Grill, Un-interrupted

 

Baby and I are probably the only people you have perhaps ever encountered who travel with their own meat and basting brushes. To clarify, we were heading to the wilds of Maine with a fine grilled menu in mind and were unsure of the cuts of beef we may find there, and as we were renting, who knew what cooking utensils the kitchen might hold? We at least were assured that there would be a grill, as transporting that might prove to be cumbersome.

Behold our lovely centerpiece, composed of driftwood and curls of birch bark that we found along the shores of Muscongus Bay...

and frilly ferns, great leaves, twigs, tiny pine cones and berries from along the hill next to our pot that would soon hold roasted corn.

Grilled Romaine lettuce!



Tonight's Menu
Roasted Pepper S'mores--an old Martha Stewart classic that I've been making for years. Splitting a variety of brightly colored peppers in half (try to keep them hinged), remove the seeds. Stuff with slices of mozzarella cheese and sprigs of rosemary. Drizzle with olive oil inside and out, with ground salt and fresh black pepper. Close up the peppers and get to grilling until cheese has melted and the peppers have those lovely char marks. 
Roasted Corn--brush your ears, husks and all, with olive oil and roast on the grill for at least 45 minutes. When cool enough to handle, peel and delight in smoky revelry, rolled in lots of butter.  
Grilled Romaine Lettuce with Lemon-Anchovy Vinaigrette--click here and add anchovy paste to the dressing and sub lemon juice for the Champagne vinegar. Brush your greens with vigor before tossing on the grill.
Chimichurri Steak--click here for a version of the sauce with Rib-Eye steaks. Ours were flank cuts.
Strawberry Shortcake--nothing easier than the best berries you can find with some cream of tartar biscuits and Cool Whip!

Chicken Livers For Dinner

Sometimes dinner can be a wonderfully simple thing--it's more often the organization of the guests that is difficult as we'd been trying to wrangle our fellow chicken liver lovers for this evening for at least a year. Well, all came together a few days ago in the most excellent way. I've held on to these recipe cards, clipped from an issue of Martha Stewart's Living magazine back in 2001, always intending to assemble this clever menu, but never did. With a little tinkering, boy was it all good! Baby and I added cheeses from Artisanal to get us started, a few bottles of Viognier and another white, slightly frizzante something or other to see us through the entire course of the meal.

Here's what we ate:

Some Artisanal Cheeses
Robiola Rocchetta: cow, sheep, goat, a welcome guest at any party
La Peral: cow--pungent, like a bleu, enhanced by a drizzle of black truffle honey
La Tur: Cow, Sheep, Goat--the ice cream of cheeses! We're really dealing with 3 cheeses in 1 here: the savory rind, the gooey under belly and the stiff cream in the middle. Absolutely gorgeous!

A chicory Salad with lemon anchovy vinaigrette further sent the ball rolling but cut the suggested amount of lemon juice in half, and double the anchovies at least (and by all means use fresh white anchovies if you can), or use anchovy paste and definitely add some sugar to taste. Also, I didn't know that escarole and radicchio were considered chicories--and our market was out of escarole so I subbed slightly bitter red leaf lettuce for escarole.

We soaked our Chicken Livers in buttermilk to remove the bitterness and finished them in a 100 degree oven before our guests arrived. I don't know that I've ever been so prepared for a dinner before anybody's even showed up! We made the Polenta with bacon and sage ahead of time too, as a luscious pillow on which our main dish would rest.

More cheese! Roasted Pears with carmelized sugar and brandy called for thick slices of Pecorino Romano but we opted for a Majorero Pimenton goat cheese to add a little spice to our dessert instead.

What an enjoyable evening we had!

Soundtrack: Dinah Washington, the Dinah Washington Story, disc 2; Charles Mingus, Mingus Three; Bird, The Original Recordings of Charlie Parker; Atlantic Jazz, Best of the '50s; The Dave Brubeck Quartet, Time Out