First Corn

Greetings from the great Adirondacks! I’m going to keep this short because I have some canoeing to do.

This is the third year in a row that the Fussies have met up with some of our old college friends to rent a house somewhere on the edges of civilization and spend a week together. The first year was by some crazy lake in Pennsylvania. The second year we went to the part of Maryland that’s surrounded by West Virginia.

I’m not sure how we ended up so close to home on this vacation, but I’m not complaining. It meant that I got my first ever trip to Martha’s Dandee Creme on the way up to the rental house.

Oh man. That reminds me, I still haven’t posted the official results of the most recent Tour de Soft Serve. Fortunately, I brought the score sheets with me, and I can’t paddle the canoe forever. Tabulating those results will be a nice break.

Needless to say, one of my favorite things about these vacations are the family meals. In the past I’ve come back with some very simple and delicious techniques that I’ve been able to use in everyday life.

Now if you’ll give me a minute, I’d like to talk a bit about corn.

Okay. Corn is in everything. It’s unfortunate. Our beef is corn. Our chicken is corn. Our sugar is corn. Our chips are corn. Our breakfast cereal is corn. Our cooking oil is corn. And now an ever growing percentage our our car’s fuel is corn.

But hopefully you won’t hold that against the marvelous sweet corn of summer.

With corn’s ubiquity it can be hard to remember just how remarkable a good ear of corn can be. And that’s one reason I like to wait as long as possible for my first corn of the season.

Surely there are people who after a long winter cold winter, and a wet muddy spring, are just dying to get something fresh from the earth into their mouths. And the too-early arrival of corn in the supermarket can help scratch that itch. But patience pays. Because the first stuff isn’t nearly as good as what’s available closer to the peak. Usually, I wait for the CSA to release its first harvest of corn until I tear into the local bounty.

However, last night, as we were planning a summer supper for the three families, the local market in town had a bin of corn that was just what we needed to round out the meal. Let me tell you, it’s often a headache for me to cook for four. Twelve is a whole different order of magnitude.

Thankfully, we have other friends who are willing to take the leadership role in the kitchen, especially since I haven’t been feeling a lot of inspiration for cooking lately. And this corn salad our friends whipped up is totally going on the Fussy menu when we return. Onions be damned. Because this was so simple and so delicious.

Ears of corn get boiled quickly, then cooled.
The kernels are sliced off the cobs.
Red onions are diced.
Basil is torn.
And the salad is dressed with olive oil, cider vinegar, salt, and pepper.

Boom. So light. So summery. So good.

Once upon a time there was some corn thing I liked to make that used a crapton of butter, bacon, bacon fat, and salt. It was delicious. But this summer corn salad takes the cake. Especially as I’m trying to eat healthier.

Not that anyone would be able to tell after I ate two toasted marshmallows, each stuffed with a piece of Hershey’s chocolate, and followed that up with a slice of locally made pie.

Speaking of which, if you know anything to do while hanging out at Fourth Lake, don’t be shy. I’m taking suggestions. Especially for food adventures. And I have a feeling there are plenty of off-the-radar finds out here in the wilderness.