This Week: Summer's Not Over Yet

Dixon went back to school this week...but summer's not completely over just yet! Here's a quick report on this week's exploits, starting from the top left and moving clockwise:

• Blog Candy: Last week, Cail texted me about these Chimes mango and ginger chews. For obvious reasons. I ordered some right away and am happy to say that I think they are delicious - all chewy and spicy with just a little sweet mango. However, all my friends think they're gross. Which is fine. More for me.
• Spice & Smoke: On Sunday, we had some friends over and Cooper smoked a batch of bacon-wrapped, cheese-stuffed jalapenos. We have a lot of jalapenos. Our garden is pepper central. And these...well, they were the best he's ever made. Not overly spicy and just really smoky and nice.
• Fancy French Poulet: Last night, I made this House Beautiful recipe for Chicken Veronique. It was super quick and easy and I would definitely do it again. However, I don't think it's necessary to open a bottle of sparkling wine, unless you're going to drink the rest with the meal. Regular old white would do just fine.
• Salsa!: We have more tomatoes than we know what to do with...so I have made several batches of fresh tomato salsa (it's also a good way to use some of our overabundance of jalapenos). I started with this Alton Brown recipe, tweaking and subbing - I didn't do any roasting, for example, and instead of anchos, I used dried cayennes left over from our garden last year.
• Shoo-Fly: We had such a good, spontaneous dinner at Shoo-fly on Saturday night. It was just the three of us and we sat downstairs in the diner space. Dixon drank tons of birch beer, I had killer fried chicken, and Cooper had a really solid pork barbecue entree. Plus, a couple great drinks (the one pictured above had bourbon and bitters...but it wasn't overly bourbony or bitter). It's settled into itself, I think, in a way that's really smart for the neighborhood. Which is nice.

This weekend...summer's swan song at the beach. There will be softshells. Among other things...