A plate from Sweet Lew’s BBQ. Photo by Peter Taylor

Memorial Day is this weekend and we have been debating whether to make it a lake day outing or a backyard cookout party. Fortunately, the three day weekend allows us to have the best of both worlds: cookout one day, lake day another. Regardless of the option you pick for the weekend, we pulled together our dream menus for the kickoff to summer.

Spending the weekend on the lake is a classic way to celebrate the beginning of summer, but we too often throw together a boat day last minute and cheat ourselves out of enough food to balance our intake of beers and “porch pounder” wines by the can. If you are planning to be on the lake at least once this weekend, make sure you have a variety of food that can be prepared and withstand the hours in a cooler.

Try this lake day menu (we picked Lake Norman):
Pre-made sandwiches are great, but we’re skipping the grocery store and trying an Italian deli. We’re picking up the caprese sandwich and muffaletta from Ferrucci’s Old Tyme Italian Market, precut with the sauces on the side to keep the bread from getting soggy. For our sides, we’re getting the orzo pasta salad and quinoa sweet potato salad from The Pickled Peach. Dessert and snacks we plan to grab from the Davidson Farmers Market, picking up salsa and guacamole from Toro Loco Party Salsa, goat cheese party packs from Blue Goat Dairy, and a dozen donuts from Your Mom’s Donuts. To drink, we’ll have cans of NoDa Cavu blonde ale and Jam Session pale ale.

If a cookout is what you prefer (or day two of your Memorial Day weekend includes a backyard party), make sure the spread is crowd-pleasing and easy to replenish throughout the party. There is nothing worse than an underpromising amount of food and the host hiding away in the kitchen trying to keep up with the hungry demands of their guests. Finger foods are best and if you do have to cook, try and make it all on the grill so you can be out with guests and interact.

Try this backyard cookout menu:
Fried chicken is great, but cold fried chicken on a hot day is even better! We’re picking up a few whole fried chickens from Haberdish the day before and chilling them – take the extra step and individually wrap each piece in parchment and tie with baker’s twine. We grabbed some Sweet Lew’s BBQ Southern spice rub and rib sauce for the ribs we picked up at our local butcher and plan to grill. Our sides will be double orders of Lincoln’s Haberdashery’s drop the beat salad and quinoa salads, along with the marinated roasted mushrooms, Moroccan cauliflower and carrots, cookies, and deviled eggs from Earl’s Grocery. For beverages we’ll grab a few suggested summer whites from Dilworth Tasting Room and Birdsong higher ground IPA and doin’ thyme witbier. –Justin Burke-Samson