Karen Celia Fox

The Hodad Beach Club Recipe List

The Hodad Beach Club began one day in 1993 when Jiffy Flach and Lisa Seachrist noticed that they hadn't gone on vacation in over a year. The situation had to be remedied. They would go to the Delaware beach. Never mind that it was November. Never mind that rental houses are ridiculously expensive. Somehow they convinced 20 of their best friend sto join them.

What's a Hodad?

Go look it up!

Ooops, sorry you can't--they took it out of the dictionary a couple of years back. Why they would have deemed this oh-so-useful word an invalid part of the English language, we cannot imagine. A hodad is someone who hangs out with surfers but isn't one. A surfer poser. A surfer wanna-be.

The Hodad Club Motto

"Feek and ye shall find."

Feek, according to our game of Balderdash, is supposed to mean "to wander aimlessly." We cannot corroborate this through any dictionary, however. Anyone who can show us the derivation will be rewarded with a free trip to the beach.

And they saw that it was good.

So started a tradition of off-season beach going. Twice a year Jen gets us organized. Many friends, a huge house, several cases of fantastic beer, the ocean--what more could you want?

Well, tequila, for one. Luckily, Lisa always brings some.

And skinny dipping, for two. Luckily , after the tequila that's not usually so hard to come by.

And fantastic meals, for three . The real glory of these weekends is always the food. We all trade off on who cooks . . . and then we make Noah clean up.

The meals are too good not to share, so here listed is a recipe index for you. It's a somewhat eclectic mix, but all fantastic.

So pop open a microbrew (make sure to save the cap for Nancy's sister's collection,) invite some friends over to play Pit, Magic, or Balderdash while you're cooking (curb their hunger with Lisa's velveeta-salsa dip), and try some of these recipes.

It will be just like you're at the beach.

Cookbooks I can't live without

(If you want to buy them from Amazon, just click on the book!)