Brevity Is… Wit

I’m too tired to write much about our dinner last night; today was such a giant, frustrating waste of time that it has given me a new understanding of the phrase “wit’s end.” Those of you who stalk follow me on Facebook may have already read all about it, but suffice it to say that I drove 220 miles round trip to Brooklyn for an appointment that was canceled the very minute I arrived. There’s really nothing more satisfying than making time, gas, money, and sanity evaporate in a big wasteful cloud all at once.

Last night, though, was the opposite. I picked up some more of the luscious line-caught swordfish and some corn and came home to try out our new shichirin that had arrived a few days earlier along with a box of binchotan charcoal. It takes a while to heat up, but once it does it’s like your own personal volcano; strips of fish cook to perfection in a matter of seconds, and the vegetables get a delightful char as they soften. In addition to the fish, which I marinated in soy sauce, mirin, and agave nectar, we had the chicken mushrooms from Sunday’s foraging trip (also marinated in a similar mixture for a couple of hours), two of our eggplants cut into batons and soaked in soy, garlic, ginger, nam pla, vinegar, and agave, and slices of sweet potato with salt and yuzu juice.

Apart from how nice it is to cook everything just so- and how much Milo loved it- once it gets cold we can do this indoors with a couple of windows cracked and not smoke ourselves out of the house. The charcoal burns so clean and so hot- next up is finding a good bowl to fit on there so we can have shabu-shabu.