Karen Adler - The Gardener & the Grill: The Bounty of the Garden Meets the Sizzle of the Grill

O ur story is of two women who love to cook, and especially grill. We remember fondly the wonderful dishes that we have prepared in our lifetimes and think, Can that dish be as good on the grillor even better? And then we set about tweaking our favorites for grilling.

We both love to garden. We love the look of our gardens (most of the time). We talk about what we will do next season differently and what new crop we want to try. But we both garden differently.

Karens garden mimics the French potager (raised-bed in a pattern) style with an emphasisa BIG EMPHASISon tomatoes of every type. She also grows herbs, fruits, and vegetables.

Judiths garden is more edible landscaping and container gardening with baby turnips, rhubarb, melons, Italian plum tomatoes, and baby lettuces amongst the pear trees, raspberries, roses, and lavender.

Even though our garden types and plantings differ, were both on the same pagegrilling makes garden-fresh foods taste great.

Gardening and grilling are all about having foods you like. You might grow pots of patio tomatoes because you love having your own fresh-picked and heirloom varieties for pennies, rather than buying them for exorbitant (but deserving) dollars per pound. Or you might grow fava beans because theyre difficult to find fresh in the pod in your area. Likewise, you grill foods because the combination of high heat and outdoor cooking yields a super-concentrated flavor that you just cant get in the kitchen.

When you grill, the high heat brings the natural sugars in foods to the surface, where they caramelize. Grilling makes foods taste fuller, richer, and meatiereven without any meat. The first time we grilled a head of romaine, cut in half lengthwise, we were amazed at how we could taste the crunchy lettuce as well as the slight char of the grill. When you want fresh and healthy foods with more depth of flavor, grilling from the garden makes perfect sense.

As activities, gardening and grilling also complement each other. While gardening can be solitary and even meditative, grilling is social. When you plant or weed or water, youre concentrating. Maybe youre gardening with a friend or spouse, but youre probably not carrying on a lively conversation. If you ask friends to come over to help you weed, you wont get many takers.

Yet when you grill, you might be entertaining guests outdoors or at least anticipating the wonderful meal to come, where the conversation could be lively. Family and friends will bring the food to grill outside, offer to take a turn with the grill tongs, or carry platters of grilled vegetables to the table. When you fire up the grill, youve got a reason for an outdoor party.

Garden to grill cooking emphasizes sustainability, freshness, taste, color, and texture. Grilling from the garden also gives you twice the sense of accomplishmentfirst from growing your own food, and secondly, from making it taste so good.

It doesnt get any fresher than picking ears of corn, and grilling them a few minutes later, slathered with a flavored butter. Mmmmm.

Grilling gives even familiar vegetables a new and exciting makeover. For example, once you harvest a large head of broccoli, the plant keeps producing side shoots. These shoots are delicious grilled, then served with a dipping sauce as an appetizer or side dish. You get a larger yield, creatively interpreted in a new dish. If youre interested in something more unique, you might want to try purple sprouting broccoli, an English heirloom of the cut and come again variety.

Herbs from your garden can go into condiments, marinades, sauces, and vinaigrettes that add an easy wow factor to simple grilled foods such as hamburgers, chicken, steaks, fish, shellfish, pork tenderloin or chops, and lamb.