Does it get much better than chicken, mussels and milk fish barbecuing?
By John Murphy
Somehow we went the first five months of the coronavirus pandemic without barbecuing. That was rectified Sunday when the CalTrans Girl and I got down with the Royal Oak wood chips in a serious way.
We didn’t have a barbecue for the longest time, but I took care of that by picking up a used one for a song (and $29) at a San Bernardino thrift store. It’s a beauty – a Weber, black as coal, lightly used and a practical size at 18 inches in diameter.
Sunday morning, I hit Walmart to purchase charcoal and lighter fluid and some chicken to throw on the grill. It went nicely with some sausages from Costco and mussels and milk fish from Seafood City.
Ripping open that bag of charcoal, dousing the wood chips with lighter fluid and lighting that thing up – it transported me back to barbecues past. I recalled pleasant Sundays up in Watsonville with the late Mark Ruso, a mountain of a guy with a fondness for holding court over a hot grill with a cold drink in his hand.
Mark, a Slavonian-American, would tell me how flank steak used to be so lowly regarded by butchers up north that it was practically given away; and how tri-tip was the focus at so many benefit events that locals took to calling them “baseball steaks.”
Sunday though it was CalTrans Girl riding shotgun. As opposed to Mark, she did not pound vodka tonics during food preparation and instead scrutinized my every move.
‘You’re very excited, aren’t you?” she said early in the process. Then, “you’re not turning the chicken enough” and “don’t touch the fish until I get back – it’s going to break if you do.”
I paid little mind. It was a perfect summer day as La Canada’s Collin Morikawa wrapped up the PGA golf title on TV and our barbecue sizzled. The only protest came from the poor milk fish with its one eye exposed, staring up at me and seeming to say, “What did I do to deserve this?”
Finally, I couldn’t resist the delicious aroma anymore and stuck a fork in a sausage and rescued it from the fire. Taking a nibble I relished the taste and said, “Ahhhh, we’re geniuses, aren’t we?”
“Yes, I am,” CalTrans Girl said. “And you should have bought corn.”
I get no respect, I tell ya. No respect.
Our barbecue, obtained at a San Bernardino thrift store, is not brand new, but it’s new to us.
Main Street Dog 