Simple food

Sometimes life gets complicated. You wake up from a restless sleep wondering how exactly you might make it through til the cocktail hour.
A chopped egg on toast and a cup of hot tea sets things to right pretty quickly.


And then it turns out that the day isn't nearly as >blergh< as anticipated.

Summer of the Chicken

I've been barbeque-ing the hell out of this summer. Between recipe development for work and feeding myself, the Brit and friends, my restored and rejuvenated bbq has been givin'er most nights of the week. And so?

I have learned how to grill chicken. Finally.

It's the slow + low method. Use bone-in, skin-on pieces or joints. Crank the heat to tippity-top high. Add the chicken skin-side-down, reduce to the lowest possible heat, close the lid and drink an entire adult-sized martini before event thinking about it again. Then flip the pieces, shut the lid, drink another martini, maybe share a cigar, or just stare out into space for a good, long while. The chicken will be tender and juicy and cooked and the skin deeply golden and irresistible. A marinade helps too.

Why did it take me this long to figure this out? ...meh, who cares, this chicken is delicious.

Hurricane food

A tornado touched down in these parts last week. It got me to make jerk chicken for the first time in my life. Why? Well the Brit narrowly escaped the wrath of Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and at the time he was living in Cayman, eating a fair amount of jerk chicken. So you can see how I put the two together.

I've never been into jerk because it's full of allspice, a characteristic that does nothing to endear it to me. Allspice comes into my life once a year, as a 1/2 tsp measure in a family-sized batch of large fruitcakes. But what the hell, right? You only live once, and you never know when the next drastic weather event could change things.


Success! Something about mixing the allspice all up with chilies, lime juice, garlic, etc etc etc seems to make it palatable. Even tasty.

Tuna, humph

I had a little revelation about tuna steaks: they're bland. And for $32/lb, bland is not acceptable. It's not a bad bland, it's just a plain, if-I-was-blindfolded-I-couldn't-identify-it nothingness. The texture is interesting, sure, but there's a reason why restaurants soak them in soy or miso or wasabi -- they're trying to amp up the flavour.


Nevertheless, the Brit did an admirable job of these two little numbers (with soy and sesame seeds and a very quick visit to the screaming hot surface of the bbq) and we certainly enjoyed them, but we both craved...more flavour. We agreed that we might well prefer sardines.


But as far as summer salads go, this everything but the kitchen sink coleslaw was pretty decent. Carrots, napa cabbage, celery, onion, fennel, apple and parsley in a mayo-Dijon-lemon juice dressing, mmm.

Just...wow...

Oh my stars, there aren't words to describe the over-the-moon deliciousness of these little fish fillets. Panko-breaded, olive-oil fried (on the bbq so my apartment isn't too whiffy), served soaked with lemon juice and Maldon salt, with British "mushy chip shop peas" (a revelation, so tasty!) on the side.