After seven wonderful days on Cape Cod, I’m back to the real world. I feel so blessed to have spent so much time with my amazing family. We had beautiful weather (only one rainy day!) and avoided any great white shark sightings. We laughed a lot (at some points, too much) and ate very, very well.

Above is my favorite meal from this past week (which says a lot considering lobster was on the menu 3 times, 3 ways). This was dinner on our second night: surf and turf of salmon and steak, grilled eggplant and zucchini, and pasta salad. The pasta salad contained tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion, leftover corn, and fresh edamame (not much, since shelling it from the pods became too laborious very quickly) dressed in olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Everything else was pretty simple: the steak was seasoned with salt and pepper, the salmon with olive oil and lemon juice. The veggies benefited from a variety of dried herbs and spices found in the pantry of the rental home. It all came together beautifully. This may be the most stunning plate of food I’ve ever had the pleasure of eating (or photographing).

But surf and turf wasn’t the only beautiful plate of food we ate…

From left to right: 1) gin & tonic: the perfect summer vacation cocktail, 2) leftover lobster round 1: lobster rolls and broccoli coleslaw, 3) Matt’s famous wings with sweet chili sauce, 4) omelette bar on our rainy day, 5) leftover lobster round 2: lobster salad burger with avocado, 6) 12 pounds of fresh Chatham steamers.

A few of these recipes will make their way to CLK (particularly the broccoli coleslaw and Matt’s famous wings) – stay tuned!