Serving Suggestion

Those that know me even a little bit know that I am a fairly rabid foodie.  I don't generally write much about it because a) I realize that not everyone reading this is a rabid foodie and 2) even rabid foodies like myself find food-oriented blogs excruciatingly boring.  Oh, sure, I've found some great ideas/recipes on food blogs, but I have yet to add a single one to my Google Reader.  Food-oriented message boards are, of course, a COMPLETELY different animal, but that's a post for another day.  So most of y'all will excuse if I take a brief powder from my Letters From the Front series to brag about my dinner tonight.  Because you know if I'm boring you with food, it was really freakin' good food.

That being said, there isn't a lot that I miss about Indiana but there are a few notable exceptions. 

My best friends...

My theater group...

And Corn.

There is a cheeseball amusement park in northern Indiana called Indiana Beach (On Beautiful Lake Shafer!).  Not everyone I know from the area (including yours truly) has been to Indiana Beach (On Beautiful Lake Shafer!), but everyone I know in Indiana AND Illinois knows their slogan: "There's More Than Corn in Indiana!"

Um...I guess.  There's...The Colts.  And The Pacers.  High school basketball.  The 500.  And a lot of Republicans. 

But there's also...A HELL OF A LOT OF CORN.

The Indiana landscape is often described as boring.  But to those people I say a pointed, "Pshaw!"  Sometimes, when driving down I-65 (or I-70, or I-69), you will see corn on the left, soybeans on the right.  And SOMETIMES, when driving down I-65 (or I-70, or I-69) you will see SOYBEANS on the left, and CORN on the right.

And this is nothing to be ashamed of!  In Illinois, they are PROUD OF THEIR CORN.  (But, to be fair, there IS more than corn in Illinois.  It's called Chicago.)

I can remember, as a kid, being at my grandparents' farm in central Illinois, and my grandmother saying that "Vickie should be stopping by with some sweetcorn."  My mom would always get REALLY excited, and I never got it.  It's CORN, for God's sake.  Corn is fun when you're a kid, but corn is corn.  And Vickie's corn always meant we had to sit on the porch, and shuck, and I was a fussy kid who couldn't STAND any stray strands of silk left behind.

A few years in Indiana as an adult taught me the error of my ways. 

In Indiana, you purposely take the long way home on day trips so that you can drive country backroads and smell the lovely sweet, grassy smell of corn while you watch the fireflies twinkle in the ditches along the sides of the road (which everyone should do at some point.  It's fireflies like you've never seen them before.).  In the peak of growing season, you can walk into the middle of a cornfield and HEAR THE CORN GROWING.  This is NOT a rural myth.  I've actually heard it (my family owns Illinois farmland and grows corn and/or beans - trespassing is illegal, kids!).  Granted, most of that corn is feed corn, not sweetcorn.

Even among human-consumption corn, supermarket corn-on-the-cob and proper sweetcorn are two very different things.  Alton Brown once said that he has heard tales of those who put the water on to boil before heading to the market to buy the corn.  WRONG.  Sorry, Alton, I love you, but that's not how it goes.  People will, however, put the water on to boil before heading to the garden to PICK the corn.  The less time between picking and eating, the sweeter and better the corn will be.  If I'm stopping at a market, the 10 minutes to boil the water ain't gonna matter at that point.  BUT, if you don't have a garden, there's still a big difference between buying the corn at a grocery store and buying it from the farmer.  There's one thing Alton got right in that episode, and that's the fact that good, fresh, sweet corn doesn't even need cooking.  It just needs to be heated up and enjoyed.  In Lafayette, there was one farm that would fill up trucks with freshly-picked corn every morning, then send those trucks to set up shop around the fringes of town.  Little wooden signs marked the territory when the trucks weren't there, just so you would know where to find them later:  strip mall parking lots...grocery store parking lots...or, in my case, the parking lot of the Osco Drug just down the street from my apartment.  Even on a weekday, you had to get there early or they would be sold out.  You'd get a "farmer's dozen" (14 ears) for $3.00.  And it would be gooooooooooooood.

Which brings me to today.  There's a farmer's market downtown on Wednesdays near City Hall.  It's not bad as such things go, and there are free concerts and people who will sell you ready-to-eat lunch food while you're there.  The prices were...well...Downtown Toronto Prices, so I shopped around before deciding what and where to buy.  But for less than $20 I left with strawberries...wild blueberries...raspberries...

and CORN.

This is part of my problem: I went to the cheapest vendor (and, coincidentally, the only one with a dedicated Corn Truck, which is why I picked them.  They also had a sign that read, "we recommend that you do not shuck our corn.  It will keep longer and taste fresher that way!" while other vendors had a bin handy for husks and silks for impromptu shuckers) and got a half dozen ears for...$3.00.  Apparently, it was a farmer's half dozen, because the guy actually put 7 ears in my bag (the benefits of not bagging your own produce - they throw in freebies!).  However, I am not the only person here noting the 100% markup, no?  But, meh, nearly everything costs nearly 100% more in Downtown Toronto than it did in (or just outside of) Lafayette City Limits (seriously, the Corn Truck was always JUST south of the City Limits sign).  I'm just hoping it's Good Corn.  The berries I'm less worried about - berries, in general, are pretty good as long as you buy them from nearby (i.e., not California).  (This is actually a pretty good general rule for produce - I'm not a crazy 100-mile diet kind of person, but really good produce, by definition, DOES NOT travel well.  Buy local, kids!) In particular, wild blueberries in this part of the world are something to get excited about, and something I couldn't get in the lower latitudes I've lived in for most of my life.

On a side note, when choosing my strawberries, I had many vendors to choose from.  I went to one, and was sniffing a box of berries, and the Pushy Saleslady asked, "What box are you taking?"  I said, "I'm not sure yet" and sniffed another box.  "You're not gonna sniff EVERY BOX, are ya?"

Actually, yes.  Yes I am.  Because that's how one chooses good fruit.  And you're only being obnoxious and pushy because you know DAMN WELL that your berries don't smell as good as the ones that the guy across the way has, or anyone else in this market, for that matter.  So your only hope is to rush people into buying your inferior produce.  I AM TOO SMART FOR YOU, PRODUCE BITCH.

So, as I return to work and finish the workday, my grand plans of marinating a pork chop gradually give way to just throwing a burger on the grill, but the grill is a necessity, because there is Corn involved.  But as the fire is starting, I throw a hunk of butter into a bowl, with the juice of half a lime, and a sprinkling of chipotle powder.  Dude, I'm sorry, but there ain't a thing alive or dead that wouldn't taste FANTASTIC drizzled in that shit.

Then there's the matter of the fruit.  I have the aforementioned berries, and some Ontario peaches that have finally reached tastiness and are settled into my fridge (it took several days of ripening, but they did FINALLY attract fruit flies, which means they're ready for refrigeration).  I also bought some mint on my way home, so I make a quick vinaigrette with the vanilla oil that has been in my fridge longer than I care to remember, some balsamic vinegar, a wee bit of salt, a healthy amount of pepper, and some fresh mint.  Add miscellaneous berries and peaches.  Add crumbled goat cheese that has been drying out in fridge since Friday.  Toss.  It ain't pretty, but it smells like Heaven.

Grill is finally hot.  Slap burger on grill, along with two ears of Corn.  Return to kitchen and fix mojito.  Discover that citrus reamer makes a better meddler than end of rolling pin.  Sweeeeeeeeeeet.

Flip burger and corn.  Damn that smells good.

Finishing touches downstairs.

Retrieve burger and corn.  Damn that smells good.

Shuck corn and drizzle with lime/chipotle butter goodness.  Holy SHIT that smells good.

Dish ain't-pretty-but-smells-like-Heaven fruit salad thing onto plate.

Eat.

Holy SHIT THAT'S GOOD CORN. 

Tastes like limey, smokey, spicy candy.  Seriously.  I cannot stress enough how fucking good that corn was.  Or that ain't-pretty-but-smells-like-Heaven fruit salad thing.  Or, hell, that burger.  Not bad at all for a Wednesday night.

And for dessert, I made a STRAWBERRY mojito. 

I have said it before, and I have no reservations in saying it again:

I...am a culinary genius.