The Bitten Word

Broiled Salmon with Asparagus and Shiitake Mushrooms

Martha Stewart Living (June 2015)

You've likely noticed, if you follow us on Instagram, that we’re both on the road a lot of these days.

Clay was recently in Los Angeles and Chicago. Zach was in San Francisco last week. We both went to Kentucky. And then we were in New York City together this past weekend. It’s been fun, but it’s also been a lot of time away from our kitchen.

When we're traveling, we love to eat. A lot. So when we're home, we've been trying to eat more healthfully. So while on the road it’s Zuni's Roast Chicken For Two (For One) and decadent breakfasts. At home it’s lunches and dinners featuring lean proteins and lots of vegetables. 

This Broiled Salmon with Asparagus and Shiitake Mushrooms is exactly the kind of thing we’re looking for these days for a weeknight meal: healthy, light and easy.

Grilled Chicken Thigh and Cucumber Salad

Food & Wine (June 2015)

 

Are we being Inception-ed by Food & Wine?

Leafing through their June issue, we stopped dead in our tracks when we spotted this Grilled Chicken Thigh and Cucumber Salad. It's like the summer dish of our dreams: crispy grilled chicken, tossed with lots of raw vegetables and herbs in a big, messy, delicious pile.

It's as if Food & Wine is making our dreams come true. 

We wasted no time in seeing if the reality of this dish matched up to our fantasies.

Skillet Blueberry Cobbler

Garden & Gun (June/July 2015)

 

[UPDATE: We tried a different Skillet Blueberry Cobbler we liked much better: Read about it here!]

 

What is it about foods cooked in cast-iron skillets that are so darn appealing to us? 

"Cook it in a skillet" is as good advice as Put an Egg On It: It just makes everything better.

Or maybe that's just our Southern showing?

At any rate, Zach's mom was here a few days ago, and the three of us spent the weekend doing what we do best: eating and chatting and eating some more. We did a bit of cooking, too, including a meal that was topped off by this Skillet Blueberry Cobbler from Garden & Gun. 

Jicama, Radish, and Pickled Plum Salad

Bon Appétit (June 2015) 

In college, Zach had a roommate for a few years named Mevan.

Mevan was from Sri Lanka and, though he was fairly worldly, he hadn't been to the United States until he arrived for freshman orientation. Thus began a rich cultural exchange. Mevan taught Zach about Buddhism and the Sri Lankan Civil War. Zach taught Mevan about "Friends" and how to shotgun a beer. 

And Mevan also taught Zach about mangos with chile salt.

Fresh mangos dusted with chile salt were Mevan's favorite snack. Zach had never tasted the pairing before. (It was East Tennessee in the '90s -- he'd barely had mangoes on their own.) But the cool, sweet mangos spiked with the heat of chile salt were revelatory.

When we saw this salad, which Bon Appétit says is inspired by chile salt-sprinkled mangos, we knew we wanted to try it. 

Well, at the risk of spoiling the ending here, we don't think Mevan would approve.

 

Grilled Pork Kebabs with Hoisin and Five-Spice

Cook's Illustrated (May/June 2015)

Are you pro- or anti-kebab? 

Two summers ago, we declared our displeasure with kebabs. And since then, we've stayed pretty Debbie Downer when it comes to skewering our meals.

It just seems like a whole lot of work for very little payoff. True, you do get some "Pin-worthy" photos. But for the most part, kebabs seem, to us, to involve spending great amounts of time threading raw meat and oversized vegetables onto little skewers, just to then sit there and watch while your guests awkwardly try to figure out how to eat them.

But we're both smart enough to admit when we've made a mistake. And we were wrong -- horribly, unmistakably wrong -- about kebabs.

Because Cook's Illustrated has shown us the error of our ways. 

More from Spain: Photos, Stories and Recommendations

In between all the eating, drinking and more eating we did in Spain last month, we did manage to explore the cities we visited. So at the risk of being those friends who keep forcing their vacation photos on you, we're going to round out our posts on Spain with a handful of photos and stories.

Plus, for each of the locations we visited, we're giving a set of recommendations about what to see, where to eat, and even where to stay. 

 

BARCELONA

We started our Spain adventure with a three-night stay in Barcelona, which gave us two full days in the city. We spent one day of our time essentially just walking through beautiful neighborhoods, and a second more structured day seeing the Gaudi sites. 

On Day 1, we took an incredibly long walk through the Barri Gothic neighborhood, down the famous Las Ramblas, through the quaint Barceloneta neighborhood, and then essentially just following the beach. We loved this iconic Barcelona sculpture juxtaposed with the fancy W Hotel in the background. 

The Best Things We Drank in Spain

What, you thought we drank water with all of that great food?

  

 

Vermouth

We've never given much thought to vermouth. For us, it's mostly just that thing you put in a Manhattan. The idea of actually drinking vermouth just never really occurred to us.

But we became obsessed with it in Spain. On our first full day in Barcelona, we strolled through an outdoor food market, and there was a vendor selling 2-euro glasses of it. Several Spaniards were lined up for it, so we did the only culturally sensitive thing possible: We got ourselves a glass. 

Many other glasses followed over the next 10 days. A few things we learned: Vermouth is a very traditional drink in Spain, usually as an afternoon apertif, and it's currently experiencing a renaissance. (Another fun fact: It's from the same German word as "wormwood," which was a common ingredient in vermouth a century ago.)

It's typically served over ice, with a tiny splash of soda and a twist of lemon. In older bars in Spain, you'll see huge barrels behind the bar marked "Vermut," with metal spigots for the bartenders to fill your glass.

It's delightful. Cool, refreshing, slightly bitter. We just might make it our drink of the summer.

Clay samples the goods.