Barton Seaver - Where Theres Smoke: Simple, Sustainable, Delicious Grilling

BARTON SEAVER

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2013 by Barton Seaver
Photography by Katie Stoops

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ISBN 978-1-4027-9847-4

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Seaver, Barton.

Where theres smoke: simple, sustainable, delicious,
grilling / Barton Seaver.

pages cm

ISBN 978-1-4027-9847-4

1. Barbecuing. I. Title.

TX840.B3S3926 2013

641.76dc23

2012037560

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Contents

WELCOME
drinks + starters

SETTING THE STAGE
soups + salads

STARS
vegetables + accompaniments

FINS + SHELLS
fish + shellfish

WINGS
chicken, turkey + duck

HOOVES
beef, pork + lamb

To Hal and Tim

for helping us to write the most wonderful chapter of our lives.

My thanks to

My lovely ladyfish Carrie Anne, Michael and Sean Dimin, Julia Nicolaysen, Cheryl Dahle, Colleen Howell, Bev Eggleston, the Croxton Family at Rappahanock River Oyster Co., Hog Island Oyster Company, Taylor Shellfish, Island Creek Oyster Co., Nic Farias, Myra Goodman, Alicia and Andy Sokol, Fred and Susan Massie at Terrapin View Farm, Nate Anda at Red Apron, Vicki Reh, Gail Ross, Howard Yoon, Robert Egger, Seth and Caroline Hurwitz, Will and Rachel Caggiano (for enduring a little too much heat in the recipe testing), Katie Stoops, Will and Karen, Steve Vilnit, Jeff and Sandy, Amy Witherly, and Dad, the grill master.

I grew up in a family that knew how to eat. Every night we gathered around the table, all of us, putting aside the tasks of our day to come together. The rough clang of the dinner bell was the last prompt, but more often than not, the aromas that filled the house were enough to draw me to the kitchen. That was on the rare days when I wasnt already there, helping to prepare the meal.

In our home, food was participatory, it was uniting, and it was delicious. Meals were never too complicated, a style I initially rebelled against when I first started creating dishes in a restaurantalways adding five unnecessary ingredients. We were lucky in that we were able to choose what we ate for dinner. This was not because we were spoiled or picky children, but rather because we helped do the shopping, we helped prepare the meal, and we ate our vegetables (mostly with joy, I might add). We had all the food we needed, and we were lucky for that. Many of the kids that I knew were not so fortunate.

I was taught to recognize the value of food from the beginning, at first in the simple understanding that there were those who didnt have enough or any. But once I had left the nest, I began to recognize the value of the gifts that I had been given: the love of food, of meals, and of communion. Food was a part of me, and it was how I communicated with the world. I remember throwing dinner parties long before I had a living space that could accommodate the task, seeking to re-create the comfort of the gatherings my parents hosted.

I realized that I was looking to food to feed a more complicated hunger, seeking to nourish with more than calories. I was feeding my need for community, friendship, love, sense of self, and much more. Food was my inheritance, an heirloom passed on by my parents for me to use as I saw fit. My parents taught me the fluency and gave me the capacity to nourish.

How well I remember a meal my father made on a sandy beach below a great-aunts house in Pugwash, Nova Scotia. We had spent the day waiting at the docks for the lobster boats to come in with their catch. With lobsters in hand after a very easy negotiation, we set off back to the beach to gather seaweed brought in with the tide. There we found mussels hanging from the rocks, ripe for the plucking. Clams were to be had with little more effort than the turning of the spade in the sand. A driftwood fire was made in a dug-out pit, and the seaweed and seafood were piled in and buried.

Puzzled as to how this was going to turn out, I went back to my playing. My brother dared me to jump up and put my chin on the clothesline, a challenge I confidently accepted. A few hours later, the cut on my tongue was still throbbing from where my teeth had chomped down on it with the full weight of my body on that clothesline. You still owe me for that one, brother! But the sweet and unbelievably fresh seafood was more balm than I needed in order to take my thoughts far away from the red mark under my chin. Dad didnt have to build that pit; a simple pot would have sufficed. But there was joy in the seaweed-smothered flames of that fire. Even though it was added effort, the participation in the method made our meal all the more delicious. Many of my favorite memories involve food, the very best of those involve fire.