Go for the gold: A New Way to Grill

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Johnny Miller for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Susan Spungen.

Wednesday, June 30, 2021

A New Way to Grill

Sam Sifton

Good morning. Ali Slagle is in The Times this week with a smart treatise on summer grilling that argues in favor of simple, high-heat cooking followed by seasoning with abandon — a no-marinade cooking style that delivers bright flavors above the smoke and char. And without the need to marinate, it’s perfect for weeknights.

There are recipes for days. I like her grilled chicken with parsley and olive sauce (above), her swordfish with corn salad and her ginger-mint grilled shrimp. I’d like to make her spicy citrus skirt steak, a cut of meat that used to be inexpensive and now is so spendy my supermarket requires that you pay for it before you pick it up from the butcher’s department, lest you succumb to the temptation to take a five-finger discount.

Her spiced grilled halloumi looks bonkers delicious and I know I’ll score familial points for making her Buffalo mushrooms. Salmon escabeche? Grilled-then-marinated vegetables? Yes, please.

Of course, not everyone has a grill — and not everyone wants to sear on the stovetop or use a balky broiler. For them, perhaps: Melissa Clark’s superb new herby three-bean salad, a fresh take on the classic with green beans, chickpeas and white beans, plus marinated onions and crisp vegetables. Or maybe a kale and sugar snap peas salad, with dried apricots, almonds, feta and mint? It’s way too hot to cook.

I think everyone will thrill to this butter mochi cake, which Genevieve Ko wrote about this week: “Its softness evokes the pleasure of sinking into a plush chair, and its sticky bounce delivers the delight of an ice cream cone.” And who among us wouldn’t want to sip a perfect gazpacho right about now?

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We’ll be standing by to help if anything goes wrong along the way, either in your kitchen or on your computer. Just write: cookingcare@nytimes.com. We will get back to you, I promise. (Or you can escalate matters by writing me directly: foodeditor@nytimes.com. I read every letter sent.)

Now, it’s nothing to do with fried scallops or saltwater taffy, but I wrote the other day in this space about the painter Brandon D. Landers, whose work is up at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Comes now my colleague Robin Pogrebin with a terrific profile of the artist. Please read.

Also in The Times universe: Kara Swisher had the chef Guy Fieri on her “Sway” podcast, and it’s fantastic.

“Bosch” Season 7 is the series’s laston Amazon Prime. I feel as if I’m only just now reconciling it with the novels.

Finally, in case you missed it, Tyler the Creator performed “Lumberjack” at the BET Awards on Sunday night. Watch that and I’ll be back on Friday.