Have you ever wondered how to cook a turkey on a charcoal grill? When it’s time to cook a turkey, it’s usually a holiday, and the kitchen is a madhouse. There are pies and casseroles and rolls to be baked, and the oven is never big enough for everything. Cooking the turkey outside is a simple solution — especially since there is often a grill cook or two around the house with nothing to do.

For years, the culinary highlight of our annual White Elephant party was a grilled turkey, which served dozens of hungry guests with minimal work. As I once wrote on Adventures with Meps ‘n’ Barry:

Barry discovered how easy it was to throw a turkey on the barbecue grill, so that became the central menu item. He’d take it off the grill as the party was getting in full swing and plop it on a platter in the middle of the table, next to a carving fork and knife. Then he’d walk away.

The guests would stand around, looking puzzled. “Who’s going to carve the turkey?” they’d ask. Finally, someone who couldn’t stand to wait any longer would just pick up the knife and start carving away. And Barry and I would give each other a high-five, since we knew how to cook a turkey, but didn’t want to admit that carving it was beyond us.

This past Christmas, Barry’s mother prepared a turkey on her grill, and we documented the process with the camera. It’s so easy, it’s worth buying a turkey any time of the year!

What you’ll need:

A large kettle-style barbecue grill (such as a Weber)
A large bag of charcoal - regular briquettes, not Matchlight
Lighter fluid or a chimney-style charcoal starter with newspaper
A rectangular pan (disposable foil pans work, but may leak) to put under the turkey
Optional: Hardware cloth to hold briquettes
Optional: Turkey lifter
Optional: Lid spacers — metal rods or 2×4’s wrapped in foil

1. Before buying your turkey, measure the height of your grill lid from the grate that holds the turkey. If your turkey isn’t small enough to fit under the lid, you can use spacers to gain an extra inch or two. The spacers are illustrated in step #9. (The turkey may take a little longer to cook, but the results will be fine.)
2. Light your charcoal, using either lighter fluid or a chimney-style charcoal lighter with newspaper.
3. Meanwhile, prepare the turkey. Remove any giblets, wash the turkey, and tie up the wings and legs with wire or string. Rub the outside of the turkey with butter or olive oil. Important: This cooking method does not work with a turkey that’s stuffed. If you want stuffing, you’ll have to roast it in a separate pan in the oven.
   
4. Once all the briquettes have a layer of gray ash on them, they’re ready to use. Using tongs, divide the briquettes into two piles, one on each side of the grill, with the rectangular pan in the middle. There should be about 25-30 briquettes on each side. The goal is to cook the turkey with indirect heat and catch the drippings in the pan. One way to make this a little easier is to create “baskets” out of hardware cloth to hold the briquettes on the sides.
   
   
   
5. Put a little water into the drippings pan.
6. Place the grill on top of the charcoal and drippings pan.
   
7. If you have a turkey lifter, put it on top of the grill.
   
8. Put the turkey on the grill, centered over the foil pan. (in the photo below, the turkey was not perfectly centered, and the left wing was slightly scorched)
   
9. Put the lid over the turkey and set a timer for one hour.
10. Optional: The spacers shown below are only needed if the lid does not fit over the turkey. In a pinch, when we discovered the turkey was too tall at the last minute, we used 2×4’s wrapped in foil, one on either side of the grill. But if you know ahead of time that your turkey is too tall, metal rods like these are an elegant solution.
    
    
11. When an hour has passed, open the grill and add 8 or 9 fresh charcoal briquettes to the burnt-down briquettes on each side. There’s no need for lighter fluid. It’s easiest to do this if you remove the turkey to a baking sheet. When you put the turkey back, check to make sure it’s centered. You may also want to add a little water to the drippings pan.
    
12. Repeat step #9 every hour until the turkey is done. The total time should be about 12 minutes per pound. Use a meat thermometer to be absolutely certain that it’s done.
    
13. If you want to make gravy from the drippings, use a baster to remove the drippings about a half hour before the turkey is done.
14. Remove the turkey to a platter. Let it sit for 15 minutes on the counter before carving. If you put it on the table at a party, it will usually take about 15 minutes of discussion before one of the guests grabs the carving knife.

I took a very special photograph today, a plate of tiny poached pears stuffed with cream cheese. Why is the photo special? It represents the last four pears. What a relief!

Barry’s parents have several pear trees that produce delicious pears every fall. Unfortunately, they produce too many of them, and they ripen all at once.

Two years ago, we took as many as we could eat and gave pounds of them away to friends. We made batch after batch of pear sauce. Then I found a juicer at the thrift store. We began to juice many pears each day, tossing in a small lime or lemon wedge, peel and all, to give the juice some additional “zing.” This went on for days, until one day, the thrift store juicer whined and gasped and croaked. It was worth the $3 I’d paid for it, and had almost gotten us through the season.

Last year, we took another huge batch, but we didn’t give as many away. Instead, we borrowed a food dryer, dipping the cored pear quarters into Fruit Fresh and then drying them for hours. The work was interminable and the results tiny. We ended up with about a gallon of little pieces of dried pear skin. Not worth the effort, even if they were chewy and sweet.

This year, we found a blender at the thrift store and discovered pear smoothies. We used at least four pears a day, and the motor on the sturdy blender was up to the task. I stopped in to visit a friend at breakfast-time last week. “I have a treat for you,” she said, “we made pear smoothies this morning.” I couldn’t help but laugh. Not only had I already had a pear smoothie that day, but after two months of them, a pear smoothie was no longer a treat!

Barry and I also took pear crisp or pear cobbler to every potluck, giving us a chance to refine the recipe. Each batch called for three pears, but we doubled the topping and sometimes used as many as ten pears. We made salads that used the pears, along with home-grown apples and cucumbers. Barry made sparkling pear cupcakes, halving the recipe but accidentally leaving the same number of pears as a full recipe. No surprise, they were very moist! Finally, this morning, I was down to the last eight, the tiniest ones. They were too cute to put in the blender.

So I carefully peeled them and cut the cores out, then poached them and stuffed them with cream cheese. As I handled the delicate things, they felt like old friends. But after I ate them, I could only feel relief. They’re gone, and now I finally get to eat something else!

I recently wrote about my favorite kitchen gadgets, the small ones (see A few of my favorite things, part one). The following short list has my favorite big things, the ones that don’t fit into a drawer. One reason they’re favorites is because they all come with great stories. Some have multiple uses. For instance, the salad spinner can also be used to make art or dry your socks. And my husband is incredibly versatile.

Cast iron skillet with a lid. I inherited two cast-iron skillets from my mother, who’d gotten them from her mother. At the time, Mom had gotten some arthritis in her wrist, so she was happy to pass them along to someone who could actually lift them. I loved them like they were my children — I never washed them with soap, and I always seasoned them with vegetable oil after each washing. Then, several years later, catastrophe! My mother discovered a recipe for blackened fish and demanded the return of one of her cast-iron skillets. It took us months to get a new skillet as well-seasoned as the original, 75-year-old pan.

But it was worth it. We use our cast-iron skillets for everything, and they can easily go from the stove to the oven for dishes like upside-down cake or chillaquillas. Properly seasoned, they’re just as non-stick as Teflon or Silverstone, and a lot safer.

Cuisinart food processor. Christmas, 1990. My fiance was flying from Virginia to Ohio to spend the holiday with me, but he nearly missed his flight because of my present. He had decided to get me a food processor, and after reading Consumer Reports, determined that nothing less than a real Cuisinart would do. The problem was that he blithely planned to walk to the airport, a distance of about two miles. He picked up his suitcase in one hand and the shopping bag with the Cuisinart in the other. A half block into the walk, he shifted hands. And shifted back. And forth. And back. And forth.

With packaging and attachments, that Cuisinart weighed almost 25 pounds. And so he struggled all the way to the airport. When I picked him up on the other end, his hands were still sore, and until Christmas morning, I had no idea why.

That Cuisinart is still going strong at 17. It slices, it grates, it juliennes, it chops. It makes perfect pie crust and apple-cranberry relish to die for. And every time I use it, I think about how much I adore the man who gave it to me.

Second-generation pressure cooker. There are two kinds of cooks in the world: Those who use a pressure cooker, and those who don’t. I can’t imagine life without a pressure cooker, because I love whole grains, dried beans, and long-cooking vegetables like artichokes and beets. I know you can simmer those things on the stove for hours; one of my old black bean recipes specifically mentions simmering for 4 hours. But after having a pressure cooker for 12 years, there isn’t anything I cook on the stove that takes longer than 45 minutes — and the burner is only “on” for the first half of that.

If a true pressure-cooker fanatic is someone with two cookers, I’m a fanatic.

The term “second-generation” refers to the fact that today’s pressure cookers have a spring-loaded valve and additional fail-safes to prevent pea-soup-on-the-ceiling explosions that made the original 1950s pressure cookers infamous.

Countertop salad spinner. For most people, the word “countertop” seems unnecessary, because what other kind of salad spinner is there? For me, the other kind is the big one, the one down in the laundry room.Until 1980, my mother washed her lettuce, always iceberg, and put it on the counter on a towel to dry. Salad spinners had been invented, but were not yet common. Then she read an amazing article in the New York Times that suggested putting the lettuce in a pillowcase, tying the top shut, and putting it in the washing machine on “spin” cycle. In a top-loading washer, when you get the knob in just the right position, it simply spins without spraying any water into the tub, and the centrifugal force is the same as any salad spinner.

The problem was, as the family teenager, the job was delegated to me. It was novel at first, but eventually I became bored with it, because I had to descend to the dreary basement laundry corner and stay there until the spin cycle, which always seemed a lot longer than necessary for a head of lettuce, was complete.

Today, although I have my own washer and my own dreary basement laundry room, I also have a cute little salad spinner from the thrift store. I don’t think I’ve ever used it to dry iceberg lettuce, but I’ve done many batches of romaine, Bibb, red leaf, spinach, and all manner of gourmet greens that weren’t available to my mother. I’ve also postulated that if a washer can be used as a salad spinner, then a salad spinner could be used to dry clothing. As a cruising sailor who believes that every item needs to have multiple uses, I wouldn’t be averse to spinning a few pairs of underwear or socks in it.

Barry, my sous-chef. There isn’t anyone I’d rather play in the kitchen with. He is more religious than I about seasoning the cast-iron skillets (he never really forgave my mother), and more likely to use the larger pressure cooker to create a batch of homemade chili so huge we’ll be eating it for weeks. He also shares “in” jokes with me, like the “shoot” attachment that came with the Cuisinart. They called it a chute attachment, but that had to be a misspelling. Its role in life seemed to be “shooting” food all the way across the kitchen instead of putting it into the bowl.

While the salad spinner could be used to dry socks, he’s so versatile — and kind — that he will also wash the darn things for me.

Anyone who cooks will have a few favorite gadgets in their kitchen. When you open that jumbled, messy kitchen drawer, your favorites are the ones on top. If not, they’re the ones sitting on the counter, or more likely, in the sink or dishwasher.

I’ve downsized from a full-sized house and kitchen to the bare necessities, just enough to fit in a tiny boat galley. These bare necessities have traveled across the country in my Honda Civic, sailed the Intracoastal Waterway, and been used for camping in Newfoundland. They were unpacked into a camping trailer in Washington, packed up again, and moved to an apartment with 1 square foot of counter space. At this point, if I don’t need it, it’s gone — I don’t have room for it!

This is a list of those little indispensables, the items in my kitchen that are always in the to-be-washed or just-washed pile of dishes. If you’re looking for a gift for a friend who cooks, you might just find a few ideas below.

1. Microplane grater. I can’t live without it, because the foods you can prepare with one are the ones that give recipes their WOW factor. For example, fluffy mounds of parmesan and romano cheese. Fresh-grated ginger. Finely-grated chocolate. And something I didn’t even know about until I had my Microplane: Whole nutmeg. Once you’ve tried it, you’ll never go back to the ground stuff. When you’re wrapping up the Microplane as a gift, include a bar of nice dark chocolate and a nutmeg, so the recipient can try it out and immediately experience the WOW factor.
2. Stainless steel graduated measuring cups. I use them constantly as scoops — not just for flour and sugar, but to serve things like yogurt, nuts, and stew. It’s great so know exactly how much you’re serving to each person. And if you’re serving rice or whole grains, you can spray a 1- or 1/2-cup measure with a little oil spray, scoop out a serving, and then place a perfectly-shaped mound on each plate.
3. Big beefy garlic press and rubber garlic peeler. When we first downsized, I got rid of my small, inefficient garlic press. I thought I’d just use a knife — smash each clove with the flat of the knife, peel it, and chop it. But it took me so long to prep fresh garlic, I got lazy and started using garlic less and less. The new tools have remedied that. I can be halfway through a dish and suddenly decide to add garlic. I grab the garlic cloves, roll them in the little rubber tube, and out they come, sans papery peel. Then I pop them into the garlic press and press or slice them directly into the pot.
4. Cheap stainless scissors. It’s amazing what you can use scissors for in the kitchen — they don’t even have to be sharp. You can use them to cut a pizza or quesadillas. Snip some dried fruit into little bits, or snip fresh herbs into a pot on the stove. One of my favorite uses for scissors is to cut wet, sloppy things that come in cans, like whole canned tomatoes or roasted peppers. Leave a pair of cheap scissors on the counter for a few days, and see what else you think of.
5. Silicone baking mat. No longer do I hesitate to bake something, thinking the cleanup is not worth the effort. With one of these mats, cleaning up after roasting nuts or baking cookies, fish, or chicken is a breeze. I don’t know how I lived without one (well, I didn’t always have an oven, so that might explain it).
6. Stainless steel cocktail shaker. Even if you don’t drink cocktails, a stainless cocktail shaker is a beautiful thing, and it’s handy for blending all kinds of things. You can use a large one to shake up a batch of instant pudding, blend milk and flour for a white sauce, beat eggs, or making a smoothie without a blender.

Next week, in A few of my favorite things, part two, I’ll list some of the larger indispensables, the ones that take up a lot of room in my tiny kitchen. Things like the second-generation pressure cooker, cast-iron skillet, and most important of all: Barry, my sous-chef!

It’s asparagus season again, time to dust off one asparagus anecdote, one story, and one great tip.

Most of the people I know love fresh asparagus. It’s considered one of the gourmet vegetables, right up there with hearts of palm and artichoke hearts. Even now that it’s become fairly commonplace, the thought of the tender green shoots still provokes “ooooohs” from diners.

Back in the 1980’s, our friends Pat and Larry bought a farm in central Ohio. Their acreage included woods and fields, room for their dogs and cats to roam, space for an enormous barn and a pond. It also had a patch of robust and hearty asparagus, something their city-dwelling friends could only dream of.

Pat and Larry both had a wicked sense of humor and loved to tease people. When the asparagus came up in conversation, they would admit neither of them liked it. They might even go so far as to make retching noises to prove the point. And then, the wide-eyed listener, thinking of asparagus as something akin to green gold, would ask, hopefully, “What do you do with it?” “It makes great mulch,” they’d answer, just to see the shocked and dismayed reaction. In truth, Pat would puree it in soup, or else give it to friends.

Barry and I are not asparagus-averse. We are definitely in the “green gold” category, and we both remember the time we hit the asparagus “mother lode.”

It was a long-distance bicycle trip across Michigan in early June. We happened one weekend upon the town of Shelby, where an asparagus festival was in progress. Everything in Shelby was tall and green, even the Asparagus Queen.

We wandered through town, looking at the asparagus displays, asparagus crafts, and booths selling pickled asparagus. It wasn’t crowded, and our loaded bikes drew as much attention as any of the displays.

We were still fairly new to bicycle touring, and riding many miles each day meant we were always hungry. So we finally got tired of being gawked at and stepped into a dimly-lit pub and restaurant with a special menu for the festival. When the waitress came to take our order, we went all out: Beer-battered asparagus, asparagus-cheese soup, and asparagus lasagna. The waitress was shaking her head as she went to the kitchen. Thank goodness they didn’t have asparagus ice cream, or we would have ordered that, too.

Instead, we picked up a couple more pounds of asparagus from a farmer’s stand and steamed it later, for dinner. We peed green for days…

As we headed north out of Shelby, we rode through vast fields of asparagus. It was being harvested by farm workers, who sat in rows on a low trailer towed behind a tractor. It was kind of kinky: They literally picked the asparagus right between their legs.

Which brings to mind the following asparagus tip from our funniest friend, Minnesota Charles Mickelson.

If you’re at a dinner party that’s become dull, and the conversation lags, don’t despair. Just pick up the asparagus spear lying on your plate, no, not with your fork! Use your fingers. Now, this is the important part. Pretend that you are not holding a drooping, flaccid spear of asparagus, and proceed to tell an unrelated funny story. Be sure not to look at your asparagus spear, just hold it vertically in your fingertips. Every once in a while, punctuate your speech with a lively wave of the green wand.

Everyone will be watching the asparagus spear, practically holding their breath. They’ll be wondering, what are you doing with that asparagus spear? Are you going to eat it? What does it have to do with the story?

Eventually, someone will get the giggles, which are contagious. You can enhance the spread of laughter by pointing the asparagus at the giggling party and asking why they are giggling. Presto! You will have converted a dull dinner party into a lively, memorable event. All thanks to your friend, Mr. Asparagus Spear.

The Foodie’s favorite asparagus recipes:

Roasted asparagus: Toss asparagus on a cookie sheet with a little olive oil. Roast at 400 F for 10 minutes.
Chicken and asparagus in red sauce
Parmesan-crusted asparagus
Rhubarb and asparagus with mushrooms
Wilted asparagus and apple salad
New! Warm asparagus and apple salad with rhubarb and hazelnuts

As one of the earliest adopters of a bread machine, back in 1990, I never experienced the kind of phobia Tara writes about. My only bread machine-based fear was based on a real experience: While making a loaf of pumpernickel, my DAK bread machine, the kind that looked like R2D2, literally walked off the counter. The loud crash was followed by the sound of pathetic whining, as it lay bent, but not broken, on the floor. After that, I only used it on the floor, where it couldn’t fall further.

Foodie Gazette bread machine recipes

Guest Columnist: Tara L. Narcross

June 23: The Beginning

It began, quite innocently, at a yard sale. There it was, a practically-new bread machine. I remembered all the wonderful things my friend Patty had told me in the past about her bread machine — it’s so easy to use, we love it, the smell of baking bread is divine, and so forth. And this one was only $10. As I looked at it, I had visions of loaves of warm bread; I could almost smell the incomparable aroma of freshly baked bread coming from my very own kitchen.

True, the machine had neither box nor instructions; however, Patty had once promised me her help if I ever did decide to get a bread machine of my own. So it came home with me and occupied a chair in the living room for the first two weeks. During that time I alternated between excited anticipation and despair that what was supposed to be so simple would not prove to be within my grasp.

June 26

Patty found the instruction manual for the machine on the company’s web site. I’ve printed it and it’s sitting next to me on my desk. While I’m excited about the whole prospect of baking my own bread, my nerve is a little shaky, and I still haven’t actually started reading the manual. Patty continues to promise that I’ll love it — the machine, that is, not the manual.

It can’t be that bad, right? After all, both of my grandmothers baked bread all the time, and they didn’t have a machine to help them do it. For a very long time, they also didn’t have refrigerators, electric stoves, or running water, either. So I should be way ahead of the game.

July 9

The bread machine has been moved from the living room chair onto the spot that has been cleared on the kitchen table. I still haven’t cracked that manual, though. I did, however, carry it to and from work for three days, in hopes of reading it while eating lunch.

I know that part of the hesitation is rooted in my previous attempt (the first and, to date, the only) at baking yeast bread. It was something called “Bubble Bread”, and was supposed to be so easy that if you had opposable thumbs and could follow a recipe, the bread would turn out perfectly. Hah.

Even though I had never baked bread before, I just knew something was not quite right as I put it in the oven. Call it a premonition. When I took out the finished product, I was fairly sure that the pan was actually heavier than when I put it in.

So it (whatever it was) began to cool on the rack, and was still warm when my (first) husband, his father and his uncle came in from work.

“Homemade bread! Great!”

The husband had a little bit of it and refused to eat even a full slice, vehemently proclaiming it to be completely inedible. (I’d had a bit of it by then and was in full agreement, but he didn’t really have to be that way about it, you know.)

The father-in-law ate a full slice and then gosh, he wasn’t really hungry, thank you very much. (He’d just come in from a full day of roofing and he wasn’t hungry? However, I appreciated the polite lie at that point.)

The uncle, on the other hand, said it was fantastic; he ate a little over half the loaf. Of course, he was stoned at the time …

Unwilling to subject myself to another attempt right then, I turned my attention to cooking other things and figured that I was not meant to bake the wonderful loaves that my grandmothers (and countless others) turned out with such apparent ease. Now, a little more than 20 years later, I am finally willing to give it another try. After all, by this time I am more mature and more skilled at cooking in general. Also, I know that my husband, Derek, will not respond in the same way as did the previous husband.

July 11

Today Patty brought over a grocery bag in which she had compiled a bread-making beginner’s kit for me, with whole-wheat flour, buckwheat flour, soy flour, yeast and a plastic container with a sourdough starter in it. We patted the bread machine and admired its unsullied almost-newness.

Once again, I wonder what has possessed me to enter into this overly emotional commitment with a machine instead of just continuing to get my bread from the bakery section of the grocery, like the sensible woman that I normally am.

And why do I, a professional, reasonably intelligent, grown woman with a Ph.D., find myself intimidated by what looks to be a fairly simple machine? I love computers and I’m reasonably clever with electronic gadgets, if you will please overlook the fact that I haven’t the least idea which buttons on the remote to press to make the DVD player work. The bread machine has only a half dozen buttons on it, so it should be less frightening than the remote, despite the difference in size. However, logic doesn’t seem to play into this. It’s entirely emotional.

I wonder if there’s a word for a phobia about the possibility of embarrassing oneself in front of a bread machine?

July 14

It’s Bastille Day. Does this mean my first attempt should be French bread? No, no, no. Start simple. And tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow will be The Day. Really.

July 15

Today. I’ve committed myself to it. No getting out of it now. I’ve read the instructions. I have the ingredients. I’ve tidied up the kitchen, so I’m ready to start.

Whole-wheat bread looks fairly simple. Let’s see … whole-wheat flour—check. Water—check. Yeast—check. Brown sugar … oops. No brown sugar.
Well, let’s look at the recipe for white bread, then. Flour, water, yeast—check, check and check. Dry mlk … dry milk?

What is dry milk? Is it the same as powdered milk? I have some nice dry wine, but I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t be a useful substitute.

By this point I’m so committed that I must continue with making bread of some kind. I am also rattled enough that I completely forget the resources at hand, including various cookbooks and, of course, Google.

So it’s back to the wheat bread. We’ll substitute white sugar for brown. It’s a small enough quantity that it shouldn’t make too much of a difference … I hope.

After that, it’s almost painfully simple. Put the ingredients into the machine in the order listed, press the buttons as indicated in the recipe and leave the machine to its job. Fortunately, there’s a window in the top of the machine that allows one to peek at the work in progress. And when it’s done, there should be a squarish loaf of bread. Edible bread. With luck, even good bread.

And it was good bread! Very good bread, if I do say so myself. And like the mature woman I am, after making Derek come look at the loaf, and then taste it, I called my mother and my best friend to share my glee with them.

Dinner that night was bread, soup, bread, salad and bread. And a big helping of satisfaction.

July 22

I’ve now made three successful loaves of whole-wheat bread. I’ve conquered my fear of breadmaking. From here I can branch out into other types of bread whenever I wish; I have a whole book full of recipes.

Moving past that old fear was a very liberating experience, but I didn’t do it alone. Patty, Derek, my mother, the friends who patiently listened to my raptures over that first loaf and, of course, the neighbors with the yard sale all played a part in helping me realize this dream. Who knew it would take a village to raise a loaf of bread?

I just read an article in Global Rhythm (May ‘07) about German lebkuchen, a kind of spice cake dating back to the 18th century. According to the article, one company keeps their recipes in a safe and changes the combination daily. Those are pretty precious recipes.

As any of my readers can see, I’m not a fan of keeping recipes secret. This past weekend, I participated in a foodie event, hoping to get some new recipes. Just my luck — the one I want is a secret recipe.

The event was the 21st annual Puget Sound Cruising Club Circumlocution of Bainbridge Island. It’s a very unusual sailboat race, with three awards.

Not first, second, and third. As a matter of fact, no award goes to first place. Nobody even pays attention to the boat that crosses the finish line first, except to avoid hitting them in the rush to take second place.

That’s because the boat that crosses the line second is considered the winner and gets their name on a brass plaque. The only reason anyone bothers to cross first is because they’re ineligible if they won in the past few years.

[Photo: Osprey and Panta Rhei didn’t win, although Osprey crossed the finish line first.]

The joke is based on the fact that in 1851, watching the America’s Cup, Queen Victoria once asked, “Who was second?” The famous answer was, “There is no second, Your Majesty.”

Another award is given for perseverance, which is a story in itself. You have to suffer greatly to get that award, like leaving the dock at 8 am and arriving 13 hours later after all the food is gone.

And the food is the real reason to participate. Because the most important award is the one for Best Horror d’Hoover, which is how some people pronounce “hors d’oeuvre.” Most of us just say, “appetizer.”

Every year, after the sailing race, we create a giant raft-up. That’s where a few boats drop anchors, and then the rest of the boats tie onto them, making a floating party. We all rush to our respective galleys and try to out-do each other creating the most amazing Horror d’Hoover.

Like the race, there’s no handicap system. Some galleys have microwaves, convection ovens, freezers, refrigerators, and blenders. Others have a sink and a stove. Some don’t even have the stove.

This year, at 1700 hours, the eating commenced aboard Ponderosa, a large Valiant near the center of the raft. Carefully balancing their offerings — one hand for the ship and one for your horror — crew came from all the other boats and laid them on the deck, and we sampled each one.

There were beautiful dishes that tasted plain and plain dishes that tasted beautiful. There were hot dips and cold dips, meaty offerings and vegetarian ones. There was a lot of shrimp, in dips and spreads and balls. There was a gorgeous smoked-salmon pizza with capers, some of which rolled merrily off my plate, onto the deck, and plopped into the water. I hope fish like capers.

We circled the deck as though we were playing musical chairs, tasting as we went. Some folks went around three or four times, narrowing down the field of favorites. At the end, we each cast a vote for one favorite appetizer.

[Photos: Barbara brought Claudia’s Cheese and Peppers (left), Karen made both Lox Pizza (right) and a Cucumber Dish that I didn’t get to photograph.]

The grand winner (drumroll, please) was Nora, who had prepared sweet-and-sour meatballs. Nora says she never wins anything, but now I don’t believe her. She was on the boat that took second, too.

The frustrating thing about the meatballs was, she refused to give out the recipe. I was right there, on the boat, when she pulled the Rubbermaid container with the magic winning meatballs out of the icebox. I was right there when she reheated and taste-tested them, adding a pinch more chili powder to balance the sweetness. At the time, she made excuses for her “lame recipe,” saying, “This is going to be our dinner, so I wanted to make sure there was something with ’substenance’ to it.”

But when I ask what else was in there, Nora just clams up, and shrugs. The meatballs and the sauce are a family secret, kept locked in a safe. She’ll pass them down to her children someday, so they can take awards at Horrors d’Hoovers contests.

Sadly, I didn’t even take a picture of the award-winning meatballs. But I did get a great photo of the Commodore and the proud winning chef, the one with the secret recipe.

So now I have to put out a request to my readers: Does anyone have a killer sweet-and-sour meatball recipe? It may take me a few years, but maybe someday I can replicate Nora’s award-winning meatballs.

And then I’ll take them to the Horror d’Hoover contest, and I’ll finally get my name on the plaque with the crossed forks. In my dreams.

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Check back later, and I’ll see if I can capture some of the other recipes. They were all yummy, even if they didn’t win. Here are some more photos of the beautiful entrees:


My own submission was pretty, but couldn’t hold a candle to the meatballs: Coconut shrimp balls on top of sliced palm hearts, below.

Google Earth tells me that it’s 2,756 miles from my home in Seattle to the Versailles restaurant in Miami. It’s worth the trip.

In 1977, I was young enough that any restaurant was a special treat, even Pizza Hut or Burger King. That year, my parents and I drove to Miami for Christmas. We spent the morning at Vizcaya, an Italian Renaissance and Baroque estate on Biscayne Bay. Built in 1915 by James Deering of International Harvester, Vizcaya has over 70 rooms, filled with 16th- to 19th-century furniture and art, and 10 acres of lush gardens. In short, it’s a palace.

It would be hard to follow Vizcaya with our usual picnic or burger lunch. Instead, my parents took me to the Versailles, a restaurant with an elegant exterior, almost worthy of Vizcaya. Located on Calle Ocho, or 8th Street, there are elegant awnings with the restaurant’s name, a fancy railing on the top, and concrete cherubs above the doors. When you walk in the door, you’re first overwhelmed by the size and bustle — the place seats almost 400 — and the large chandeliers and unusual backlit mirrors.

Back when my parents first took me to the Versailles, it had only been open for about five years. Even then, it was the place to see and be seen, the place to make business deals and big plans. Thirty years later, the place always seems full, with Cuban immigrants and their children brushing elbows with cruise-ship tourists. My place is somewhere between the two. I’m not just a tourist, I have a small connection to this vibrant culture and cuisine. My father’s mother was married to a Cuban for about ten years. My Midwest-born mother, who visited Cuba before meeting my father, was an adventurous cook who served the family picadillo and arroz con pollo instead of meatloaf and spaghetti.

We were seated by an efficient hostess in a green pantsuit who handed us the multi-page menu. The prices are surprisingly affordable, with many entrees and specials under $10. There are too many choices.

Although some tourists opt to return to the Versailles every day of their Miami stay, we only had time for one midday meal there. I wanted to try the Ropa Vieja (”old rags,” or shredded beef), the roasted pork special, the shrimp and grouper. Instead, I ordered a Cuban sandwich, because the Versailles is also a bakery, and I knew I couldn’t reproduce either the bread or the filling at home.

After I handed back my menu, I looked around. That’s when I realized why the prices are so reasonable.

The tables are formica. The placemats are paper. And the chairs are stick-to-your-bare-legs vinyl. The exterior facade is just that, a facade. Inside, the decor is kind of like an embellished Denny’s.

Still, the Versailles serves good, plain Cuban food. Dad had the red bean soup, a medley of complex flavors, and Arroz con Pollo, a platter of chicken piled high with yellow rice. Barry had picadillo in a plantain pie crust. My side order of fried sweet plantains was a carmelized show-stopper, and since the plate was next to his elbow, Barry couldn’t restrain himself.

We did manage to leave room for dessert, with the help of a to-go box for about two-thirds of Dad’s gigantic meal. He ordered the Dulce de Leche, a carmelized pudding made from milk and sugar. I tried a tiny bite and nearly sent my pancreas into shock — this is something for only the most dedicated sweet tooth. Barry had the Versailles Custard, a creme brulee with a hidden bit of Tres Leches cake in the middle. I opted for a simple dish of ice cream — because where else but South Florida can you get mamey sapote ice cream?

The efficient army of waiters and waitresses moved rapidly, carrying large trays and tiny cups of thick Cuban coffee. I ordered mine “con leche,” or with milk. It reminded me of the joke, “I like a little coffee with my milk.” Instead of a large cup of coffee and a tiny pitcher of cream, the waiter brought me a large cup of warm milk and a tiny pitcher of coffee. It was the perfect ending to my meal.

I don’t know when I’ll travel the 2,756 miles again. I just know I’ll be back, because the food is good, the decor is amazing, and the people-watching can’t be beat.

We boarded the train from Coimbra, Portugal, to Lisbon, and we found people already sitting in our ticketed seats. As they reluctantly moved to their own places, one of them asked me, hopefully, “Are you sure you want these seats?” Then I realized we had ended up in one of those rows at the center of the car where you have to sit facing a total stranger, with nothing, not even a table, between you.

A few stops later, a young woman with a magazine got on and sat across from me. Luckily, she spoke English, so we settled into a pleasant chat as the sun set and the scenery rushing past the window was replaced by darkness. Was this our first trip to Portugal? What had we seen? What did we like best?

And most importantly, “How do you like the food?”

Barry and I looked at each other. “Welllllll…” we dissembled.

The truth was, we absolutely loved some of it. We are normally not coffee-drinkers, but several times a day, we would stop at a cafe for a galão, which is a small shot of espresso served in an 8-oz glass with a lot of steamed milk. Occasionally, I got brave and ordered a meia de leite, which is similar, but served in a coffee cup. It has a little more coffee than the galão.

We also loved the pastries, and every bakery had dozens of choices (this photo shows the one from Pasteis de Belem, a restaurant dating back to the early 19th century). It was so hard to choose, and then harder to order. First, I’d mangle the pronunciation of the coffee, and then I would point to my pastry. The person behind the counter would take out a white ceramic plate, put a paper liner on it, put my pastry on it, and hand it to me.

Then Barry would point out his pastry, and they would repeat the process. The problem is, he usually eats half again what I do. So he would be ready to point at a second pastry, but they would have turned around by then. It’s a cultural fact: In Portugal, it’s one person, one pastry. So there was Barry, shifting from one foot to the other, trying to get their attention to order another one, and that wouldn’t fit on the tiny plate, anyway. When he finally did communicate his wish, they’d be looking behind us, wondering where was the third person?

We also had discovered the wonderful cheese and cheap artisan breads available throughout Portugal. In Evora, we had bought sausage, olives, and oranges — all delicious items to have for a mid-day snack or lunch. Then we ran into another cultural “issue.”

In Portugal, people do not walk around with Doritos or 32-oz Big Gulps or Frappucinos. As a matter of fact, the only people we saw eating in public were the ones sitting at sidewalk cafes. We had just emerged from the market, triumphant, with our bread, cheese, garlicky sausage, olives, and oranges. But we had a problem, having already checked out of our hotel room. Where could we actually sit and eat this stuff?

Barry suggested furtive orange-peeling or sausage-slicing on a park bench in a city square, but I vetoed that. I finally dragged him, frustrated and starving, to the city park, where we discovered dozens of picnic tables, deserted in the middle of winter. Aha! Where there are picnic tables, it must be OK to have a picnic. It was a memorable one, sitting in the shadow of a medieval wall, watching flocks of migrating birds and one lone butterfly.

So we were able to tell the woman on the train that our breakfasts and lunches were delicious. And we raved about the wines we had tried, usually a 375 ml half bottle that cost a whopping $3.

She pressed us for more. Had we eaten bacalhão? What other dishes did we like?

We’d had excellent food for New Year’s eve … but it was at a French restaurant, Les gouts du vin. Our first dinner in Portugal was a home-cooked meal, prepared for us by Carlos, our friend in Lisbon. But Carlos called it “Italian fast food,” so that wasn’t Portuguese, either. It was a terrific alho e óleo, garlic and olive oil tossed with pasta. Carlos’ version included broccoli, one of my favorite foods, and grated cheese, one of Barry’s favorite foods.

Away from Carlos’ help with language and cultural interpretation, though, our meals were often more surprising than tasty. We would walk round and round, trying to figure which restaurant wasn’t a tourist trap. Once seated, I’d be juggling my glasses, the menu, and a tiny pocket dictionary while the waiter stood over us, impatient for our order.

Every meal began with bread, and then the entree was served with both rice and potatoes, and not a green vegetable in sight. It hardly seemed worth it to order a salad and face the iceberg lettuce and out-of-season tomatoes. In one place, I ordered a Brazilian (not Portuguese) feijoada, then gobbled the collard green garnish with more delight than either the meat, beans, or white rice.

The dishes that were tastiest were the ones drenched in cream sauce. There was migas, a sort of stuffing made from bread crumbs and cream sauce. And we loved the bacalhão, the dried salt cod, when it was prepared as an au gratin dish with potatoes, cream sauce, and cheese. At one restaurant, I asked for the recipe for that one. The cook not only wrote it down, she took me into the kitchen and showed me how it was made. Not bad, considering my lousy Portuguese.

In Coimbra, Nelson took us to a place called Ossos, which means “bones.” I had trouble reading the menu, because it was handwritten in a very old-fashioned script. Although we share the same Latin alphabet, I’ve often noticed that people from Europe write some of the letters and numbers differently.

Anyway, the three of us decided to have the signature dish, ossos, as an appetizer. Nelson was placing our order for the appetizer and three entrees with the proprietor when the man became rather agitated, letting loose a torrent of rapid Portuguese I couldn’t understand.

The waiter walked away, and Nelson turned to me and Barry, laughing. “He says two entrees is plenty of food, and he wouldn’t let me order the third dish!” Luckily, we were planning to eat family-style. The bones — actually pieces of vertebrae — had meltingly tender meat, and the chanfana (kid) and Portuguese feijoada were excellent. The waiter was right, it was plenty of food.

Perhaps the woman on the train was expecting us to say, “It was great! We loved every bite!” Instead, we really considered our answer, and it gave us a chance to think about the experience. The lack of fresh vegetables was seasonal — after all, it was winter. The servings of rice, bread, and potatoes seemed shocking, because we’ve been avoiding such processed carbohydrates lately. But people in Portugal seemed healthy and trim, so it must not be a problem for them.

The main problem was just the surprise factor, not being quite sure what we were ordering. As a result, our experiences were hit or miss — one night, Barry would have some lovely casserole, and I’d have a dry pork chop. The next night, he’d have a piece of fish full of bones, and I’d have a delicious stew.

Luckily, there was always dessert to set things straight. From a simple piece of fresh cheese slathered with homemade jam to a piece of honey corn cake drenched in port, the desserts were stellar. Our dinners in Portugal may have been hit or miss, but the desserts never, ever missed.

I laughed so hard last night, I got a cramp in my jaw. Just thinking about it makes me chortle.

It was brought about by green Jello.

I grew up with a lot of Jello. My Mom made it often, dissolving the packet of raspberry or strawberry Jello in boiling water, then stirring in fruit cocktail and cold water. And then she put it in the refrigerator and waited for it to jell.

Watching her put the bowl of bright red liquid in the fridge, I developed a deep-seated fear. What if, this time, the Jello didn’t jell?

None of my fears came to pass. Mom’s Jello always jelled. I’d open the refrigerator door, and there would be a happy little bowl of the stuff, jiggling as if to say, “Welcome to the fridge!”

Potluck nightmares

When I was in high school, Mom fixed a Jello fruit salad for me to take to a school potluck. It was a hot, humid spring day in Ohio, and over the course of the evening, my offering melted into a puddle of fruit cocktail and red liquid. I was so embarrassed, I wanted to abandon it! I knew I had to take the bowl home, so I slunk over to the potluck table with my head down. I was afraid people would point at me and say, “Oh, that one was yours?”

The joke that backfired

A couple of years later, I was a college student living on the cheap. Free food was always welcome, so when someone gave me a box of lime Jello, I made it and put it in the fridge.

My two best friends were coming over for the afternoon, and when Robert arrived, we came up with a practical joke to play on Dave. I was to give him a welcoming hug and in the process, slip a Jello cube down the back of his shirt.

Somehow, Robert and I thought this would be funny.

But Dave did not think it was funny, and his reaction was like a bucket of cold water. His puzzlement turned to dismay and then to a very gentle anger. After removing the offending blob of green Jello, he put his coat back on and left, shaking his head at the immaturity of his so-called friends.

I learned my lesson. I would never do something that dumb again.

Scaring my spouse

The story above explains why I was laughing so hard last night. Last night, I made a batch of plain green Jello for the first time since that incident in 1982.

Barry was in the other room when I made it, but when I took it out of the fridge, he came into the kitchen to see what I was up to. Often, when I’m rustling around in the kitchen, it means something yummy for him, so he has a kind of Pavlovian response.

The Jello came out of the fridge, in its green, jiggly glory, looking for all the world like congealed Kool-Aid. Barry looked a bit disappointed.

But I had a completely different reaction. First of all, I was delighted to see that it had jelled, alleviating my deep-rooted childhood fear. Second, since I hadn’t eaten Jello in so long, I was actually looking forward to tasting it. Without thinking, I reached in the pan and picked up a piece with my fingers.

What a wonderful feeling! Sort of squishy and solid at the same time.

But I had committed a major tactical error, because Barry was still standing next to me. Had I used a spoon, he wouldn’t have freaked out. But he had heard the story of Dave and the green Jello, and here I was, picking up a cube of the stuff with my fingers.

Barry panicked. First, he backed across the room. Then he buttoned his shirt all the way up to his chin, and just for good measure, zipped his fleece up all the way, too. He stood across the kitchen, keeping the table between us and looking like a deer in the crosshairs.

That’s when I started laughing so hard I got a jaw cramp. The truth is, I had no intention of putting it down his shirt. I simply wanted to snarf a piece of Jello with my fingers!

There’s something really hilarious about standing in the kitchen, holding a jiggling blob of green Jello in your hand, and watching your spouse run away in terror. At that point, he started laughing, too. But you know what? He laughed a lot harder after I ate my blob of Jello and put the pan safely back in the fridge!

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Although I haven’t made plain Jello in many years, here are a few Foodie Gazette recipes that feature Jello as an ingredient:
Savory Tomato Ring
Snowball

These next three are Midwest favorites, but how can they call them salads?
Pineapple Cream Salad
Mandarin Orange Salad
And my favorite recipe with Jello, Fluffy Salad

We may think of Jello as 1950’s (or 70’s) retro, but it actually goes back much further than that. These boxes, in a Newfoundland museum, date back to the early 1900’s. As a result of intensive advertising (I’ve seen one of the ads in an old Harper’s magazine), Jell-O sales in 1906 reached $1 million.