What I Ate: Grilled Clam Bake

I flew back from Miami yesterday morning and I'm back at work today. It's always a bittersweet feeling to end a mini-break and have to come back to work. There are several days a year where I contemplate what it would be like to have been born into a rich family and not have to work a day in my life. Those thoughts usually bubble up the day after I get back from holiday, surprise-surprise.

It's actually quite lucky that I grew up the way I did. It's not like my family was ever homeless and I've never gone to bed hungry, but we've seen some struggle in our lifetime. I know the value of a dollar and it's a v. good thing. I've got the type of personality where I'm really not ambitious at all and I honestly hate trying. I basically coast through life, surviving on the fact that I was just born good at some things and milking that to get by. If I'd been born into privilege, I'd probably be the laziest, dumbest, most boring person ever. But I wasn't, so I'm not! (At least in my own opinion, I'm not.)

Anyway, to perk up my no-more-holiday self, I've got a pretty fun dish to share today. It's a faux-clam bake. I've never actually been to a clam bake so I don't know really know what it's supposed to be like. However, I threw together a few components that are typical of clam bakes, popped everything on the grill, and it was so fun and so delicious that I had to share it here.

The main elements of a clam bake are clams (duh), potatoes, corn, and sausage. I also threw in some lemon and wine because both are delicious with seafood. If you wanted to do this, you could also throw in some crawfish, lobster, shrimp, mussels, basically whatever shellfish you're into.

We also made a little orzo salad, because it's delicious and because we wanted a fresh element to accompany the faux clam bake.

The clams opened up on the grill and the ones that happened to be sideways released their juices onto the corn and potatoes below, which was delicious. The ones that happened to be sitting secure and upright were perfect for slurping. I don't even know what else to say. This was just a really fun meal. We were all happy as a clam. I'm sorry, I just had to.

Here's the recipe page: