As I prepared for an early summer grill class last week I pinched myself. Anyone who has written a cookbook knows just what I mean. After months of testing, tweaking, writing, re-writing, testing some more, editing, copy editing, agonizing, dreaming, there’s a book. And then there’s someone saying, “Please, please teach us how to grill!”
What’s the expression? “When the rubber meets the road.” This class would be that moment for me and the book, as I devised a menu entirely on the grill, from amuse-bouches to dessert.
Naturally all ingredients were seasonal. Everything was purchased, organized, measured, chilled, softened, ready. The grills were polished to a fare-thee-well. I knew the recipes worked because they don’t get in a book if they don’t. But the night before I was sleepless. Timing had to be perfect, we had eight people, two grills, and 7 recipes each with several moving parts. So I worked and re-worked the game plan in my head, going over every detail until I had it right.
FRENCH GRILL featured on Grill Maestro Steven Raichlen’s blog Barbecue!Bible – Take a Look!
arrived the next day in a flurry of enthusiastic nervousness because they’d rarely grilled, which is why they’d come of course. Once aprons were firmly tied and tea towels were hanging professionally at waists, the cooks settled in to work. There was much laughter, much talking back and forth, much visiting among stations as each person wanted to learn everything. They diligently peeled, chopped, blended, plucked and mixed. I prepared the grills and once the coals were ready and the gas grill was hot, we moved outside. A light breeze had come up to sweep away the summer heat, and as the mushrooms went on one grill the avocados colonized the other. As an ingredient was grilled and removed, the grill was brushed clean and on went the next, so that everything proceeded apace, from radishes and asparagus that turned golden and juicy on the gas grill, to chicken crisping to perfection over the coals, as it was swabbed with spiced mustard on a regular basis.
When all the elements for the meal were ready, we put the shortcake to bake on the grill. No one believed it could be done.
But Guess What?! It Can!!
As each element of the meal came off the grill and went where it was supposed to, I realized I not only had a fantastic group on my hands, but those recipes were just as exciting, beautiful, and easy to prepare in this context as they’d been on my grills at home.
We stood enjoying amuse-bouches, toasting each other and ourselves with rosé, then sat down to a meal that was a tribute to the season and the grill, and the infallible intuition of the newly accomplished grill cooks! It was, and is, a moment and a meal to remember!
FRENCH GRILL featured on Grill Maestro Steven Raichlen’s blog Barbecue!Bible – Take a Look!
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