Right, there was a holiday weekend back there. We were still dragging from Anthrocon going into the weekend, so keeping things laid-back was definitely on the menu. On Friday night, roho and genet stopped by and we made fajitas, then just hung out. Saturday was a lovely day of relaxing, then Roho, Genet, and linnaeus came over and we made steaks Argentinean style. OMG SO GOOD! This is a method described in the latest issue of Cook’s Illustrated: you coat the steaks lightly with a salt/cornstarch mixture, then place then in the freezer for 30 minutes. You build a hotter-than-heck charcoal fire and put a couple of wood chunks around the perimeter. Then you season the steaks with pepper and put them on the grill, 2-3 minutes per side, flipping twice. They came off perfectly rare/medium-rare. Oh, wow! Those were excellent – a nicely browned crust and suffused with hickory smoke. So good.

Sunday was another day of lazing about in the morning, then chanur2000 came over and he and takaza went to work reconciling Anthrocon’s finances. As they did this, I caught a ride from Roho & Genet down to justincheetah and calapurr‘s for their “Red White and Gin” party. It was an awesome party – great food, tasty drinks, shameful performances on Rock Band, and the evening was capped off by watching the town’s fireworks from their back deck. Awesome. I was also quite pleased that the gazpacho I made seemed to go over well. Since a couple of folks asked for it, here’s the recipe