Taking it Outside

Summer ads often feature "outdoor rooms" for entertaining and family enjoyment, complete with fancy grilling equipment, stone or brick fireplaces, and maybe some teak tables outfitted with teak trimmed umbrellas, all placed on spacious brick patios or pristine wooden decks, freshly built and stained, sporting perfect planters with flowers over-flowing--and perhaps even a water fountain installation. The owners in the photos are never swatting bees off their honey-lime glazed salmon or shooing flies or mosquitoes from their mojitos.

All this looks wonderful to me until my always-gloomy realism kicks in and I think about how few beautiful, bug-free and moderate days there really are here in West Michigan, when I am not working late and could actually entertain or even enjoy the deck myself. This summer we have had a record number of 90 plus degree days and I just want to stay inside and stop sweating when I have some time to relax and enjoy. I think about how leaves fall and stain my deck; how things are blown about in the windstorms. The pads on the chairs eventually get mildewed if you leave them in the rain and every surface needs to be wiped before use--a whole other "room" to clean!

Sadly, my deck needs power washing and heck, it needs to be torn down. It currently functions only as a plant nursery. It features two Weber charcoal grills, but it has been too hot to cook inside or out.

The novelty of and delight in dining in the great outdoors will forever be for me a romantic notion, residing in dormancy most of the time, somewhere down in my soul, established there since childhood and impossible to eradicate. I love the natural world and still hear my mother's claim that everything tastes better outside. Sometimes I wonder, especially with all the smells in the country, whether that was even remotely true. I seem to remember conducting experiments: I would taste say, a carrot, indoors and then run outside to see if it tasted any different outside. I don't recall any definitive results, but I wanted to believe.

My family had many meals at this picnic table--this photograph looks like it's from the late 50's, a rare color photo likely taken by Aunt Lila (my Dad's single sister) on a visit from Bellflower, California. The space was fenced in, with a border of shrubs and trees. There was nothing fancy on the farm, but my mother always spread a tablecloth and prepared generous plates of farm-raised food such as steak, just-picked sweet corn and fresh sliced tomatoes. There was always a cat or two and sometime a dog around, hoping to catch some spilled morsels of food.

We also would sometimes pack a picnic for a family dinner at a nearby lake. I also recall other family parties and reunions in the parks. Without air-conditioning available, it was more likely an effort to catch a breeze and escape the hot kitchen than a love of the aesthetic of dining in the fresh out-of-doors.

However, in central Florida, where I frequently visit, outdoor dining/entertaining spaces make a lot more sense. They have way more nice weather! I have plane tickets for latter October, having previously experienced exceptional weather at that time of the year. I have "taken it outside" many times, with pleasure, both in my daughter's lovely pool-side yard, complete with burbling fountain, and at local restaurants.

An old pink (dog) towel hot pad awaits the hot paella pan 

On one visit I recall we dined out on the (closed off) street on Lincoln Road (www.lincolnroad.org) in Miami--gourmet dining with all the amenities in the street outside the restaurants, with comfortable evening temps.

On another visit we enjoyed dinner in perfect, bug-less October temperatures, overlooking Lake Eola.(http://www.cityoforlando.net/fpr/html/parks/lakeeola.htm)

 I have documented in previous year's posts, other wonderful meals eaten poolside at my daughter's house. They eat outside all the time!

Paella simmering by the pool

But here in West Michigan, it hasn't worked out for me. This year has been the worst! I have enjoyed lunch on a deck once (thanks, Joanne) and on a porch with a fan once. We had a nice time one night in March in that early heat wave eating outside at a downtown tavern. But mostly, outdoor dining has been unthinkable. I can't remember the last temperate day. And the husband doesn't understand why anyone would want to eat outside. Ever.

He grew up in a brick bungalow in the Chicago area--with a small and simple backyard with no picnic table. He attended camps and did all that boy scout or cadet stuff as a youth, but it must not have impressed.

 Our family camped a bit when our children were young--but it was primarily a way of saving money and experiencing something different, and not for the mere pleasure of doing so. One year we planned a 3-week trek to California in our full-sized Chevy conversion van, enjoying several exceptional camp sites. We also took a camping trip with a Mt. Rushmore destination. One of the nicest sites was free and located on the river in Pierre, South Dakota. Another private and pleasant campground was near the rim of the Grand Canyon. We had purchased a bottle of Kahlua in a brief excursion across the border from San Diego. I admit to sharing some sips with the kids while sitting around the picnic table after dinner, in a setting of clean sand and red rocks, with no other campers nearby--rather idyllic, by my recollection. Marissa recalls having had a few too many nips of the Kahlua...

I have more stories of disastrous camping experiences--thunderstorms, bears in the campground (Smoky Mountains), and mushy mac and cheese made by the husband that definitely did not taste better outdoors. At that lovely rim-of-the-canyon camping site (we were probably a mile away) the husband had nightmares of the children walking over the edge of the canyon in the dark. We cancelled our second night there. One family member did not watch the glorious sunrise over the canyon the next morning. It is a terrifying place for someone afraid of heights! And now they have added a glass-bottomed platform extending out over the canyon! But all that is another story.

Long story short, I have adjusted to eating inside. I work outside in the gardens most days that aren't in the mid-90's. I am happy to eat in a cool, bug-free and wind-free environment. I enjoy watching the news while I eat.

But part of me still clings with nostalgia to the notion that it is taking it to another level to dine outside.

After enduring so much in this, the hottest summer ever, my favorite season--FALL--is on my mind. Maybe I will capture a few truly wonderful moments outside in the crisp air of autumn--perhaps even with food: a cup of Colombian coffee on my old stained (and not in a good way) deck might be delightfully aromatic; or maybe some butternut squash soup will taste a little more complex if I eat it on the deck of my aunt's cottage while viewing the Big Lake on a cool late-September day; or perhaps lunch with friends at one of my favorite local restaurants (the one with a very nice name) that has optional outdoor spaces will seem like a bit of heaven after this summer from hell. And then, I have those plane tickets to Florida at the end of October...