Grilling lettuce usually isn’t the first thing to come to mind when putting together your barbecue menu. But grilled Romaine lettuce is worth giving a go. The tender leaves obtain a slight smokey flavor and become delicately sweet. Leave the halved hearts on the grill just long enough to get a nice little char on their outer leaves while retaining a crispness in their center. Drizzle with Barnaby’s fabulous and healthy no-egg Caesar dressing, some unseasoned croutons and shavings of Parmesan. The perfect year-round salad.

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Not too long ago Mark cooked live lobsters for the first time and because it was such a special occasion, it called for special butter. Of course there is nothing more delicious than lobster dipped into sweet hot butter, but what if you kicked it up a notch? After boiling the lobsters he split them in half, placed them on the barbecue for just a couple minutes and brushed them with chipotle butter. They were quite the treat. I can imagine this butter on grilled corn on the cob, added to steamed clams or even spread on a baked potato.

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Here in Seattle we take advantage of every bit of sunshine we get, and fortunately in the summer we get a lot! It’s as if Mother Nature feels bad for dumping on us throughout the long winter, so she blankets us with sunny goodness for a few months to help us “forget” what’s inevitably around the corner.

So when the sun is out, so is the barbecue. Nearly every night we grill something up – which makes for little or no cleaning in the kitchen! Last night I celebrated my first harvest of heirloom baby lettuces from my garden. There’s nothing better than tender leaves tossed with a bit of good oil (we chose Walnut), an ever-so-light spritzing of lemon juice, and sea salt and fresh cracked pepper. We “garnished” our meal with these wonderful spicy bratwursts and onions we grilled.

Ahhh, summer in Seattle. “Tis a glorious thing indeed.

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After reading Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food, Barnaby vowed to only buy grass fed beef. Some of you may ask why not give up beef all together? Well, you can blame me. I love meat and have given up being ashamed to admit it. We don’t eat a lot of beef, but darn it, I love it! So, politics of vegetarians versus carnivores aside, I’d like to share with my fellow meat-eaters our beautiful, super-duper-delicious-grass-fed-beef burgers.

Grass fed beef reminds me of the uber-high quality meats we enjoyed in Argentina. Not only is it a better way of living for the animal, but the meat tastes so much more flavorful and clean. In fact, if you did a side-by-side comparison of grass fed to non-grass fed beef I’d bet money that you’d make a switch too (even if you didn’t care about the animal’s life).

We seasoned these little burgers with just a little salt and pepper, grilled them to a nice medium wellness, and tossed on a bit of blue cheese at the end. Perfect with some grilled red onion.

They taste so darn good!

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It’s grilling day! Chicken, burgers, steaks, ribs…whatever you’re throwing down on the flames today here’s the perfect condiment: cilantro mint pesto. This recipe, I am super proud to say, came from Melissa and her co-author’s (Marcus Pape) newest book – their fourth! – Eat & Drink In The Northwest. The series is a beautiful food and wine (specifically Pacific Northwestern wines) pairing cookbook that will inspire you with seasonal ingredients. Of course I have to tout it! Even if Melissa wasn’t part of the Foodista team (and my friend) I’d still be shouting praises from the roof tops for her books. Each one is filled with beautiful mouthwatering recipes with local ingredients that are artfully paired with a local wine.

The other day Melissa brought to the office some grilled lamb and a jar of her cilantro mint pesto. (Did I mention that I love my job?) If it wasn’t for the spoon she placed in the jar I would have shamelessly dipped in and scooped out a big, green, tasty finger full.

Last night we grilled up some beautiful bison steaks, which we coated with a bit of the pesto before grilling, and topped them off with more. Perhaps this should be called Green Goddess – it sure is divine! Grilling lamb? Marcus recommends pairing it with a Syrah, Cabernet Franc, Red Blend or a Zinfandel.

Try it on any grilled meat or fish, smear it on your burger, make some crostini topped with ripe tomato, or even mixed with pasta. It’s the perfect condiment.

Here’s the recipe, thanks to Mel.

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Little is better than a spectacularly fresh piece of fish that’s been grilled to perfection, like this halibut. Perhaps I’m just easy to please. All it needs is a bit of salt and pepper and the gentle licks from the barbecue’s flames. But when topped with a fruit salsa, such as Papaya Salsa, all the neighbors from blocks away can hear my whoo-hoos.

It’s that damn good.

We based our recipe on our Mango Salsa and substituted with Papaya, either are delicious. Here’s a simple recipe:

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I am finally beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel when it comes to our yard. Prior to us purchasing our home it had been empty for a year, so needless to say, the garden was and has been in complete disarray. Where does one begin!? I have an exceptionally limited knowledge of gardening and have found the whole task of landscaping daunting. No, let me rephrase that, I found it mind numbingly overwhelming.

Fortunately for me and Barnaby, my mother and step-father are master gardeners. This last weekend they loaded their Euro Van with shrubs and plants, left their Sunset-magazine-perfect home and headed north to Seattle to improve the state of our garden. We arrived home from work on Friday greeted by the two of them wielding all sorts of garden tools and implements. I knew what I was in for and I knew I had to keep up – Mom and Greg are serious forces to be reckoned with in the garden.

Saturday morning I  donned the grubby jeans and the protective eye wear, and trimmed hedges like a burly man. Barnaby, on the other hand, steered clear of the gardening whirlwind and whipped up meal after meal for us. That evening, fresh and clean from our showers, we sat in our beautiful backyard and sipped chilled Rosé while Barnaby barbecued.

Along with his famous Caesar Salad he grilled up yogurt-marinated vegetable and shrimp skewers and served them with a Moroccan-style cumin yogurt sauce. That – and a handful of Tylenol for the sore muscles – fixed me right up for another days worth of gardening!

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Our poor barbecues. During the warmer months they barely have a chance to cool down before we’re firing them up again. Then, before you know it the weather changes and the grill sits cold and lonely outside wondering where in our whirlwind romance was the love lost (I have a strange habit of giving inanimate objects feelings). Many of us don’t think to barbecue in Winter – because, really, who likes to freeze their butt off while flipping steaks in the snow? – but grilling vegetables is quick, easy and requires only a couple of fast trips outside to check on their progress. And it’s so worth having beautifully colorful and delicious grilled veggies in February!

We sliced up a few zucchini lengthwise and quartered, top to bottom, some sweet onions. We tossed the onions with a bit of olive oil and placed them in a grilling basket. Then, we brushed both sides of the zucchini with olive oil and placed them in a row on the grill. Beside them we laid a few red and yellow peppers, closed the lid and let the trio do their thing.

After a few minutes we tossed the onions in their basket, flipped the zukes, and rotated the peppers. Once the zucchini and onions were nicely grilled we removed those and cranked up the flame to further roast the peppers. You want them black. Once sufficiently black remove the peppers from the grill and place in a paper bag. This cools them and allows the sugars to further caramelize. The skin will then slide off nicely. Quarter the peppers and place all your lovely vegetables on a platter.

Drizzle with a bit of reduced Balsamic vinegar and you have summer sooner than you thought!

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We are please to introduce Betsy Dorfman as our newest contributor to the Foodista blog. You can see her regular blog here.

TUGBERT is our 26-foot Nordic Tug recreational trawler, berthed in Marina del Rey, California, otherwise known as the watery part of Los Angeles. We have been enjoying a warm October and there is no better fair weather dinner in our opinion than fish cooked over a grill on a boat. Everything tastes better, for starters, and the propane fueled grills, which you will see everywhere clamped to boat railings, are actually serious cookers, which heat quickly and do a grand job on fish.

Of course the fish has to be fresh. For that we head south to Alamitos Bay (near Long Beach) to the Sunday Farmer’s Market, well worth the investment in gas. Prices are cheaper than the chef-infested markets of Santa Monica and nowhere else has J & P West Coast Seafood. From the side of a chuck wagon style truck this gentleman improbably dispenses some of the freshest fish in the area week after week at, not low, but fair prices for the quality. The white sea bass ran us about $20 per pound, but this is a cut, which is all edible with no waste.

First we cut the sea bass into similar portions of like thickness. Next we generally brush with olive oil before applying a rub. Even though the white sea bass has a high oil content on its own, the oil disperses the rub evenly and helps it adhere rather than scrape off on the grill. Flush from a recent visit to World Spice in Seattle, we had variety of choices but soon settled on a an old favorite – Calico fish rub. This is a blend of sumac, Chinese chilies, whole black sesame seeds, red sea salt, and dill. It adds nice reddish color (that’s the sumac) to a plain white fish like the sea bass, and there is no need for salt or pepper. With the green dill weed the effect before cooking is Christmas on a plate! Grill and eat, couldn’t be simpler. You may encounter some bones but these are typically large and readily identified. This is a mild fish with a creamy finish similar to scallop or crab.

For the side dish we cheated and precooked the potatoes in the microwave to shorten the cook time on the boat. We cut the mostly cooked peeled potatoes into convenient chunks, combined with raw onion and a large shallot, drizzled with Meyer lemon olive oil, dotted with sea salt and pepper and wrapped in foil. Placed on the back side of the grill in its packet the potatoes finished cooking in ten minutes or so, roughly the same time it took to grill the fish. Times will vary widely depending upon the thickness of the fish, whether it is cold or room temperature, and the setting or flame on your grill.

White Sea Bass a la Tugbert

Side dishes:
Foil wrapped potatoes, onions and shallots
Large helping of sunset

Grilled white sea bass
1 lb fish steak or fillet cut into three equal portions (serves 2-3)
2 tsps olive oil
Rub of your choice, or salt & pepper – about 1 tablespoon
Brush olive oil on all sides and surfaces of fish coat with rub
Foil wrapped potatoes
One medium potato per person, microwave whole until fork inserts rather easily — prick potatoes several times with a fork prior to microwaving to avoid explosions!
Peel potatoes, and cut into 2″ cubes
One medium onion, peeled and sliced
One large shallot, peeled and sliced
1 tablespoon Meyer lemon infused olive oil, any flavored olive oil, or plain oil of good quality
Sea salt and pepper to taste
Toss all together and place on oiled square of aluminum foil. Top with a second piece of foil of equal size, seal and crimp edges.

This same dinner could be made on land, but we recommend buying a boat for maximum flavor.

Ron and Betsy and TUGBERT

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I don’t know what’s better in this dish: the fresh tuna or the mango salsa? The fresh-from-the-sea albacore tuna loin we purchased stayed so moist and tender during grilling, often times a fish that easily dries out. What perfectly topped it was the mango salsa. The sweetness of the mango balanced beautifully with the fresh cilantro, onion and lime juice. It’s also a great addition to grilled pork or chicken.

Mango Salsa

1 fresh mango, diced
1/4 cup red onion, chopped
2 tablespoon fresh cilantro, chopped
Juice of one lime
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
Fresh ground black pepper to taste
optional: 1 small Thai chili pepper or 1/2 jalapeno pepper, seeded and finely chopped

In a bowl, combine all of the above ingredients. If the mango is firm, mash the chopped pieces a bit with a fork.

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