It’s amazing how much edible stuff you can squeeze out of one fish head! I’ve got the cheeks, a bowl full of meat scraped from behind the mantle and a big pot full of shimmering fish stock. It’s getting darn cold outside, so I’m going simple, rustic and warming by combining all these fishy bits into a hearty Westcoast Halibut Chowder. Read More
This BBQ Sauce is as close to an original recipe as I’ve ever come up with. I know, nothing is new and every recipe has already been thought of by someone, but I take some pride piecing this frankensauce concept together. It’s a traditional American backyard BBQ sauce at heart (with a built-in balance of sweet, sour, spicy and salty that I learned from Nick at Memphis Blues BBQ House) with summer blackberry sweet-tartness as it’s body and the brain of a Chinese fire-roasted duck. It’s just thing to slather all over fatty pork ribs. Read More
Tucked up next to the house is a motley collection of Rubbermaid containers filled with dirt and bushes of chilies. Big green Jalapenos, long thin Kung Pows, bright red Tabascos and tiny yet volcanically-hot Thai Bird’s Beak chilies. The cat avoids this part of the garden, as do the deer. In fact, I’ll bet even the bee’s start sweating with all the capsicum in the air. Read More
Out in the garden my snap peas have exploded into four feet tall bushes packed with little bundles of yum. The local deer have really taken a liking to them, so I’ve had to fence off that part of the garden again and again as the kraken-like tendrils reach up ever-higher. The delicate, curly little tentacles can be snipped off 2-3 inches from the top of the plant and cooked or even eaten raw. These are sometimes confused with “pea shoots”, of which I also happen to have quite a harvest of. Read More
The next time you are wandering ‘round the supermarket, or the farmer’s market or wherever you get your produce from, take a minute and smell a peach. Get your face in there and breathe deep! It sounds dirty and yeah people are going to give you weird looks, but trust me, you ‘aught to smell a peach now, when they’re at their most luscious. It’s the smell of summer.
Then buy that peach, take it home, and grill it. Read More