#Bachsuzette in Beacon

Writing this little diddy to y'all with wet hair and a semi-warm Fat Tire beer, from the throes of my couch (can a couch have "throes"?), chuckling to myself about this weekend. 

I was upstate to celebrate Suzanne - my very close friend and an amazing person - since she's tying the knot in a few short weeks. The #bachsuzette crew was a 50/50 split between New York and Baltimore; the weekend commenced at Grand Central with R, C, D (the New Yawkers) and I meeting circa 1pm - each of us claiming we had packed more hastily than the person to our right. "I forgot contact solution!" "My bag ripped on the way!" "I was drunk last night! I got pita from that weird little stand! but I don't have a fork!" To soothe our anxieties, we decided the only reasonable thing to do was grab wine for the train. We nabbed a bottle of sauvignon blanc (screw top! anything less would be amateur hour), 4 cups, lids and straws (the guy behind the counter was a pro and/or took one look at us and knew the drill) and headed to Track 7, bound for Cold Spring. 

Now, I'd love to tell you that the weekend was a farm-to-table dream, filled with kale and dandelion and basil seeds and heirloom tomatoes on the vine and revelations about how to live more deeply, in tune with nature and the glorious dairy cows that fertilize this God-given nation. Instead, we drank all the Espelon/watermelon/sugar-ancho chile power margaritas and drunkenly grilled corn and assembled rag tag cheese plates and had a blast. (I'll take a second to call out that our host - let's call her K - didn't have as much as a stick of butter in the fridge but had an "off limits" kimchi closet which we were forbidden from opening. It endeared me to her, a lot). 

While we didn't elevate our palettes, I will say that I remembered all over again how lovely it is to cook for and with a big cluster of people. Nothing like 8 people bumping into each other and fiddling with Elton John on the stereo, burning the butter, shucking the corn and sliding on the peels, eating cookie dough while sauteing peppers, waving tequila around, turning the music a little louder, rummaging around for salt.  

Somehow we were symbiotic, and everyone had their contribution in the kitchen. Oliver whipped up perfect margs when everyone else was knee deep in the hot tub (Nan and I were philosophizing about podcasts and forest fungus), Clare was a grill master and made some perfect cheese burgers and Suze's Mexican rice was pitch perfectly plump and moist and delicious (so good that Clare scolded me for dipping my fork in to sample...a few times). 

We cooked all weekend but we had brunch in town this morning (on Main St., no less) and followed it up with some good old fashioned ice cream cones at Beacon Creamery. They had a few things I had never seen before (pear sorbet, coconut almond something, and wine ice cream) but I had to follow Suze's lead and order a classic root beer float - all fat vanilla scoops, fizzy root beer, and hot buttery sun on our heads. (And yes, okay, maybe I got a slushie at the Beacon train platform and then Clare/Rebecca photobombed me beautifully, as I tried to preserve it in my memory). 

All in all, it was a hilarious excursion and a perfect weekend and I'm v excited for the party to continue at the nuptuals in Baltimore in a month. 

And now to begin the next #YYF adventure - planning and throwing Delmo & David's engagement party on my roof this weekend. Menu items to follow. 

Let the #YYF summer continue...