Meet me, Andrew, and Amy - The CarbSmart writing team at the 2012 Low Carb Meet & Greet Saturday, July 7, 2012!

Memorial Day Weekend is just made for us low carbers. Add in outdoor activities like camping, biking, boating, hiking, volleyball, or just tossing a Frisbee around, and you have a celebration where you might even drop a pound or two. Hard to beat that for Low Carb Memorial Day!

In honor of Independence Day, I thought I'd do a rundown of American foods. No, not fast food burgers and pizza, but rather those foods that are native to our nation, the foods the colonists might well have encountered for the very first time when they came to these shores. (Though some of them had already made it across the Atlantic, and started gaining popularity in Europe.) What foods are truly American?

I understand the public schools long ago did away with cooking class. It's both a blessing and a shame.

So what did you do last Saturday? I had several dozen low carbers in my backyard! The Second Annual Low Carb Meet & Greet was a smashing success, or at least I thought it was.

Call me a tightwad, but I just love a bargain. So I was thrilled to pick up chuck steaks this week at under two dollars a pound. That's almost as cheap as ground beef! Now to fire up my grill. I've mentioned before that a grilled steak with sliced tomatoes and a salad is my idea of Summer Food Nirvana.

1001 Delicious Low-Carb Recipes from Dinner to Dessert That Let You Live Your Low-Carb Lifestyle and Never Look Back by Dana Carpender. Staying the low-carb course will be easy with choices from barbecue to slow-cooker to internationally-inspired dishes.

Cauliflower is the low carber's best friend. (Well, after meat and eggs.) Why? Because it stands in for so many other things, and does the job so well. Most low carbers know about fauxtatoes - pureed cauliflower served in place of mashed potatoes. But that's only the beginning of cauliflower's many charms.

You’re looking for fantastic low carb foods and condiments to serve in the great outdoors, but where can you find them all in one place? Here at CarbSmart of course --presenting the Low Carb Picnic Basket.

Holidays make us crazy. Everyone has somewhere to go, something to do. Hectic schedules, big family dinners, last minute party details - even small distractions could throw us completely off course. So why is it that we let the holiday season itself keep us from sticking to our eating plans? Many people can make the conscious decision to indulge in this or that and then jump right back on track. But making that decision, and actually doing it, are two different things. We can have the best intentions in the world, but if we don't follow up on them, they can be our undoing. I, for one, used to be guilty of putting off my healthy eating or exercise plan until after the holidays. I knew it would be difficult with all the tempting foods around. It was much easier to just wait until the feasting was over. But think about it. Are the holidays truly ever over? No, not really.

For the last glorious holiday weekend of the summer, a cookout seems mandatory. So call up some friends, throw some (light) beer in the cooler, fire up the barbecue, and let's make an end-of-summer feast that will be filling and memorable without any nutritional regrets. Includes her Low-Carb Salmon Recipe