Escalivada

One of my favorite things to do with a mix of summer vegetables is to slow-roast them, drizzle with olive oil and eat with slices of toasted bread. A Spanish restaurant I used to go to had a similar dish called "Escalavida," which they sadly took off the menu. I used bell peppers, zucchini, tomatoes and onions, but eggplant is also a great addition. I did each vegetable under the broiler separately, but a grill is even better if you have one!

Bell Peppers: Arrange peppers on a foil-lined baking sheet. Adjust oven rack so the peppers can sit as close to the broiler heating element as possible without touching it. Preheat broiler and put in peppers. Watch and turn when the skin facing the broiler turns black (you'll begin to smell at about the same time). Turn until most of the skin is black and peeling (they don't have to be totally black...about 75%). Cool in a Ziploc bag or a bowl, until they're cool enough to handle.

The skin should then fall off pretty easily. Resist the urge to rinse them- it will be faster and you'll get rid of all the black but they won't have that wonderful roasted, caramelized, smokey taste.

Eggplant: Position rack so that eggplant will be a few inches from the broiler. Rotate the eggplant periodically so the skin is charred and pulls away. Let the eggplant rest until cool enough to handle. Cut open and pull out the inside in strips. Taste some- if it's still a bit chewy, throw it back in for a few more minutes.

Tomatoes: Cut tomatoes in half on the equator and seed. If they're large, cut into quarters. Let them drain for a few minutes on paper towels. Arrange on a rimmed baking sheet (not too crowded- an inch or so between pieces) and drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt. Roast a few inches under the broiler for about 5-10 minutes to cook out some of the water and just begin to brown the edges. (These aren't so well-suited to the grill as the other veggies)

Onions: Cut onions in half, and then into wedges about 1 inch thick. Toss with olive oil and salt and arrange on a rimmed baking sheet. Roast a few inches from the broiler, stirring when the edges start to brown. Take them out when the onions are translucent and browned on the edges. (On the grill- Cut the onions in slices like you would for onion rings. Use a toothpick to hold all of the rings together. Grill on medium-high heat. These make burgers amazing.)

Zucchini and Summer Squash: Cut lengthwise into quarters or smaller. Toss with olive oil and salt and roast several inches under the broiler, turning periodically so no sides get too brown.

Arrange on a dish and drizzle with a good olive oil. Slice bread, brush with olive oil and arrange on baking sheet. Put the sheet in the still-warm oven (broiler turned off) to lightly toast.

The End of Carbs

My brother asked me, “Why don’t we eat like, corn on the cob, or ribs, or mashed potatoes or any of that other stuff we used to eat?” Good question.

I blame the South Beach Diet. When I was about 14, there was this book called the South Beach Diet that appeared in my house. I think we bought it at Costco, of all places. I was old enough to care about diets (although too young to actually follow one), and a proficient cook, so I flipped through it. Turns out some of what I believed to be vegetables were going to give me diabetes. Also, white bread is worse for you than heroin. I found the recipes much more interesting, but puzzling. There was a salmon filet with rosemary and garlic, my favorite greek salad recipe, and seared rare tuna with the best spice rub I’ve found for it yet. Then there were some real horrors. For dessert, SBD recommends fat free ricotta cheese mixed with Splenda. To call this dessert was laughable; we could not get this stuff down. Why was this garbage in the same book as my beloved Greek Salad? In place of mashed potatoes there was this strange puree of cauliflower, which must have been designed to disappoint, to raise our hopes and make us believe for a second that we were having mashed potatoes. The cauliflower stuff didn’t last either, but real mashed potatoes only come out at Thanksgiving.

Our parents lost weight, but the more lasting effect was the factioning of family dinner. My brother was not going to eat either pureed cauliflower or salmon, so he ate more frozen macaroni and cheese or bagel bites, or sometimes he and I would have our own dinner. Now that it’s just my mom and brother, separate meals are standard.

We needed one summertime family dinner while I was home. Ribs were his request, along with the South Beach villain corn on the cob. I remembered making the barbeque sauce years ago from this amazing page-long recipe that included dried ancho chili and a 2 cups of bourbon. This time, I also took on the grilling and the trimming and minor butchering, which I absolutely love. Something about taking apart a huge piece of raw meat is very satisfying, probably evolutionarily ingrained. Gnawing corn from a cob or ripping meat from a bone is so enjoyable because it reminds us where our food came from- corn came from those stalks filling the fields down the road, and meat comes off a bone, from an animal, not from a grocery store bin in a shrink wrapped package.

I also made a favorite summer side, cucumber salad. The fact that I had a mandolin made it impossible to resist. Cucumbers are peeled, seeded, and sliced thin (less than 1/8 of an inch). The sliced cucumber is salted (I used 2 Tbs for 4 cups) and sits for a few hours while the salt pulls the water out. When the slices are soft, rinse and squeeze out the water with a dishtowel. 4 cups will be reduced to about 2. Tossed with just a tablespoon of mayonnaise or plain yogurt and lots of black pepper, this makes a great cold counterpoint for the spicy smoky ribs. You can also add onions (before salting) or feta (at the end), but it’s very nice by itself.