A taste of it

You can feel the change. I wore pajamas to bed last night, and when Alex left for work early this morning, I pulled on another quilt. Sunrise on it's still summer, though. There are still green beans coming in from the garden and there's corn at the markets and the other day we had a classic Cape Cod lobster dinner. 

It was a nice way to pretend, for a few hours, that we're on vacation here. That we're not up early and late and secretly, in a wistful way, counting down the hours til Labor Day. We boiled lobsters and corn and steamed green beans with butter, and then we made a big dish of potato salad. We had beer and chocolate chip cookies with vanilla ice cream for dessert, and when we were done we went straight to bed without doing a single dish. 

It was magnificent.

The next day we had three lobsters left over, and today my sister and I picked the meat and made a top-notch lobster salad. It was a good way to keep the feeling going: leftover melted butter from dipping, a touch of mayo and lemon juice, and a small red onion, sliced thin. We are eating it as I type—Sally's flinging onions from her high chair, Anna's stealing mouthfuls as she clears the dishes, and I'm taking bites in between sentences. We are not, after all, on vacation. Still, it's awfully nice to get a taste of it.

LOBSTER SALAD WITH BUTTER, MAYO & RED ONION

I like my lobster salad simple. This version pairs particularly well with sliced tomatoes and cucumbers and a nice tangy vinaigrette. 

2 and 1/2 cups chopped lobster meat (from about three 1 and 1/4 to 1 and 1/2 pound bugs)

1 small red onion, finely chopped

2 tablespoons melted butter (we used the leftover from dipping lobster meat when we ate them whole the day before)

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

a squeeze of lemon juice

a pinch of sea salt

Toss together all the ingredients until the lobster is evenly coated with dressing and well mixed with the onions. Serve at once.