Enter the first generation of snazzy chairs that were sturdy enough to hold not only our widening bottoms but bottles and glasses fit in the side pouches or tray tables on the  arms. Only a tornado could blow away those new chairs introduced into the leisure market in the 1980s.

They came in their own cases and packed up as small as a full sized beach umbrella. You’d sling the case over your arm and trek uphill or downhill until you settled on your patch of land and began to reassemble them? Sturdy little buggers they were. Taut and tough like an army cot. After low back-breaking sling-ass evening at the beach or Tanglewood, the engineer types helped the non-mechanical people fold and slide the chairs back into its own nifty neat sleeve. They only weighed as much as a few golf clubs, but they weren’t unsightly when not in use like the cheapo, low-tech old chairs were.

Thirty more years of portable chair engineering has taken us to every convenience you’d want in a chair. Canopies, tables, footrests. Every year another chair item to make a trip to outdoors a pleasure. Before we knew it, the chairs had gotten almost as heavy as carrying a sailboat boom on your shoulder.  I secretly craved my mother-inlaw’s ten dollar aluminum rusted chairs from the 1950s. She gave them to me when she moved.

We gave away our high tech chairs and went in search of something lightweight, ugly and low tech. This 2012 summer scene at Compo Beach?  Mostly aluminum plastic webbed chairs?  Maybe it’s not necessary to put engineering minds into creating a luxury portable chair with so many bells and whistles, ones that by sheer weight alone could deter you from taking them out of the car. Maybe those chairs are better off in an RV.

Cooking for an army is easy. Thanks to Siobhan Powers who started me on frozen tenderloins. Who ever knew? So much of this kind of cooking is about not being nervous. If you leave out an ingredient, remember, only the salt, acid and oil, matter.

Ingredients and Guidelines

1 bag of frozen chicken tenderloins (Costco or Trader Joe’s—TJ’s bag is half the size) 

2 cups of home made Italian dressing ( this is for the 6 lb bag)

Several tablespoons of Kosher salt

3 to 4 freshly squeezed lemons

3  large cloves of garlic minced

Let the salt and garlic sit in the acid for an hour or so

Add olive oil so that the container has a little less than half in acid as it does in oil.

Shake it up, blend it, do anything you like with it, including throwing the lemon rinds into the marinade.

Pour into the 6 lb bag of frozen chicken

Shake the bag around a little. Distribute the liquid.

ADD

1 jar of Tamarind sauce

1 cup of Worcestshire Sauce

Let it sit in the resealed plastic bag in the refrigerator for at least a day. It will defrost.

Fire up the grill to high.

Put the tenders on until they get grill marks, flipping only once. DO NOT OVERCOOK. Just grill marks.

Heat oven to 225. Place the grilled tenderloins in an open roasting pan in one layer, spoon some of the marinade over the chicken and cook for about 15 minutes.

SALAD DRESSING

4 tablespoons of Kosher salt

Juice of 2 lemons

1/8 cup of white vinegar

1 tablespoon Poupon Mustard

Splash of Worcestshire Sauce

About 1/2 cup Vegenaise Mayonnaise (This brand is the only non egg brand that tastes like Hellmans. Buy it at Whole Foods)

1 small can of anchovies

Put all of this in a blender and throw in 1/4 cup of parmesan cheese. Keep tasting. I don’t measure, but you will learn to judge by eye and taste.

We loved it. As the years went on, I became known as the Salad Dressing Queen. I’d grown up on real dressing. No bottle dressing ever passed muster in our house. Although my mother didn’t really cook, the dressing we her signature contribution to my repertoire.

To this day there is no mystery even though I have added and subtracted many ingredients over the years. The three things that remain the primary taste in all of my dressings are olive oil, some sort of acid like lemon juice or multiple types of vinegar and excessive salt. The recipe will post on Mouse News.

BTW. I never use Balsamic except to cook with. The taste overwhelms greens, I feel. I traveled in Italy many times with a cook and they don’t use Balsamic on salads often.