Sometimes the best meals are the ones you’re not expecting.

Jim and I had lunch downtown today with friends we haven’t seen in a while. We ate at Anna Liffey’s, an Irish pub in a dim downstairs room with a good selection on tap and a dart board. We all had fairly substantial lunch fare — I enjoyed an open-face steak sandwich with some fine onion rings, washed down with a pint of Smithwick’s.

Since we’re accustomed to very light (and beerless) lunches, dinner on those rare occasions when we lunch out is usually a pretty meager affair. And right around the time we were wondering what we might be in the mood for, I decided I had a hankering for breakfast. I asked Jim if he felt like cooking, and blueberry pancakes were not out of the question.

We just finished mopping up our plates — they were good and just the right thing. It’s a rainy night, there’s some good TV on, and I have a tequila sunrise to finish.

Here’s to brinner. And to Friday.

I blame The Lobster Shack.

The presence of The Cupcake Truck made the Lobster Shack pretty crowded last weekend, and Jim had to go park the car way out in back, by the marina. When he got back from parking, he mentioned that Nellie Green’s was back there. I think I knew this somewhere in the back of my mind, but it’s such an off-the-beaten-path location that I never really gave it much thought. And unless you’re on a boat, the place is completely hidden from view, so out of sight, out of mind, I guess.

A little background: Nellie Green was a rum-runner of some repute during the days of Prohibition. The original Nellie Green’s was an historic tavern right on the Branford/East Haven town line, right on the river (and apparently the bootleggers used to load up their boats right underneath the building). The building was pretty dilapidated and has since (unfortunately) been turned into condos. This incarnation of Nellie Green’s is apparently unrelated save for the name.

Anyway, we decided to give it a try in the interest of a) adding to our list of places, and b) supporting local businesses. Saturday was absurdly hot and humid, but by the time we headed out for dinner at 8:00, the darkness was imparting a bit of coolness to the evening, so we opted, when given the choice, to eat out on their beautiful deck, which sits right on the Branford River. It turned out to be the right choice. Our dinner was accompanied by a jazz duo (guitar and saxophone) and the stars came out, so the atmosphere was just about perfect.

We started out by sharing a bowl of clam chowder (quite tasty) and a dozen very fresh clams on the half-shell (accompanied by three different sauces). They also brought us a basket of warm bread and a dish of deliciously flavored olive oil (and offered to bring butter if we preferred; we did not). Jim ordered grilled swordfish for his entree and I opted for the plank-roasted salmon. Both entrees were fantastic. The swordfish was topped with a delicious salsa. The salmon was accompanied by a risotto with roasted corn and peas, and both came with a side of fresh green beans.

For dessert, Jim ordered the ice cream “sandwich” (which wasn’t really a sandwich at all, but was topped with chocolate cookie crumbs) and I got the amaretto creme brulee.

While dinner wasn’t cheap (our total bill came to $110), neither was it exorbitant given the quality of the food. That’s with two appetizers, two entrees, two desserts, three beers, and a coffee. Nope, not bad by shoreline standards, and the food was very good. The service is friendly. The ambience is unbeatable. We will very likely go back soon.

As I feared they would, the tomatoes are beginning to ripen all at once. I’ve already got some beautiful, ripe plum tomatoes waiting in the kitchen, and I just came in from the garden with a colander full of Romas, a couple of regular-style tomatoes (the vines are so entangled amongst themselves right now I have no idea what’s coming from what plant, except for the heirlooms, which have a distinctive look but haven’t ripened enough to pick yet), and two more flawless zucchini.

This morning I made two loaves of zucchini bread (from the Morning Glory Farm cookbook — their breads are just heavenly) from one of our big, gorgeous squash, and the Romas are likely going into a good pasta and fresh mozzarella salad for lunches next week.

I spent the last couple of weeks straying from my plan to chart my weekly menus out ahead of time, and I regretted it for the most part. Having a plan is better than not having a plan, and I like to be flexible with my plans, but I still like having some kind of a guideline. Last week I found myself running out of food (and therefore hitting the store more often than I would have liked) and feeling at loose ends when I came home from work.

Here’s this week’s game plan:

Sunday

• Grilled Vegetable Antipasto
• Rigatoni with Sunday Sauce - Braciole and Sausage
• Bread

Monday

• Breaded Chicken Cutlets
• Zucchini and Tomato Casserole

Tuesday

• Pasta with Leftover Sauce from Sunday’s Dinner

Wednesday

• Pork Tenderloin with Banana-Date Chutney
• Green Beans with Garlic and Ginger
• Naan

Thursday

• White Chicken Chili
• Salad with Jicama and Oranges
• Spicy Jalapeno-Cheddar Cornbread

Friday

• Maybe we’ll have fish. Maybe we’ll eat out. We’ll see.

There. I feel better just for having written it all down.

Anyone who’s ever been to a Bruce Springsteen concert knows that the pre-show tailgate is a time-honored tradition. While this is difficult to do in urban venues that don’t have acres of parking lots, stadium and arena shows out in the ‘burbs are very amenable to this kind of fun. People sit around and eat and drink, some people dance, some people reminisce about shows past, and everyone has their own favorite Boss music blaring from their car stereo. It’s Springsteen Nation at its most communal. Think of it as a pre-football game tailgate party, but without having to endure the agony of watching a football game afterward.

Some people go all out for these things, toting along grills, massive coolers, and all manner of folding tables and beach chairs. We tend to keep ours way simpler — we pack a cooler with some food and some drink and eat out of the back of the van — you know, the tailgate. We haven’t done this in a while, actually — our last Hartford concert was at the XL Center, which is smack in the middle of the city and lacks those acres of parking (and this is something you can’t pull off in a parking garage).

But we’ve taken the afternoon off work today so that we can get pit lottery wristbands on time and so we’re going to do a little tailgating. And right now I’m contemplating what to bring for dinner. Given the heat, I’m leaning toward sandwiches, but what kind? I’ve made some very decent Italian subs with cold cuts, cheese, roasted peppers, and other good things. Or maybe we want something different, like roast beef. Or maybe I should just pick up a rotisserie chicken and some sides. Dessert has to be something very simple, like cookies. And since it’s hot, there will be plenty of something cold (and non-alcoholic) to drink.

Sometimes eating is more about the atmosphere than it is about the food. I’m excited to be going tonight.

I’ve talked before about the Lobster Shack in Branford, a little trailer-type place on the Branford River that makes the best lobster rolls on the shoreline. I’m not sure I’ve mentioned the Cupcake Truck here, so a few words of introduction are in order. The Cupcake Truck is an ingenious entrepreneurial enterprise run by an enthusiastic young couple who are apparently escapees from careers in business. Essentially a mobile cupcake bakery, the truck makes weekly rounds of several regular stops in the New Haven area, and on the weekends frequently heads out to special events and more suburban locations. It’s hard to describe how good these cupcakes are — freshly baked each day, they’re frosted when you order them and at $2 apiece constitute one of the most reasonable splurges around.

Anyway, yesterday the Cupcake Truck parked at the Lobster Shack. It was impossible to pass up this confluence of events, despite the fact that we’d had lobster rolls just last weekend, so we planned the morning accordingly. We both worked out in the morning, bypassed breakfast altogether, and had brunch by the river: we split a lobster roll, shared a dozen grilled clams, consumed two bottle of water, and then stood in line in the heat and humidity for an hour to grab a couple of cupcakes. By the time it was our turn, choices were limited: Jim got the very last red velvet cupcake (he likes his with the white chocolate/cream cheese frosting), and my chocolate cupcake, which was supposed to have chocolate frosting on it, instead had half chocolate/half peanut butter. Like everything else that comes off the truck, the peanut butter frosting is heavenly. The cupcake was indulgent and delicious, and the peanut butter frosting may well become a habit.

Honestly, the heat pretty much did us in for the rest of the day. But it was worth it to experience a perfect storm of perfect foods.

Life has conspired to keep me from updating for a while: we’ve had a hospitalized cat, we ran to NY on a work night for a concert (and paid for it the next day in lost sleep), and have been beset by other sundry details of living. My weekly menu planning has become slightly disorganized — we’re eating, and we’re eating well, just not as predictably. Nonetheless, we’ve managed to keep tabs on the garden, which is in its full-blown August fury of overgrowth and bounty.

Some of the week’s highlights include: eating the first tomatoes from the garden (delicious, in a light salad with fresh mozzarella, a sprinkling of olive oil, and the barest touch of salt and freshly ground pepper), we have harvested (but not yet eaten) four gorgeous zucchini (one more to come inside today), and the jalapenos look like they’ll be ready for picking within a few days. A week or so of hot, sunny weather has caused things to riot in the garden (although, sadly, still nothing that looks like an eggplant). Oh, and there are bell peppers beginning to grow, too.

When we were in NY on Monday, we stopped for dinner at P.D. O’Hurley’s, an Irish-type pub on the upper west side not far from the Beacon Theatre (our eventual destination). We’ve been there before and the food is decent and reasonably priced. Jim ordered a piece of banoffee pie for dessert. We had no idea what it was before he asked the waitress for details, and we thought it sounded good. Good doesn’t really begin to describe it. I’m making one today. Will report later. For now, there are two unopened cans of sweetened condenesed milk simmering in a pot of water on my stove top. That sounds crazy even to me.

We didn’t have much time to hang around when we got home from work last night, but I did run out to the garden first thing and had two surprises awaiting me: first, minuscule jalapeno peppers on one of the plants on the observatory deck. Yup, peppers — tiny, green bulbs of hot, peppery goodness. They’re about an eighth of an inch long right now, but there’s no mistaking them.

Second surprise? Two ripening tomatoes. Yup, we have two tomatoes among the pounds of tomatoes weighing down our vines that are just beginning to turn orange. There are so many tomatoes on those plants that if they all ripen at the same time — which I’m absolutely certain they will — I will be posting tomato recipes daily and we will be eating them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Seriously, why don’t vegetables ripen in waves?

I did take pictures but didn’t have time last night to offload them from the camera, but I promise I’ll post them tonight. Mostly so you can look at the tiny baby peppers and go “Aww…”

They’re that cute.

Seriously.

Saturday is often fish night around here, and I stopped at Bud’s this afternoon and came home with a fabulous piece of Irish salmon. If I haven’t said so before, let me say now that salmon is my favorite fish. A quick stop at a nearby farm market yielded some native zucchini and corn on the cob.

The salmon prep couldn’t be simpler. I cut my salmon in half lengthwise so that I had two narrow pieces of uniform thickness. I put them in a baking dish sprayed lightly with Pam, and then brushed them with some melted butter and sprinkled them with some salt and freshly ground pepper and — best part — some fresh dill from our potted herb garden. The salmon goes into a 425 degree oven for maybe 15 or 20 minutes depending on how thick it is at its thickest part. This was a good 2 inches thick, so it cooked closer to 20 minutes.

While the fish was in the oven, I heated up the grill and cooked my veggies. The corn got brushed generously with olive oil, as did the zucchini, which I split in half lengthwise. Everything got seasoned lightly with salt and pepper, and turned over once on the grill to cook both sides. The corn is done when it starts to brown nicely, and the zucchini is done when it has nice grill marks and is tender but not mushy. I have to say that corn on the cob cooked this way — and with olive oil instead of butter — has become my absolute favorite way to eat it. This corn was wonderful too, incredibly sweet and flavorful.

That was dinner. Simple and about as delicious as it gets, really.