The lake

There is something about the lake that I closely associate with food. By the lake, I mean my family's lake home in northern Wisconsin, where I spent Labor Day weekend. By food, I mean just that, but particularly the consumption of it: sandwiches, cheeses, wine, dessert, all in quantities generally larger than I'd normally ingest, yet somehow I never feel upset with myself. The association isn't such a mystery. I come from a family of cooks and eaters, "foodies" before the word was cool. Just a group of women (and men) who enjoy food and the preparation of it beyond the daily task of putting a meal on the table.


As you can imagine, this tends to make holiday meals pretty spectacular, but it's the simple (and sometimes not quite so), no-pressure meals at the lake that are the best. Cheese is plated and wine served generously at five, a meal cooked prior to arrival reaheated or a grill fired up at seven, served with a fresh salad and more wine shortly thereafter. And dessert. Always dessert. Stomachs full and bodies tired, few of us last much beyond the ten o'clock news.

Lunch has a tendency to come from the Eagle River Bakery, unless leftovers abound. The bakery specializes in sandwiches; nothing fancy, just a variety of combinations of deli meats and cheeses, all named after northwoods animals. Choose your animal, your bread (freshly baked), dressings, and a cookie. We generally call in our order ahead of time, picking up bags of the styrofoam containers, each complete with a sandwich, pickle, rippled chips, and the ever-ubiquitous cookie -- cranberry nut is the house favorite. There may or may not actually be anything that spectacular about the sandwiches themselves, but the fact that they're good (an unfortunate rarity in the northwoods), readily available, and are generally eaten on the boat, elevates them to a level beyond where they might otherwise reside.


Food is really only as good as those you share it with, and can always be improved by your surroundings. Here's to the lake.