Thank You All For Coming, My Friends. I Hope You're Enjoying The Clams Casino.

This was a weekend of birthday parties. Well, "parties" might be too strong a word, since there were no martinis involved. Celebrations. We had my mother over for a birthday dinner on Friday night and on Sunday hosted a very belated one for my friend the Tiger.

The big thrill in my little world these days is the large (by New York standards) outdoor space attached to our new apartment. It was the main selling point to the place as far as I was concerned, and set visions of sunbathing, barbecues, and dinner parties under the stars dancing in my head. It's finally warm enough to start executing on plans; we have a Weber grill, a table and benches, a chaise long, and several plants. It's all terribly exciting.

There's only one hitch: the actual grilling part. My culinary interests have developed over a period of years completely devoid of any outdoor cooking facilities whatsoever, meaning that I'm still a total grill novice. The Viking has equally little experience with an open flame and yet wordlessly, instinctively, the Weber has become his domain. I'm not sure that I like the implicit gender politics -- and I do want to learn to be a grillmaster in my own right -- but for now, it's a nice change from our typical mealtime roles. It feels good to be a team.

Over the past few weeks it's been the blind leading the blind, The Viking neurotically cutting into meat and prodding things with tongs while I hover and speculate about proper grill surface placement. But we persevere.

For the Tiger's birthday, we attempted the hamburger.

One of these days I'm going to make a research project of tasting my way around New York hamburgers and learning all the nuances of really a good one, but one thing I do already know is that the key to a successful burger is achieving a balance of textures and tastes: the unctuous beef patty, the soft, sweet roll, the pickly tang of a relish or ketchup, the crisp lettuce, and the sharp creaminess of melting cheese.



For Sunday's BBQ I bought Pat LaFrieda patties (somewhat of a fad here in NYC, due to the decadent meat blends that he creates for restaurants), Martin's potato rolls, and cheddar and pecorino cheeses. I made caramelized onions and a tomato relish, too. It wasn't the best burger we'll ever make, but it wasn't bad for a couple of rookies.

I threw together a green salad (...of CSA lettuces, thankyouverymuch), and realizing that my planter full of basil was poised to make a land grab from the strawberries, I made pesto and used it to dress a cold pasta salad of rotini, plum tomatoes, pine nuts, and peas.



I was pleasantly surprised by the tomato relish, which was essentially just my attempt to dress up ketchup in a hurry; it lent a bright, fresh note that turned out to be crucial to the whole burger experience. In truth this relish hardly needs a recipe - it's not rocket science - but here it is.




Tomato Relish

Serves 10

3 medium tomatoes
1 small onion
1 jalapeno pepper (optional)
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
1/2 c. ketchup

1. Chop tomatoes and mince (i.e. finely chop) onion and pepper; combine with salt and pepper in small bowl, cover, and chill for 1 hour.
2. Strain tomato mixture through fine sieve and discard juices.
3. Stir ketchup into tomato mixture and serve.