In the summer I try to avoid cooking and the hot kitchen. I like cool foods that require little preparation. It would be nice to go out for all my meals, but that just isn’t feasible. I while away the hours imagining living in New York City, where I could stroll through Little Italy during the Festival of San Genero, wafting from food truck to food stall, assessing the various Italian sausage offerings, while balancing an armful of delicious cannolis. Or I could sit with effortless (yet haute) style at a bistro table, sipping my chilled Prosecco, chatting with other bon vivants. Realistically, I think I would be happy if I could get a decent pizza delivered to the house. That is not the case, however, so I need to resort to other methods for getting my evening meals prepared. I like to think that Mark Twain hit upon the best idea of all: Tom Sawyer.
Tom Sawyer was assigned the task of whitewashing his aunt’s back fence, something he did not want to do, as you remember. Instead, he made the tiresome chore look inviting and enviable to his cohorts, and they completed the job for him. Poor Aunt Polly. Poor Best Beloved. He fell for cooking last Saturday night faster than Tom Sawyer’s hapless chums. I didn’t even have to bat my baby blues. I did sigh, and wondered out loud what we could do with a couple of boneless chicken breasts. “Chicken kebabs, with rice and a green salad, coming right up!” He was delighted to cook and to do manly battle with the grill.
While The Girl from Ipanema streamed tunefully, Best Beloved rummaged through the fridge, taking out jars and bottles and containers of wine, mustard, horseradish, capers, lemon juice and olive oil. From the spice cabinet he selected honey, allspice and cilantro. He snatched up a hefty wedge of garlic, too. He poured everything into a glass bowl, testing the wine first, of course, and added the chunks of chicken. That’s it – no recipe. Just instinct. (Disclaimer: he always wants to put capers in everything! And once I had to stop him from using olive oil when cooking pancakes, so sometimes these impromptu food experiments do go awry.) We wandered into the back yard and tossed the ball for the dog for half an hour, testing more of the Chardonnay. It was quite fine.
Drifting back into the kitchen, Best Beloved threaded the chicken chunks onto metal skewers. (We used to try to use wooden skewers, but never remembered to soak them, so a lot went up in flames.) He also skewered red peppers, green peppers and onions, separately. (Although we like slightly charred vegetables, it makes sense to cook the vegetables and the meat separately.) And he tossed the meat and then the vegetables onto the hot grill.
This was a yummy meal, with an interesting and flavorful marinade. Sometimes the seasonings can overwhelm chicken, but this concoction was light and piquant. And we had all these ingredients in the kitchen. I hate recipes that purport to be made with fixings you always have on hand. I read one the other day that called for sumac. Sumac? I was taught to avoid sumac in the wild, just like I learned to stay away from poison ivy. People who commented on the recipe said they couldn’t find it, even at Whole Foods. Sheeesh. Not a very handy item. We also do not have chili paste or fish sauce in our cupboards. Although I have been meaning to try the fish paste concept – but it will just have to wait until the fall, when I come back from my summer hiatus. I intend to continue along, just like network TV, until the new fall shows beckon me.
In the meantime, those clever folks at Bon Appétit devoted an entire issue of the magazine to grilling out. I am going to have to leave it lying around, with a few more recipes marked for this weekend.
https://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2013/07/sambal-chicken-skewers
https://food52.com/blog/7371-update-your-kebabs-8-tips-for-cooking-them-right
Here is a handy guide for whisking up your own marinades: https://food52.com/blog/7170-how-to-make-any-marinade-in-5-steps
If you are lucky enough to be in New York City this fall, here is the San Gennaro Festival info: https://www.sangennaro.org/
“Tom said to himself that it was not such a hollow world, after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it – namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.”
– Mark Twain, “Tom Sawyer”
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