Happy belated 4th of July (and a preview of what's to come...)

Hope everyone had a fantastic 4th of July weekend!  With Monday being the holiday, it was nice to have the weekend to celebrate and it was a pretty jammed packed one.  I'm a girl who loves All-American holidays whether it's Thanksgiving, Election Day (when you have a degree in Poli Sci you count this as a holiday!!!) and most importantly 4th of July so I was pretty jazzed to kick back and celebrate.  I've spent the 4th in memorable places all over the east coast whether we were at the Cape, on a Navy ship watching fireworks in the middle of Hudson River in NYC or enjoying a gin and tonic out of a nalgene bottle on the Capital lawn.  This year we went local and started off the 4th of July festivities on Sunday night at the Garofalo's beach house in Milford where you have a prime view of the fireworks that people shoot off over Deerfield Beach that are always spectacular.  Even though it wasn't the most All-American menu, Marc served up homemade pizzas on the grill that were so phenomenal that you didn't miss the classic picnic fare at all.  I have to say this...I've made homemade pizzas on the grill before but Marc's whole operation in doing his makes me look like a complete amateur between the array of toppings that go on, the different combinations that he comes up with, and just the pure business that he goes about in doing it where before you know it there have been 20 pizzas whipped up in no time where I on the other hand would have been lying under the grill in absolute exhaustion.  I'm totally inspired to now to have a large grilled pizza party later in the summer at my own house but here are some pics from the evening to get you hungry:

a small section of the toppings line-up

home-grown arugula with ricotta



grilled zucchini

artichoke, grilled onions and olives

I had to work on the actual holiday but made it home in time to partake in the festivities at Suzanne and Noah's (another reason why it's fantastic to be friends with your neighbors).  As always the food they had was great and the bar is top notch (the gin and tonics were very much needed!!!) but the real highlight was the fireworks that go shot off right on Franklin Avenue.  Noah's friend Richie brought quite the display of fireworks with him and we aren't talking about the usual backyard tricks that people usually have.  These were massive and at times borderline nerve-racking but it was an awesome show to celebrate the holiday. 





Now it's time to recover from the weekend....