Memorial Day 2026

Looking through previous posts of our Memorial Day celebrations, they have been much bigger productions. In the past, we would invite a crowd for holidays and I would really cook up a storm. More and more in recent years, we prefer smaller and quieter, quality over quantity.

Grilled Chicken with Chimichurri and Baked Cream Corn
with Bacon and Green Chiles

This year, we decided to celebrate quietly, just the two of us, by cooking something a bit out of the usual and sharing a bottle of wine.

Usual these days means that if it takes more than fifteen minutes to prep, it probably is not going on the menu—I only spend hours in the kitchen a very few times each year. I suppose this is all a direct backlash to the restaurant days when I would spend countless hours cooking, at least 40 of my 80- to 90-hour week. And without doubt, this is a reflection that my priorities have changed: being in the kitchen is still rewarding, but spending time with people, especially Ann, is even more important.

In the days leading up to Memorial Day, Ann had grilled chicken on her mind. When I went to the store to get a package of chicken thighs, I also happened across the first fresh corn of the year and so a menu came together quickly, while standing in the produce section.

I have always relied on raw ingredients to help me prepare my menus. In the restaurant days, when I would find myself with little inspiration, going to the farmers market and putting hands on ingredients would usually do the trick. Or, on non-market days, walking into the restaurant pantry and looking through the hundreds of ingredients—15 types of rice alone—would spur my creative juices.

Grilled Chicken Thighs

Sunday, I skinned and boned out the chicken thighs, saving the bones and trim in the freezer to add to my next pot of stock. Then I made a quick marinade of ground cumin, salt, pepper, a touch of Chimayo chile, minced garlic, and minced cilantro stems with just enough oil to make it into a paste. The chicken marinated overnight in the refrigerator for grilling on Monday.

Baked Creamed Corn

The creamed corn was my idea and response to seasonal vegetables. Ann wanted something quasi-decadent with the chicken: she had been angling all week for risotto or Israeli couscous. I just was not in a rice or pasta mood, especially in light of fresh corn.

I tried to keep the corn as light as possible, yet still have it feel decadent. To that end, I fried a bit of smoked pork shoulder to render a touch of grease; it is much less fatty than bacon. To this, I added the kernels from four ears of corn and two Anaheim chiles, roasted, peeled, and seeded. I use a propane torch to roast chiles; my technique is posted here.

Two tablespoons of flour went in next and cooked for a minute or two to cook off the floury taste. Then I added a bit of chicken stock, call it a half a cup, to create a fake cream base (traditionally, I would have omitted the flour and cooked down heavy cream until thick) and then thickened it a touch more with grated Cotija cheese, a big handful.

Between the pork shoulder and the Cotija, the corn needed no additional salt. To finish the dish, I scattered a bare handful of grated jack cheese on top and put the pan in a hot oven until it browned. That's my quick take on a lighter creamed corn.

While the corn was browning, I made a batch of chimichurri, because, grilled meat deserves chimichurri. Chimi is so easy to make that I do not use a recipe. I posted a step-by-step here if you need photos and a recipe. The basic premise is to add a bunch each of destemmed cilantro and Italian parsley to the food processor along with a chopped shallot and a couple cloves of minced garlic, a teaspon of Greek oregano, a half a teaspoon of crushed red pepper flakes, and let it rip. When well blended, add a good slug of red wine vinegar and twice that much extra virgin olive oil. After it comes together, season to taste. After a couple of batches, you will find what you like: thinner, thicker, more acidic, milder, etc.

Memorial Day 2025: Glen Manor Vineyards

Many months ago, when we learned that Ellie was getting married on Memorial Day weekend, we let Jeff and Kelly know that we were going to be in the area. Although we text now and again, we had not seen them in the flesh in coming up on 8 years.

Gorgeous Memorial Day at Glen Manor Tasting Room

Our plan was always to return to Northern Virginia after the wedding in spite of the vast amounts of Memorial Day traffic. In our last minute preparations, Kelly let us know that the tasting room would be open (it's generally closed on Mondays) for a members-only event and that we would get together after the tasting room closed.

From Richmond, we drove to the winery arriving in early afternoon after having taken back roads from Richmond to avoid all the traffic on I-95 and I-66. Although it was a gloomy day for most of the drive, as we neared Front Royal, the clouds fled the scene and it became a gloriously beautiful day. The clear skies would prove to be fleeting, but for one afternoon, the weather was perfect.

Because we could not check in until 3:00 and could not get in touch with the B&B owner to see if it were possible to check in early, we decided to go by the winery and just hang out until 3:00. After that, we would get situated in our room and then return for the after party around 5:30.

Enthusiastic Greeting from Kelly

Recovering From a Long Wedding Weekend

One of the things that we always seem to end up doing after hours is blind tasting and this visit was no exception. Once we arrived, Jeff, newly showered after a hard day in the vineyard, pulled out a bagged white that proved to be a Fiano, a wine that stumped everyone. We were tasting it as the last few customers left the tasting room.

One of the last customers to leave was a mutual friend, Jason Bise, who was one of my most valued wine reps in the restaurant business. We caught up for a few minutes and I found out that he is now manager of the Purcellville Knead Wine (pizza and wine) store, an offshoot of the original store in Middleburg. He brought a wine for Jeff to taste and left it for us, bagged, on the counter.

Jeff's palate has always been better than mine and he nailed the light-bodied, high acid, lower tannin, lightly extracted red as Nerello Mascalese, a grape I have tasted only a few times in four decades. It proved to be an Etna Rosso (90% Nerello Mascalese, 10% Nerello Cappuccio). I could only say that it was an Old World wine and not Nebbiolo and not Pinot Noir. Nerello reminds me of Pinot Noir in many respects but also of Frappato, lightly colored and fruity, with good acid. The fruits are on the lighter spectrum: cherry, cranberry, and strawberry.

A little later, Jeff returned with a bagged red with tons of cherry fruit that I recognized as Nebbiolo, but not a classic Langhe. Unbagging showed it to be a Valtellina Superiore from Lombardia. Valtellina is the northernmost winegrowing region in Italy and there Nebbiolo does not reach its potential as it does further south in the Piemonte.

Drinking other expressions of Nebbiolo has made me realize how special the wines from Piemonte are. And drinking lots of Piemonte Nebbiolo, my favorite wine over the past five years, has made me realize how much I prefer the more delicate Barbaresco and Langhe Nebbiolo to the more robust and powerful Barolo.

Kelly's Spread

She Also Made Chocolate-Pistachio Bars

Kelly, bless her, brought out a vast tray of noshes that we were not expecting; she always goes overboard. We all migrated outside to enjoy the beautiful day. Once customers left, we got to catch up with our friend Keri, who now lives with her husband in the Silicon Valley, and who had come in for the long weekend. Keri and her father were customers at my restaurant and she also worked the tasting room at Glen Manor.

As we sat around outside shooting the breeze until 8:30, the rabbits came out to eat on the lawn and the sun and clouds made great shadows on the vineyards and Shenandoah National Park behind the vineyards. Towards sunset, the sun shone like a spotlight on the vineyards, a magical sight. It was getting dark as we left, a full hour earlier than in Oregon, something that should not have surprised me, but did.

 

Song Sparrow Serenaded Constantly

Keri and Denise

Telling Another Dumb Joke!

Once Again in One of My Happy Places

Memorial Day 2024

Another Memorial Day is in the books. Now that we are starting to have some spring weather, Ann has whipped our courtyard patio into shape and has been looking forward to entertaining out there. So we invited Michelle and Andreas and Jen and Will over for a little cookout and relaxation.

Ann Worked Really Hard to Set Up our Outdoor Space
After a Long Winter

It really didn't take long to put together a menu once we decided that the feature would be ribs. When I look back at our Memorial Day posts, they always feature something on the grill, late May typically signifying the beginning of our outdoor grilling season. The menu we arrived at for this Memorial Day was:

Cannellini and Roasted Red Pepper "Hummus"

Dry-Rubbed Pork Spareribs

Barbeque Sauce

Chimichurri

Potato Salad with Sour Cream and Bacon

Grilled Asparagus

Strawberry-Lime-Chipotle Sorbet

I decided to start with a simple gluten-free appetizer dip for Michelle, a white bean and roasted red pepper "hummus" to be served with almond meal crackers, cucumbers, and sweet peppers. And then there would be pork spareribs for which Ann really wanted me to make chimichurri and potato salad. I wanted to grill some asparagus, because grill. And then Ann asked me to make a sorbet for dessert, and so using really the only fruit that is ripe right now, I made a strawberry-lime-chipotle sorbet as the finale to our dinner. 

When you add in making the barbeque sauce and the dry rub that I call "butt rub," that's a fair amount of cooking. So I took my usual approach of spreading it over three days so as not to overwhelm myself, but mostly so I could do the dishes in shifts and not kill myself washing half the kitchen in the hour before our guests arrived. That hour we reserve for relaxation, showers, and a pre-game glass of wine as we await our guests. 

Saturday, I made the fake hummus, a batch of Carolina "mop sauce" that would be the basis for the barbeque sauce, and a batch of dry rub. The mop sauce recipe is at the bottom of this post; you'll find the recipe is outlined here for the spice mix for the ribs that I call "butt rub." In addition, I made a super simple batch of the white bean and red pepper "hummus," the recipe for which also appears at the bottom of this post.

Vinegar and Pepper Carolina "Mop Sauce"

In my world of pork barbeque, very much influenced by East Carolina barbeque, when you put a hog on the smoker to go low and slow, you baste it (using a mop, hence the name) from time to time with a thin and tangy vinegar, salt, and hot pepper sauce. Mop sauce traditionally contains very little sugar which tends to burn with long hours in the smoker. My recipe appears at the end of this post.

First thing Sunday, I made one of the two more tedious dishes, the base for the sorbet. The tedious bit is spending 20 minutes deseeding the sorbet base, a step that is somewhat optional, but hello, I'm a chef! About the only ripe fresh fruit this time of year is strawberries. Because these strawberries were not supremely ripe and tasty, I decided to trick them up with a bit of lime and a bit of chipotle as a surprise. I put spice in a lot of my sorbets; it is both unconventional and interesting to taste a bit of a fruity sorbet only moments later for the spice to creep in on the back of the palate. My recipe is at the bottom of this post as well.

Deseeding the Strawberry Purée

While deseeding the sorbet base, I brought a pan of salted water to a boil and blanched three bunches of asparagus until just barely tender, about five minutes. I stopped the cooking in cold water and put the asparagus in the fridge to await the grill the next afternoon. When I am grilling asparagus, I almost always blanch it so that all it needs to do on the grill is get beautiful grill marks and a bit of smoke. If asparagus has any thickness at all, you risk charring the outside on the grill in an attempt to get it cooked all the way through. Precooking eliminates this risk.

Next I was on to the potato salad that Ann requested. While a potato salad still warm from the just-boiled potatoes has its appeal, I like to make potato salad the day before so it, like the sorbet base, can repose in the refrigerator and have its flavors mingle and become more pronounced. My potato salad recipe also appears at the bottom of this post.

Potato Salad with Sour Cream, Bacon, Green Onions, and Parsley

Monday I made the other really tedious dish: chimichurri. It is only tedious because when I make it for friends, I like to destem the herbs and cut them by hand. Blitzing everything in the food processor makes short work of the sauce, and I wouldn't blame you for doing it, but the texture does suffer. I have previously published my chimichurri recipe; Monday I made a double batch.

Parsley and Cilantro Flavor the Red Wine Vinegar and Olive Oil Base

Thirty Minutes Later, Destemmed Herbs Ready to Chop

Chimichurri with Hand-Chopped Herbs

Soon after tidying up from making the chimichurri, I set about the ribs, because I wanted them to sit in their coating of spices for a couple hours before starting to cook. I do not have a smoker, given that our only outdoor space is a confined courtyard where the smoke would be unwelcome. So, I opt for cooking my ribs in the oven and then finishing them on the grill outside.

My ribs were the three-pack from Costco, not gonna lie. I don't have a good pork supplier here in Oregon. After skinning them (pulling the silverskin layer off the backside using a towel for grip), I cut each of the three racks into three single-serving pieces. I do this because sparerib racks are typically longer than my half sheet trays and I do not want any drips from overhanging racks hitting the bottom of the oven. It might be sacrilegious, but not having to deep clean my oven trumps pristine racks of ribs.

 

Ribs "Marinating" in Dry Rub

When I dry-roast pork in the oven, I almost always place the pork on a bed of onion slabs. The onions add a little moisture to the pork, they keep the pork off the bottom of the pan in the same way that roasting it on a rack would do, and they are a super-tasty bonus that I planned to use later on in making my barbeque sauce.

After standing for a couple of hours to let the dry rub penetrate a bit, the ribs went into the oven. I planned a 3-step cooking process: covered to cook the ribs through, uncovered to develop the bark, and finally, mopped with sauce and re-covered in dry rub and onto the grill for a final char.

I covered the sheet trays with aluminum foil and sealed them tightly before putting them in the oven. These ribs were really thick so they ended up taking about three hours in a slow oven (275F) to get to the point where a toothpick would easily pierce them. At this point, I removed the ribs to clean sheet trays and put them back into the oven for another 45 minutes to develop a nice crust, a nice bark.

At this point, I turned off the oven and let the ribs sit until I was ready to grill them, at which point, I brushed them with sauce, re-coated them in dry rub, and put them on a hot grill for about five minutes to caramelize the sugar in the dry rub and to reheat the ribs.

Appetizer: Cannellini and Roasted Red Pepper "Hummus"

Feast is Ready!

Three Rib Accompaniments
Chimichurri (left), Dry Rub (top), Onion BBQ Sauce (right)

I'm not a big fan of barbeque sauce in that I often think that it obscures rather than complements the hard work of the pitmaster. Accordingly, I always serve a little more dry rub on the side to dust on the barbeque, if guests desire. As I mentioned earlier, Ann is a big fan of chimichurri (honestly, who is not?) and asked me to make a batch of this salsa verde to go with the ribs. And recognizing that others may indeed want barbeque sauce with their ribs, I made a complementary sauce.

This sauce I made quickly in the blender. When I uncovered the ribs, I separated the onions from the liquid in the bottom of the roasting pans. I put these meltingly tender dry rub-flavored onions, three very large ones in total, into my blender. I added three-quarters of the mop sauce (3/4 of a pint) to the blender and gave it a couple quick pulses. Then after defatting the liquid from the roasting pan, I put enough of it into the blender to yield a sauce of the consistency I wanted, the consistency that you see in the photo above. I left a decent amount of texture in the onions.

Jen, Goofing!

Somebody Must Have Told a Good Joke

Will Holding Court

Recipes

Cannellini and Roasted Red Pepper "Hummus"

Once upon a time, I threw a similar dip together using items on hand in my pantry, and the idea stuck. This is a ratio recipe: 4 parts white beans to one part roasted red peppers.

2 15.5-ounce cans of cannellini, drained

8 ounces roasted red peppers, piquillos preferably

two cloves of finely minced garlic

half a teaspoon of Kosher salt

a quarter teaspoon of smoked paprika

one tablespoon of sherry vinegar

two tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

Put all the ingredients in a food processor and smooth it out as much, Season it and serve, or refrigerate it for some hours to improve the flavor. After it warms up a bit, taste it and re-season as necessary.

Carolina "Mop Sauce" for Barbeque

Here's my classic vinegar sauce. I roughly respect the recipe, but I always make it to taste. This makes roughly a pint, plenty of mop for several shoulders or many racks. Traditionally in eastern North Carolina, the peppers used would be crushed dried red peppers or ground cayenne and often there's a touch of ketchup for color and a bit of sweetness. I use the peppers I have on hand (there's no ketchup in my house) which tends to be Huy Fong sambal oelek (crushed red jalapeños) and Huy Fong sriracha. Also typical is brown sugar. I don't happen to use it much and when I do, I buy it in bulk and buy just what I need. But I do have Demerara in the pantry, so I use that.

one pint apple cider vinegar

4 tablespoons of Demerara sugar

2 tablespoons sriracha

2 tablespoons sambal oelek

1 tablespoon Morton's kosher salt

one teaspoon of coarsely ground black pepper

Put all the ingredients into a non-reactive sauce pan and bring them to a gentle boil to integrate the sugar and salt. Once cooled, taste for seasoning.

Strawberry-Lime-Chipotle Sorbet

This recipe will yield about a quart and a half of base, enough for 8 servings. I add all the seasonings to taste. This recipe is best when made the day before and refrigerated overnight so that the lime zest has time to do its job. Although it is not necessary to deseed the sorbet base, it's about 1000% better if you go to the effort (and it is effort) to do it.

4 dry pints of strawberries, hulled and halved

2 limes

1 cup sugar, or to taste

half teaspoon of Kosher salt, optional

1 ounce vodka, optional

two tablespoons chipotle adobo, to taste

While I have specified a cup of sugar or to taste, less sugar is not really an option. A good-textured sorbet (I'm not going into theory and Brix levels here) requires sugar even though the fruit might already taste sweet enough. That's why we balance the sugar with additional acid in the form of citrus (or at times a vinegar such as balsamic).

Also, I use salt to help balance the sweet. You'll never know that the salt is there but what you will notice if you taste a base with and without salt, the salted one will likely taste better. Most good pastry chefs will sneak some salt into their recipes for this reason.

Finally, I add a half a shot of unflavored vodka to the base because that tiny amount of alcohol will help break up the large ice crystals in the sorbet and yield a smoother product. By all means, if you cannot have alcohol, omit it.

Before getting started, zest and juice one of the limes. Reserve the other lime for later.

Place the strawberries, sugar, salt, vodka, lime zest, lime juice, and one tablespoon of chipotle adobo in the blender and blend until smooth. Next, push the base through a fine chinois or strainer to remove the seeds. I use a standard 2-ounce ladle to push the base through my chinois. This, unfortunately, is going to take some time and elbow grease.

Zest the other lime directly into the base and taste it. I decided that I needed the juice of half the reserved lime to balance the sweetness and that I wanted another tablespoon of adobo to bring slightly more heat. Refrigerate the base to macerate, preferably overnight. The lime flavoring from the zest will become much more pronounced after sitting overnight.

Taste and adjust seasoning just before putting the base into the freezer. I deemed that this batch of base needed nothing else, but that it not always the case.

Potato Salad with Sour Cream and Bacon

This potato salad is simple and can be served warm or cold or at room temperature. I like to make potato salad the day before I serve it so that it can repose in the refrigerator and have its flavors mingle and become more pronounced. This recipe starts with a ten-pound sack of potatoes and makes a really big bowl of potato salad, because, who doesn't like to eat too much potato salad? I used parsley and green onions in this batch, but you can use the herbs that suit you. How bad would tarragon and chervil be in this? Not at all bad; it would be wonderful.

10 pounds of small potatoes cut into bite-sized pieces

1 pound of bacon cut into lardons and cooked, grease drained

1 pint of sour cream (or more)

1 bunch of Italian parsley, minced

1 bunch of green onions, sliced (or chives, minced)

salt to taste

Place the potatoes in a large pan, add a tablespoon of salt, and cover with water. Cook, about 20 minutes, until the potatoes are just done. Drain the potatoes and while still warm, transfer to a large bowl. Add the the cooked bacon, sour cream, parsley, and onions or chives. Mix well and season to taste with salt.

You can serve this salad warm and it is wonderful. Or place it in the refrigerator overnight to let the flavors of the herbs and bacon bloom. If you refrigerate it, let it warm a bit and then taste for seasoning. Also, you may want to add more sour cream to make it creamier, though I never do because I am lactose-intolerant.

Memorial Day Dogs

Memorial Day 2020 was pretty subdued at our house, what with the quarantine and social distancing, with plenty of time and peace and quiet to reflect on the true meaning of the day. It wasn't the big cookout that it usually is for us. Still, we managed to grill hot dogs for the first time in years.

Fully Loaded Dog: Mustard, Onions, and Chili

About a month ago, before I lost my job, I finally invested in a propane grill. Before leaving Virginia in 2017, we sold our previous grill to a neighbor. Because finances have been a bit shaky ever since, we've done without a grill. It's been torture ignoring all the neighborhood grill smells over the past couple of years. Truth be told, we've both been salivating for a great grilled hot dog.

I try to get to the grocery store about every ten days or so to limit my exposure to other people and when I was last there, they had a big display of hot dogs from Hill Meat in Pendleton, Oregon. They were labeled Old Fashioned Frankfurters and while they looked pretty decent, we have been deceived by good looking franks before. I took a chance.

Ann and I both lust after a great dog with good flavor and a great snap when you bite in to it. To say that we have been disappointed more times than not is an understatement. On a scale of 1 to 10, these were a good 8. I wanted more seasoning in the dog, more coriander and more white pepper or even spicy paprika. I would buy them again, but they were not enough to halt my search for the ultimate hot dog.

Rippers: Dogs with Real Casings

Annie Ready to Attack Her Dog

We sat out back on the rear patio and ate our hot dogs, while the two real dogs alternated pacing through the garden and begging for some of our hot dogs. While we were out there, I took a few photos. The photos are untouched except for cropping, which is to say that these colors are real.

We planted Earliglow strawberries in the bins below the living wall on the side of our garage, mainly as a way to shade the bins to help preserve moisture, but also because, well, strawberries! We've been eagerly awaiting our crop this year, but as each berry has started to ripen enough to consider picking, it has disappeared. 

Skunks? No, I trenched along the fence and buried hardware cloth 12 inches down to keep those rapacious bastards out. Coon? Could be, but we don't have great coon habitat. Slugs and snails? No trails and no leaf damage. What could it be? And then, as we were sitting out eating our hot dogs, we saw the culprit, perhaps one of two culprits.

Furry Strawberry Thief in Flagrante Delicto

Yellow Grandiflora Rose

Edible Calendula

Campanula: So Purple it Hurts

Westerland: Unimaginable Fragrance

My Favorite: Darlow's Enigma