Almost 4th of July in D

We tried, we really tried, to celebrate 4th of July in a traditional, American way but we somehow could not manage.

In the morning we went to the market and bought meat for steaks. The market was outdoor and consisted of about 15 men all selling various meats. There were entire animals hanging from hooks and flies and blood everywhere. I just tried to not throw up and to focus on how we were going to cook the meat really well later. We bought us a chunk (including skin, somehow) and then took it home to cut it into steaks ourselves. It was pretty much disgusting. Be thankful for packaged Grade A fresh meat.

When we finally got around to cooking it on our metal box of a grill (see pic above behind the table) we realized that we weren't really sure if it was beef or if it was something else. The guy told us it was beef but even now I just couldn't say for certain that it was but we had steak and that seems 4th of July-ish in a way.

The potato salad was...different. The ranch dressing looked and tasted a little funny. We did the best we could with the ingredients we had but nothing turned out quite the same as we remembered it should. But we tried, we had the ideas to make things and we gave it our best effort and that is what counts, right?

And then there was the cake. The oven out there doesn't really work. It turns on and off unless you turn it on high so I turned it on high and in about 10 minutes the entire bottom was charred. Here is my best effort to save what I could. Then the attempt at making icing failed. Normally we could have lived without icing but we needed something to cover up the charcoal taste. We had a cool whip powder mix but no blender so we did what we could with a spoon and it ended up ok. We each got a little cake which was better than no cake at all.
When we had just finished eating a huge storm came through and soaked the table. Since the kitchen and outdoor 'dining room' are not attached to the house we were stuck under the awning for about an hour playing the Kevin Bacon movie game. Then we watched Rambo 4, not the best but if you closed your eyes all the gunfire could have sounded like fireworks making it somehow celebratory. Then came Alvin and the Chipmunks in an attempt to make up for the wasted time watching Rambo and, again, I can't say that it was worth the time it took to watch.

But that was our 'almost' 4th of July in D. I can't believe I've now missed 3 years of Cyndi's 4th of July parties. Next year we'll have to make the party extra special to make up for all these years I missed!