Celebration from the Kitchen, Maid 'O the Mist, XTC

1. A holiday is all about celebrating with special foods. I merged a couple of recipes together and came up with the best oven-baked spareribs today. Later on, we had a traditional summer dessert of Red, White and Blueberry Trifle. This dessert is super-easy to make and everyone loves it.

Spareribs Sauce:
1 lemon
1 c. ketchup
1 stick unsalted butter, quartered
1/2 c. distilled white vinegar
1/3 c. Dijon mustard
1/2 c.mild honey
1/2 c. light brown sugar
a few drops of Tabasco (add up to 5 Tablespoons if you like it very hot)
2 tea. salt
1 tea. finely chopped garlic

1/2 tea. black pepper

Halve lemon and squeeze juice into heavy 1 1/2 qt. saucepan. Add lemon halves and all remaining ingredients. Bring just to a boil, stirring occasionally, then reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until thickened, about 30 minutes. Discard lemon halves.
Don't worry if the sauce seems thin. It brushes onto the ribs nicely and creates a wonderful, sticky sauce when they bake.
To Bake Spareribs:
Meanwhile, wrap 2 racks of spareribs (about 2 1/2 pounds each) in heavy foil. Place on baking sheet and bake at 400° for about 2 hours. Remove from foil and cut racks into 3 sections each. Reduce oven temperature to 350°. Brush ribs with generous amounts of sauce and place back on baking sheet. (I lined my baking sheet with parchment for easier clean up.) Bake an additional 40 minutes, basting 2-3 more times throughout.

2. Showers continued on and off all day. At this point, we just scooch the chairs away from the screen and enjoy the rain spray when we sit on the porch. If you can't beat it, join it!
3. A kitchen clean-up of this magnitude requires some serious loud music. I pulled out the vinyl and rolled out the turntable for some music from Steve's college days. Daughter #3 will know what I mean when I say, "I'm stupidly happy with idiot grin."