Food Friday: Rites of Summer

Grilling | Illustration by Jean Sanders

Here we are in the first week of June and already it has been so stinking hot that I can barely think about eating, let alone cooking. When start to think about food, I am already daydreaming about nice cool, summertime foods that do not require a lick of cooking: watermelon, strawberries, icy bowls of bobbing crimson radishes, Good Humor Bars, freshly shelled peas. I have no yen for meatloaf, or spaghetti, or beef stew.

It is grilling season again. We have celebrated Memorial Day, and are anticipating summer and the Fourth of July. There is so much to look forward to: we need to be sure that at least once this summer we eat coleslaw, potato salad, and strawberry shortcake, and that we shell some peas out on the back steps. Let’s shuck corn. And oysters. Last year we didn’t make any ice cream. Not once! That is just shocking. Start writing a list of what you need to do this year! Did you grill enough hamburgers last year? How about corn on the cob? There is nothing like melting your fingerprints on a steaming-hot ear of corn, with a glossy trail of butter cascading down your chin. It is a rite of summer.

I am thrilled that most of our summer cooking is done outside and by someone else. I enjoy meals that do not involve any of my time spent in a hot kitchen. Our outdoor grilling isn’t fancy. Most weekends see us cooking something from our usual rotation: burgers, sausages, hot dogs, chicken, fish, kebabs, Big Love Pizza, or corn on the cob. I remember fondly my father’s gritty, incinerated hockey-puck-hamburgers that he cooked on the tiny, wobbly charcoal hibachi in our suburban Connecticut backyard, but I am equally fond of Mr. Sanders’s slightly less well-done cheeseburgers. They are presented with flair; multi-layered towers of meat, cheese, pickles, tomatoes, lettuce and spicy brown mustard. Yumsters.

This weekend we will gather on the back porch, where we have a few Adirondack chairs (which are never as comfortable as they are picturesque). I love the al fresco nights, when we manage to elude the mosquitoes and enjoy candles and strings of white lights, and dancing fireflies. We can watch the last of the sun’s rays gilding the tops of the pecan trees, and listen to the mockingbirds squabbling in the hedge. It will be time to slow down and enjoy the lengthening purple shadows. There is no television news on in the background. It is a pleasantly warm, and humid soon-to-be-summer evening.

Mr. Sanders loves to cook, thank heavens. Everything he touches becomes a carefully designed and choreographed production number. On the weekends “The Girl from Ipanema” typically streams from speakers as Mr. Sanders rummages through the fridge, taking out jars and bottles and containers of wine, making potions and unguents, muttering incantations and spells worthy of Hogwarts. He rubs and bastes, bathes with miso, barbecue sauce, mustard, horseradish, capers, lemon juice and olive oil. From the spice cabinet he selects allspice, cumin, paprika and cilantro. He snatches up hefty cloves of garlic, too. Sometimes he pours everything into a glass bowl, while testing the evening’s wine. That’s it – no recipes. Just instinct. (Disclaimer: once I had to stop him from using olive oil for cooking pancakes, so sometimes these impromptu food experiments do go awry.) This freedom from recipe structure leaves us time to wander into the back yard and toss the ball for Luke the wonder dog, testing more of the Chardonnay. I applaud his excellent ideas.

Drifting back into the kitchen, Mr. Friday flattens room temp meat patties. He also prepared a frying pan with some butter for frying onions. Outside he tosses the meat, and then the frying pan, onto the hot grill. The rites have begun. It is another moment of cooking triumph.

Old Bay Corn on the Cob on the Grill

Heat the grill to 350° F.

Wrap each ear of corn in aluminum foil.

Generously butter the corn and sprinkle with Old Bay seasoning.

Roll the corn in the foil and twist the ends tight.

Grill for 5-8 minutes on each side.

Carefully unwrap the corn and place back on the grill for a quick 1-2 minute char on each side, if desired. The grilled ears will be Instagram-able.

For added flavor, sprinkle with more Old Bay after serving.

“I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year.”
― Edna St. Vincent Millay