Raid the Melon Patch and Fire Up the Coals One Last Time (Grilled Watermelon Salad)

My friends, Labor Day is once again upon us: a day of smiling through tears as we send another summer into the Great Unknown not with sorrow in our hearts but with beer in our bellies. Also, charred meat. Oh god, the charred meat. Like a proper jazz funeral, it is a festive and bittersweet day for celebrating the journey rather than mourning its end.

Looks like a crowd … better throw on more meat!!

As a child, I always detested the day. After all, what kind of savage sub-humans could derive such glee from a day that heralds a return to the morbid confines of another soul-sapping school year?

You cold bastards!! You said we were getting up early for pony rides!!!!

As I have grown into a matured mind (and rock-solid, taut, muscular, ageless body),  however, I have come to appreciate the true sadism of such a holiday.

Goodbye, ‘hey you damn kids, get off my lawn’ … and HELLO to another nine months of laughing and pointing as that big yellow bus drives away.

But Labor Day is about so much more than taunting the incarcerated youth of the neighborhood while sipping my coffee and reveling in my fluffy slippers; it is also about finding another excuse to eat and drink like heathens between the patriotic feast on the Fourth … and the generally idiotic feast on SuperBowl Sunday.

On this day of prideful tradition, I would not dare suggest what form of small animal you roast over your open flame, or what alcoholic concoction you wash it down with. But might I humbly offer a single suggestion for the coming weekend … a new ritualistic sacrifice over your personal pit of despair. Rustic enough for the county fair, yet plenty fancy for you finest cutoff denims.

If you’re not grilling in these bad boys, then you’re not grilling.

Grilled Watermelon Salad

1 big, juicy seedless watermelon
Coarse sea salt
Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Baby spinach leaves, washed
Crumbled goat cheese (or drained cottage cheese to cut down on salty taste)
Chocolate-Balsamic Vinaigrette

Cut your waterlemon in half, across its widest point. Place the flat side down on a cutting board and cut away the rind, leaving a solid dome of red flesh. Cut lengthwise into 1 1/2″ thick filets.

Salt both sides of the watermelon slices and rest on a cooling rack to sweat for 20 to 30 minutes, placing a cookie sheet below to catch the drainage.

After the rest period, rinse each side thoroughly and set aside until you’re ready to grill. Brush a fine coating of olive oil on each side and grill over medium-hot coals for about 3-5 minutes per side.

While this makes quite a delicacy fresh off the grill, with a little salt added back in, its most ridiculous application is serving as the base for a simple summer salad. Referring to the link above, whip up a quick batch of Chocolate-Balsamic Vinaigrette sufficiently in advance to allow it time to cool.

Cut watermelon into squares approximately 3 to 4 inches across and top with crumbled goat cheese or cottage cheese. Add a few baby spinach leaves and drizzle conservatively with vinaigrette. The smoky, intensified sweetness of the melon, coupled with the acidic kick of balsamic and bitter greens is refreshing and truly unique.

And, if you really want my respect, tell me that you remembered to set aside just enough to wash it down with an impromptu watermelon margarita.

Proposition “FOCKITALL” For Social Change (also, Black and White Cookies!!)

I hail from an age when good triumphed over evil, the concept of “being famous for being famous” would make people sad, and the only polarizing battle between “black” and “white” was waged on an ancient battleground of cookie-liciousness (what, me idealize?).

Far be it from me to allow a bit of harmless introspection to escape my grasp without prompting a verbose pontification of greater implications… As I worked through another day of weaving culinary magic, I began to ponder this apparent devolution of society during my brief lifetime…and came to one conclusion: good and evil may be artificial constructs that can only exist within a vacuum devoid of any degree of context and Paris Hilton will never, ever go away…BUT this black vs white thing is utterly asinine and we ALL need to get the hell over it, like, NOW.

Yes, I get profound when I cook… What, you don’t?

Never one to back down from the opportunity to charge myself with single-handedly spearheading a nationwide campaign for social change, I hereby formally propose a national movement of getting over our intolerant selves and bringing our neolithic asses into the 21st century, once and for all. And we shall do so, my friends, by calling to order the first-ever “Forget Our Counterproductive, Kafkaesque, Intolerant, Tedious Asshattery and Let Live” Day…

Yes, together we can all share in the blame for the past, we can all forgive the person to our left in the present, and we can ALL take that first step toward a better future by standing proud, raising our arms into the winds of change, and emphatically declaring “FOCKITALL” to anybody and everybody who crosses our day. (Warning: you may get punched…a lot. Remember, some people fear change.)

Chocolate-Balsamic Vinaigrette (The Spring Dessert Trilogy: ACT THREE)

So what the heck is a sauce, per se? Mr. Webster traces the word’s etymology to the 14th century, as a derivative of the Latin word “salsa.” So, see, you do, in fact, know some Latin.

A dead language, indeed.

At its “base” (sauce humor – you’ll get used to it), a sauce is nothing more than a condiment or topping that adds flavor and presentation to an underlying food. Granted, the word also has an alternate definition: “impudent and cheeky language.” So this blog is – quite literally – covered in sauce. How awesome is that!! Can I rock a double-entendre???

But let’s be honest, sauces are the ultimate venue of expression in a conventional culinary setting… Sauce is the ‘extended recess’ reward for toiling so diligently over proper kitchen etiquette and procedures. It’s definitely not the end-all of a dish but, when done right, it is the suddenly indispensable element that pulls all other elements together into gloriously harmonious cosmic cohesion…

DRAMATIZATION

Barring a gargantuan lottery win – or irreversible damage, brought on by an unrecoverable food coma in my near-future – I hope to be sharing sauces (saucily served) with you for a long time to come. So I suppose now is as good a time as any to share a little secret… I love balsamic vinegar. No, I mean I am madly, head-over-heels in culinary lust with the stuff. If there weren’t laws in place, I would probably go ahead and propose.

Peppermint-Champagne Dessert Sauce (The Spring Dessert Trilogy: ACT TWO)

You know how you always seem to have that leftover half-bottle of high-end champagne in your fridge from the previous night’s debauchery, yet you never know what the hell to do with it?

Keith took the Jack with him…freeloading bastard.

Of course you don’t. None of us do. We’re bloggers, for god’s sake. Our liquid inspiration of choice usually carries a more ‘cost-effective’ reputation and, let’s face it, the vast majority of our debauchery is self-inflicted. Still, that doesn’t mean we can’t treat our friends, and ourselves, to a little taste of the sweet life.

...a LITTLE taste… Jesus, dude. Why can't I have normal friends?

“No Pastry Needed” Pastry Cream (The Spring Dessert Trilogy: ACT ONE)

You’ll Never Meet a Saucier Saucier (Especially When Sauced):

I remember the day so well… As the final weeks of summer rushed by in a frenetic haze to capture the tail-end of a grilling season that had already passed us by (… *shrug* details…), the ringing of a telephone put the world in sudden stasis…for a brief, fleeting moment.

My fledgling gourmet sauce company was beginning to look excitingly viable amid a heightened buzz of curiosity. Recipes of my humble creation were in the process of becoming legitimate commercial production formulas…bottled within a surprisingly sophisticated label of my own graphic design…and proudly pitched with marketing materials, composed entirely of my inimitable (for better or worse) prose. Chefs, food reviewers and Saturday shoppers alike fell in love with the creative spins, all-natural approach and high-end product line that showed promise of introducing a tired old market to a playfully innovative new character…and then came that phone call…

For that moment, the roaring machine of commerce ground to a whining halt under the weight of uncertainty… The voice on the other end of the phone had become a familiar one – a cross between Michael Corleone Tony Soprano’s grandfather. A voice that was so stereotypically Italian that it emanated from a man whose family actually bottles marinara sauce for a living.

Swear to god, this was hanging over his desk

It was the voice of our future commercial co-packer.

“Spring Has Sprung… BATTER UP!! (aka, Lemon & Pinot Sorbet)”

Ahhh, springtime…that magical time of year when the earth wipes the gloomy slumber from its eyes and springs back into technicolor life…that fabled time of year when a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of one thing:

...BASEBALL!!

The burgeoning emergence of April, arriving on tender shoots of vibrant green glory. Without fail, a wondrous time of year…as the bitter gales of January mature into a balmy breeze that warms both the skin and the soul…as the melting snowfalls of February now water the blooming fields of color…and let’s face it…March just has a really shitty reputation all-around – especially right around the middle…

The Return of Robert Marley (or, ‘Spiced Jamaica Tea and Island Rum’ Sorbet)

No, this is not a recipe for hash brownies or a tutorial on how to roll your own, so get your collective heads out of the (purple) haze and back into the gutters…

No, it's ok Bob… You can stay where you're at.

No, this is more of a brief and simple cautionary tale about the dangers of letting a Bossian mind wander aimlessly through one-too-many consecutive days of soul-sapping, overcast skies…that limbo between the downturn of winter and the day when spring finally garners the strength to take flight and break free of the bleak, grey pallor cast over the landscape…until that one day…that day when not even the “Sonny Crockett salmon”-hued sports jacket and a re-run of ‘Captain Ron‘ can cure the impossibly deep-seated blues of the seemingly perpetual gloaming that is early-March.