A Perfect Day Ends with Food for the gods

A perfect day. How do you describe it? I find there are many kinds of perfect days. Sometimes it is a rainy day with a book. Other times it is time spent building a snowman with a grandchild and then admiring it over a cup of hot cocoa. And then there are days like today. A summer day with few "must do's" on my list.


Today dawned beautifully. Clear, cool, sunny, gorgeous. A perfect day. By noon I had eaten breakfast, showered, cleaned the shower, vacuumed half the house, read a couple of meaningful scriptures, had lunch and was ready for a manicure. Now that's a way to start off an afternoon!

It was truly a gorgeous day so after my manicure I treated myself by sitting on the patio watching the robins feed their babies and reading. After all, I couldn't mess up that manicure by doing yard work, now, could I?

And then it was dinner time.

On weekends, Larry is the grill chef. Sometimes I prepare something for him to grill but at least 2 weekends a month it is steak and corn on the cob.

When I was growing up my dad used to love to build a fire and cook chicken and roast corn in the coals. It was without a doubt my favorite summer meal. He cooked the best chicken. Slightly charred, juicy, never overcooked. Just the right amount of salt and pepper. Why anyone thought they had to do the southern style of buttermilk soaked, breaded, fried chicken I could never understand. It is still the very best way to cook chicken in my book. I drool just thinking about it.

Larry doesn't like the careful monitoring of chicken although he cooks it just as well as my dad did. He is a red meat man. And can he cook a steak! Oh, wow! I rarely buy one when we are out. His is just as good, and often, better.

But corn roasted in the husk on a grill, or in the coals is magnificent. As a child I was blessed with the experience of fresh corn. A favorite childhood memory is stopping at a farm stand and asking for a dozen ears of corn, which was then obligingly cut in the fields and sold to us. Fresh corn! There is nothing as sweet. Within a couple of hours it was steaming on the table. Butter dripping off the corn and running down my elbows, a bit of salt. It was like sugar on stick!

The best part of summer in Pennsylvania is the abundance of farm stands selling corn cut just that morning.

So tonight, after spending a perfect day, (chores...done, manicure...pleasure, reading outside on the patio...delight) I had dinner fit for the gods.

Steak perfectly seasoned and cooked, fresh corn on the cob and a glass of merlot to wash it down. I am still floating in a mellow mood and feeling like I have experienced heaven on earth.

It is days like this that remind me what true riches and blessings are.