a summer 2022 bucket list

greetings from your favorite (?) internet list-maker! i was making my own personal list of hopes and dreams for this particular summer, as i'm wont to do, and thought i'd share some ideas with you. obviously, many involve food. what are your summer goals??

p.s. if you missed this year's rolling summer playlist, here you go! i'll be adding to it through august.

1. go to an outdoor concert (duh)

i've had tickets to def leppard, motley crüe, poison, and joan jett for like 2+ years now, so hopefully that will come to pass if nobody dies before then?

2. take a roll of film on a disposable camera

hilariously, the youths are very into these again and as much as it embarrasses me to say, its resurgence has caused me to get over my pre-teen flashbacks and reawakened the urge to give one a whirl again.

3. eat a good-ass crab cake. no hockey pucks!

4. buy ingredients for a meal at a farmers market

5. see an outdoor movie at the boston harbor hotel, my favorite boston summer tradition (and maybe a drive-in movie, too)

6. find a new (but preferably vintage) dining room table 

7. pick strawberries 

about to go do this after i hit publish on this post!

8. drink on a rooftop

9. swim in a stranger's pool again

10. go to the brimfield antiques fair

11. eat the arlington diner counter

12. read 52 books

13. drink a root beer float

i technically already did this, but i see more in my future.

14. take a day trip to provincetown

15. make frozen brandy old-fashioneds (made frozen whiskey sours instead, close enough)

16. write 32 pieces

17. make a (non-microwave) s'more

18. take a dance class

19. successfully grow a vegetable or herb

20. skinny dip

21. make "my" smoked salmon pasta 

 

i've been making it for 10 years and it is one of the most perfect things i've ever tasted. pro tip: sub capers for the asparagus.

22. walk to magnificent muffin & bagel for a bagel with cream cheese and crazy-flavored iced coffee

eating my bagel and sipping my caramel-nut iced coffee as we speak!

23. have a solo patio drink and meal at a restaurant and write or journal

24. go roller skating

25. make alison roman's brown butter potato salad

26. take and post an instagram reel of a particularly fun day

27. make 4  2 summer dessert recipes (ideas: ambrosia salad, strawberry crumble, citrusy cheesecake, lemon sponge pie with pineapple)

28. have at least one beach day

i typically go to walden pond in concord because it's extremely close and kinda quaint, even if it's not the BEST.

things i want to go back in time to see

while watching rock 'n roll high school last weekend (why didn't anybody tell me it was on hulu?!) i started thinking for the millionth time about how it would have been so cool to see the ramones live in their heyday. and then i started thinking about the other things/events/places i would have loved to go back in time and experience, midnight in paris-style. here's my short list:

bands/artists i'd see:

• dead boys—specifically, this performance of my favorite punk song of all time at CBGB in 1977, in which stiv bators blows his nose in a piece of bologna and eats it:

• nirvana
• alice in chains (the o.g. lineup, obviously, with layne)
• blind melon
• MC5:

• the stooges
• the beatles
• elvis
• new york dolls
• the kinks
• prince
• jimi hendrix
• led zeppelin (watching this at least once a month on my apple tv in the dark is as close as i'm going to get.):

• oasis
• queen

historical stuff:

• basically everything in the bible to see what REALLY happened 
• the first olympics in greece
• the first thanksgiving 
• an original shakespearean play
• the boston tea party/boston in colonial times

• the signing of the declaration of independence
• one of marie antoinette's parties 

• a speakeasy in the '20s
• this place that my mom used to go to as a teenager in syracuse in the '60s that i think about ALL THE TIME, called the "dingaling lounge." every table was numbered and had a phone, and the whole idea was that if you spied a cute guy/gal at table 6, you could ring them up and start chatting. brilliant! genius! obsessed!
• the original woodstock
• haight-ashbury, san francisco during the summer of love in 1967

• studio 54 
• the isabella stewart gardner museum heist
• the sunset strip in the '80s 

if you had a time machine, where would you go and what would you do?

around town: harbour nights at loews portofino bay hotel

friday night combined just a few of my favorite things: food, wine, good company, a swanky hotel, and did i say wine? i had the pleasure of attending an event called harbour nights at the loews portofino bay  hotel near universal studios with some lovely ladies, and it was a great time.

as we entered, we were each given a wine glass and set free to run wild amongst a bunch of food and wine stations. the individually-sized plates, which included grilled flat iron steak/marsala risotto cake/mushroom ragu, olive oil & herb poached salmon, and ravioli with ricotta/spinach/brown butter sage porcini sauce and black truffle peelings (whoa) were incredible and i had no shame about scarfing down the entrees. and then...DESSERT! triple chocolate gelato and valentine's day-themed vanilla panna cotta with raspberry coulis, take me away. 

there was live music, which included a jazz band, cover band, and opera singers. it really felt like an awesome wedding, minus the drama. they even had free starbucks coffee to cap off the evening which i totally appreciated because i'm old now. of course, i went with decaf. if you're in the orlando area, or visiting, i highly recommend you attend this awesome event! check out some pictures below.