A Beautiful Day for a Cookout

April doesn't strike me as prime cookout season, but when I heard about the weather forecast for Saturday I knew we'd be lucky to have an outdoor party that day. I sent out a Facebook invite on Tuesday and by Friday night things were coming together for a lovely gathering.

My approach was remarkably simple by my standards: raid the pantry, make a random assortment of things that I enjoy, get the main dish from the Maine Avenue Seafood Market and enjoy. Saturday morning we set out for the market. We'd been there once before years ago with friends. Andy's eyes grew wide as we approached a wall of seafood. We ordered a couple pounds of shrimp and a couple dozen freshly steamed crab and zipped back to Virginia. One quick stop at the grocery for ice and beer and we were ready to party.

I surprised myself when I realized we really haven't entertained in this house much and we've been here nearly four years. But the group who showed up were compatible and we had a very nice afternoon on a surprisingly hot spring day.