Hot Child In The City

Summer is officially here. It's currently 95 degrees in the city, and climbing to 102 tomorrow. The smell of summer (stench of garbage, really) is wafting through the streets of New York City. But with the heat, comes the sun and the instinctual urge to grill.

So far, this summer has been all about grilling and squeezing in as much outdoors/beach/pool time as possible. Fourth of July was a beautiful day this year. Perfect for making ribs two ways! I decided to buy a rack of baby back ribs, and another rack of spare ribs just to spice things up a bit this year. I chose to slow cook the baby backs in the oven with some yellow onion and a simple dry rub of salt, pepper, herbs de provence and a touch of garlic powder. I started in the afternoon, putting them in the oven at 300 with the door slightly open. If your oven can be set lower than this, I'd recommend setting it as low as 200 and just letting it go for 4 hours or so. To conceal all the juices, wrap the ribs with parchment paper so they're nicely bundled and then cover with tinfoil. The end product will be a deliciously juicy, fall-off-the-bone, melt-in-your-mouth party. I personally don't like to cover my ribs in BBQ sauce, but if that's your thing, go ahead and slather on your favorite sauce at the end to give it a nice coating.

The spare ribs I decided to experiment with, using a hodgepodge of assorted sauces and ingredients from the fridge. I started off with a base of Soy Vey (the most essential ingredient to the mix), blended with some leftover kalbi Korean BBQ marinade, Worcestershire, freshly minced ginger, green onion, spring onion (I picked up from the Farmer's market that weekend), salt and pepper. Luckily in New York City, every apartment is equipped with a balcony (or fire escape, whatever you like to call it), which helps create the illusion of a temporary escape from the metropolitan smog and congestion of the city. Your personal BBQ oasis should look like some version of this:

contrary to some comments, those are onions. not noodles. i'm not THAT asian.

Plated with some veggies and a side - my favorite is Israeli couscous salad with fresh veggies and a light vinaigrette - and your meal is complete. Mmmmm ribs....

spare ribs with swiss chard, israeli couscous and, of course, a sierra nevada summer ale. 

Last weekend we had the privilege of joining some friends to their family's summer house at Fire Island. The island was sublime, complete with personalized wagons and beach cruisers to ride from shore to shore. And like any perfect beach house, they had a gas grill that we took full advantage of. Aside from the amazing wonder that is meat, vegetables are also a lovely summer treat to grill. Veggies are so in right now. Particularly asparagus. One of my favorites that often gets overlooked due to its notoriety for creating foul smelling...breath. There was only one general store on the island so we made sure to bring appropriate groceries and meats to grill. Our mothers would all be proud to see that we did NOT neglect our veggies!

Someone also had the brilliant idea to slap a fried egg on top of our burgers. The result, was bliss.

In addition to stuffing our faces, we also tanned on the beach, swam in the bay and amused ourselves with a diving board for several hours. It was a successful weekend getaway from the city, and a very much needed break from life. But most importantly, what we took away from this mini vacation is to not take yourself too seriously. And to ALWAYS play with your food.

Til next time...