Grilling vegetables over open flames touches an ancestral gene. There’s this satisfaction of transforming vegetables from their green, verdant state to cooked — charred, sweet, and dramatic. Yet also lonesome, as I’m a tribe of one save for my raggedy companion, Paco. He had his first taste of okra tonight, followed by summer squash.
I am in the city of Asheville, North Carolina, surrounded by trees and tonight, the chorus of crickets and backup bugs. My day started in the community garden, where a group of retired volunteers moved like a mercenary unit intent on treating life like one plump cherry tomato. As a crew, we weeded and harvested, depositing our wares at the top of the hill making an impromptu free market. Pat, a former firefighter, gave me a container of basil, a container full of green beans, a few shishitos (wrinkly green peppers the size of a pinky), and a handful of cherry tomatoes; he seemed to be hankering for those and took the lion’s share. Collin, the neighborhood physical therapist, gave me a lil’ green bell pepper. And last, like the kids not picked for the kickball team, were the overgrown okra the size of the Yeti’s fingers. I suggested folks use them for spoon carving. But, I ended up taking them home, after hearing that grilling them would make them go from woody and fibrous to edible.
With my wicker basket full of vegetables and gardening tools in tow, I returned to my parent’s abode — my ma’s, and my stepdad’s, Jake, that is. The basil, tomatoes, and green pepper, I added to a Mexican-ish corn and bean salad (really? basil? Yes, I did). I was weary of those stalky okra, but I would have to wait till dinner to fire up that grill.
After watching an uproariously funny and tender movie about theater kids and their neurotic teachers, “Theater Camp,” and going on an art crawl in rural Leicester, I turned to the vegetables. I sliced a summer squash in half, taking in its bumpy, waxy, emoji yellow skin, rinsed the shishito peppers and okra, and laid them onto a black baking sheet after drying. I added quartered purple and yellow onion and corn, brushing olive oil over all the vegetables. Yeah baby!.. let’s get that fire started 👨🚒. With precise instructions sent to me from mom via text, I turned on the gas, twisted the starter knob to fire, and pushed the starter button. I had heat! I’d be aiming for a little over four hundred degrees, all three burners flaming. According to Cooks Illustrated, when cooking vegetables like this, you want high from all burners, for a limited cooking time — about 5 to 7 minutes.
I hurriedly prepared my: minced jalapeños and onions, halved cherry tomatoes, cilantro, basil, and a harissa-mayo aioli (prepared harissa in a jar mixed with vegan garlic aioli in a jar). And also, blackened tilapia to boot-leftovers-which I’d be turning into fish tacos. Bounding back and forth between the kitchen and the porch, Paco not far behind, I had my dinner set-up. The first fish taco bite was immaculate, but I ate chewed with one eye on the okra, which had gone from grass green to charred army fatigue green. The million dollar question causing my knee to bounce restlessly: Would they be tender? That first bite was sweet, gooey, a little chewy… but delightful. Success!
My folks often dote on Paco with protein bombs to supplement his kibble- – a bite of steak or fish, say, or maybe white meat. I feel like I owe him something, given that he’ll be jonesing for them for a week. But, I’m just not cooking cow right now. I wondered: how would he feel about some oily, warm, back to the earth treats? The last time I’d offered him vegetables was nearly a decade ago when I was grilling vegetables in a George Foreman at a café back in México — his motherland. Curious at first, he sniffed at the green morsel. Soon, he ate it up, licking at the numerous puffed okra seeds on the ground. And he wanted more. Faithfully sitting by my side, I passed him bits of squash and a little fish, too — nothing in the allium family of course, which is toxic to four-leggeds like him.
I altered between using my hands and utensils to gobble everything up. Messy, smokey, spicy, sweet. The grilled onions helped round it all out. Though I probably ate it all too fast, and maybe I shouldn’t have given Paco table service, I felt deeply nourished going from a pile of garden-fresh vegetables to a summer sampler of grilled delights, using nothing more than herbs, olive oil, and salt and pepper to punch it up. Paco’s not ready to vegetarian, and I might not be either, but damn, I love community supplied vegetables.