Tuesday, May 12, 2009

A Mostly Off Day


On a rare day mostly off from the shop, Emilia suggested I fire up the grill. At first I resisted. Then I relented. As usual, her instincts were spot-on.

It's a primal pleasure starting a fire and cooking over it. I use natural lump charcoal because there's no unnecessary things added to it like with regular charcoal (such as sawdust, Borax, Sodium Nitrate, starch, limestone). Therefore it doesn't yield awful chemical smells but instead imparts a delicious flavor to whatever you grill. It also doesn't need nasty lighter fluid to get it started (I tend to use just a few old pages of a newspaper). Luckily, I had a big bag of natural charcoal around that I bought last summer, but it shouldn't be hard to find this time of year.

We kept it simple. Burgers, using grass-fed ground beef from Albert Wilkow at the Fort Greene Farmers' Market. Blue Cheese from Pt. Reyes. Terrebrune Bandol Rosé 2006. An assortment of Rick's Picks to garnish.

Simply divine to slow down and linger over lunch outside in the sunshine and talk. Of course we brainstormed about Thirst, but it was so relaxing not to be in the thick of things.

After a rather long winter, and all the rain we've had in May, we really savored this SF-like day.

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