“I’ll gain ten pounds over the 4^th of July weekend,” my friend lamented.  “Everyone thinks the five weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve are the toughest time of the year to maintain your weight – but it’s the fifteen weekends between Memorial Day and Labor Day that’ll get you.  I’m in the middle of one long cook out calamity!”

She made me hungry as she described what she’d eaten at the backyard party she’d most recently attended.

“From the minute I got there, I was like a Hoover vacuum cleaner,” she confessed.  “A hot dog – three, four bites tops, and it was gone.  Ribs dripping with sugary barbecue sauce.  Fried chicken cooked to crispy perfection.  The potato salad and the macaroni salad – carbs swimming in mayonnaise.  And don’t get me started on the desserts…”

When I weighed all this (no pun intended) against Turkey Day (which is really only one meal), a few holiday parties where you stand with a flute of champagne in one hand as you nibble on tiny hors d’oeuvres, and a tin of homemade Christmas cookies it takes you a good two weeks to polish off, I’ll admit, she had a point.

Still, this wasn’t a calamity.

There was an easy solution to her dilemma.  I offered her a simple, healthy, delish summer salad that looks pretty and transports well.  The perfect dish to bring to a cook out.

Cold Veggie Salad