City Boy, Country Boy

By Andrew Hunter

Sometimes I wonder how two boys from the same family could choose such different paths in life. This time, I’m not talking about Ben and Nick, but my brother Tony and me.

I live in a densely populated urban center. My view at night is houses and bright lights. Tony lives in a sparsely populated rural sprawl that can’t be found on GPS. His view at night is trees and moon shadows. Tony’s a pharmacist and I’m a chef, but we both love cooking with family and friends in our chosen locales.

He’s the kind of guy who digs a deep hole every Thanksgiving in frozen earth to cook a giant ham with hot rocks buried in dirt. While I prefer stirring Arborio rice and butternut squash together over a giant propane burner from the Chinese hardware store to make creamy risotto.

Click to read more ...

Riffing on a Wrap

By Sandy Hu

Some years ago, Steve’s friend Shadi introduced us to the shawarma, an Arab wrap sandwich of grilled meat. It’s one of our go-to takeout meals. We always order lamb and we get it with eggplant and potatoes.

Steve liked the idea of grilled lamb and veggies in a wrap so much, he decided to riff on the concept to see if he could come up with something fun to barbecue this year. His experimentation was such a huge hit with our family, I thought I’d share his recipe with you.

The instructions may look long, but they’re really simple. 1) Grill some meat. Steve grilled a bone-in leg of lamb; no reason it couldn’t be boneless or another cut of meat. 2) Grill some vegetables. 3) Make a sauce. Steve just stirred a bit of canned harissa into yogurt. 4) Wrap everything up in a lavash, a soft, thin flatbread. 5) Grill the wraps.

Click to read more ...