Snacking Dinner On The Deck

There are some meals you cook, and there are some meals you shop for. I'm not talking about takeout, but rather the kind of snacking dinner that requires just a bit of chopping before being arranged on the plate and carried to the table.

While I enjoy this sort of meal all year round, it definitely reaches its apogee as a warm weather meal on the deck.

On my way home from work I stopped at the grocery store and picked up a baguette, a small round of goat brie, a bag of arugula, and, from the liquor store, a bottle of rose. At home we already had plum tomatoes (acceptable, if not amazing, even in April) and an amazing spreadable smoked sausage (from Wursthaus Schmidtz), plus some basics: basil, lemon, olive oil, honey, coarse grained mustard, cornichons.

The tomatoes and basil chopped together with salt and pepper became bruschetta topping;

lemon, olive, oil, honey, and salt and pepper turned into salad dressing for arugula.

Everything else was just plated nicely: cornichons in a small bowl,

brie and sausage on a board,

bread torn into chunks (I left the bread knife downstairs and couldn't be bothered to run down for it),

wine poured into my glass. Voila: dinner.

Sometimes it really is that easy. No recipes need apply. And if the food weren't enough, the view certainly was pretty great:

I love spring.