Hockey Mom's Day

Today the world did that thing it does where it reminds me that it will become uncomfortably warm very soon. While putting on my car's air conditioning for the first time and calling my mother to wish her a happy Mother's Day I wondered what the newest mother in my life would like as a dinner on her first Mother's Day. Some would argue that she is not officially a mother yet because her babies still reside on the inside of her body. To those semantics-spouting loons I reserve a very special noise whereby I blow a raspberry through tightly pursed lips.



It was a beautiful night so we went and sat out on our patio and I fired up the grill while making this salad with arugula, chickpeas, grape tomatoes, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and pepper.



Last night after eating loads of grilled food we had some trouble sleeping. A lot of trouble, actually. In fact, we got nearly no sleep at all. I think that maybe it was that we were too wound up about having met a real live legend of rock and roll. Jen postulates that perhaps she has acquired her mother's sickness which causes her to have nightmares after eating grilled food. I argued that this was probably not the case because she didn't actually have any nightmares and, more importantly, because this is not a real thing.

After the salad was made I grilled some bread with olive oil, salt, and pepper then scraped the bread with garlic clove. I added some grilled asparagus and fennel then grilled up some beautiful sea scallops and wild Coho salmon.



To continue with my extremely early summer theme I cracked open this Wittekerke from Brouwerij Bavik in Belgium. This was a perfect summer beer, an extremely light wheat beer which was a lovely accompaniment to my grilling experience. Jen noted that it smelled of concord grape juice, something my weak nose was not able to pick out until she mentioned it. I think she is looking forward to the future where she can do more than smell my beer to help me pick out its aroma. In fact she is compiling a list of the drinks she wants me to make her after the babies arrive. She is also thinking of what particular drinks she wants me to bring to the hospital. Yesterday they informed us that there will be a fridge there that we can use to store Chardonnay. Jen felt that it would be a criminal waste of space to clog up the fridge with something as disappointing as Chardonnay.



After dinner I made one of Jen's favorite dessert items: chocolate covered strawberries. Then we did another Mother's Day cliche we hooked up the laptop to the TV and watched playoff hockey! It was the L.A. Kings versus the Phoenix Coyotes. They were battling for the lead in the series as well as to edge each other out to see which team we care about slightly more. I guess it just depends which era Wayne Gretzky you like the best, early 90s Gretzky or current day Gretzky.

Happy Mother's Day all you hockey moms out there!