. Anyway, this was exotic and healthy-seeming. There is a lot of it left in the fridge. I feel like it's going to sit there for a while.

It's okay, it makes the fridge feel fancy.

BA#15 Watermelon and grapefruit agua fresca. I'm so tired of this straining huge amounts of fruit nonsense. You'll notice I already dropped the cheesecloth from the equation. If you see me just squeezing lime juice directly into my mouth in the next few weeks, you'll know what the deal is.

You don't HAVE to drink all your fruit just because it's hot outside, Bon Appetit. Solids can be cold too.

I call this one "Daddy Went To Canada For Four Days."

I happy to report that Anna has settled into her summer wardrobe routine nicely.

Unbuttoned 18-month onesies are the next hot thing, you heard it here first.

The highly-observant among you will have seen the new Food Lush badge on the side of the blog, and I am excited to report that I have joined the staff and will begin contributing on Monday if you want to wander over and check it out. I will of course be writing about my first love (automotive repair).