Monday was our first summer day, with the temperature in the mid-80s. The sky was blue with a few thunderstorms in the horizon. It was too nice of a day to waste indoors, working at computers. So we decided to pack a picnic lunch and spend our lunch hour at the lake.

I had a small red cabbage, half a carrot, and a bunch of snow peas (among other things) in the fridge, and I'd also wanted to experiment with cole slow with an Asian twist. Back in April, when Tom and I had an Iron Chef Battle (the not-so-secret ingredient was garlic), Tom made a fabulous Asian slow, and I had that in mind.

Recently Tom had also given me a portion of Szechuan Peppercorn from Spice House, so I decided to use it as the flavor backbone. Often used in Ma Po Tofu, Szechuan peppercorns have moderate heat and wonderfully refreshing, slightly minty aroma. This was actually my first time to see them in their original shape (I'd only seen them in ground form), and I really liked the reddish shell with subtle bumpy texture and the creamy green seed that showed between the cracked halves of the shell. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to remove the shells. Out of sheer laziness, I decided to just ground the whole thing, removing only a few conspicuous twigs from the ground peppers.

I shredded all the veggies, and made the vinaigrette:

1 table spoon of olive oil
1 table spoon of vinegar
1 chunk of ginger, minced
1 pinch of Szechuan peppercorns, ground
2 tea spoon of soy sauce
2 tea spoon of sugar

When I tasted the vinaigrette right after mixing, olive oil dominated everything else--even the Szechuan peppercorns. Since I thought the flavors might settle better as the veggies soak up the vinaigrette and the flavors from the veggies in turn seep into the dressing, I tossed the veggies in the vinaigrette and let the slow sit in the fridge for a while. Meanwhile, I baked the (frozen, out-of-the-box) battered cod in the oven and also warmed two pieces of French peasant bread. When, after about 20 minutes, I took out the bowl of cole slow from the fridge, the olive oil had been tamed by other flavors. Hooray!

We packed our lunch, stuffed a backpack with a beach towel, two cans of soda and eating utensils, and headed for the Evanston beach. It was a quiet day at the beach, and we managed to secure a park table. It might have been a bit too windy--while we ate, the tree above us kept adding its leaves and bark pieces to our salad--but it was nice to be out. A little boy raced on the lake shore path back and forth, back and forth, on his colorful training bike, while his mom read by the small mobile crib of his little sister. An older couple were having their brown-bag lunch at the table next to ours, and a young couple sweettalked, leaning on a rock. (It was so relaxing that I forgot to take a picture of the finished lunch box!)

We had to head back soon, but if we hadn't had to, we would have spent the whole afternoon there on the green grass, reading and talking. The Japanese say "I feel like my hair is being pulled back" when she doesn't want to leave, and it was one of those "hair being pulled back" moments.