Chris Schlesinger & John Willoughby
(more info)
TIPS
FROM CHRIS SCHLESINGER
Tools of the Trade
1) The Grill Itself - Go for the covered option, because with
the cover available, you can not only grill, but also do some
lower-heat cooking, like smoke-roasting and even a relatively
close approximation of barbecuing. Whatever type of grill you
prefer, the prime directive is the same: Get yourself the one
with the largest possible grilling surface. That way, you will
have more room to build a two-level fire and more flexibility
in moving food around from hotter to cooler spots as you grill.
2) Heavy-duty, long-handled, spring-loaded tongs - Tongs act like
an extra pair of hands, with the added advantage that they don't
get burned. Use them to put food on the grill, move it around
while it's cooking, pick it up to check for doneness, and take
it off the grill, all without dropping anything or burning your
arms.
3) Stiff wire brush - One of the nice things about grilling is
that you use no pots or pans, so you have very little cleanup
when the meal is over. But you do need to keep your grill surface
clean, and this is the tool for the job.
4) Disposable foil pans - They are excellent for transporting
raw ingredients from kitchen to grill and cooked ingredients from
grill to table. Despite their name, they can be washed and reused
many times over.
5) Kitchen towels - Those inexpensive white cotton kitchen towels
you can buy in restaurant supply stores in batches of twenty or
so are very handy for picking up hot dishes or skewers, and it
is a lot quicker to grab a couple of towels than to fit your hand
into a mitt. They are also very useful for wiping up spills of
all sorts and generally keeping your grill area clean and tidy.
6) Beverage of choice - this might be the most important grilling
tool of all.
Chris
Schlesinger grew up in Virginia and, at age eighteen,
dropped out of school to wash dishes. He soon graduated to fry cook,
went on to receive his formal training at the Culinary Institute
of America, and subsequently cooked in restaurants ranging from
Hawaiian burger joints to New England's finest dining rooms. In
1985, he and partner Cary Wheaton opened the East Coast Grill in
Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in 1987, they opened
Jake
and Earl's Dixie Barbecue next door.
John Willoughby
was born and raised in Iowa and graduated form Harvard University
in 1970. He has worked as a community organizer, legal services
advocate, health administrator and free-lance writer in the Boston
area, and for three years worked part-time with Chris Schlesinger
in the kitchen of the East Coast Grill. He has published articles
about food in several national magazines and is the feature writer
for Cook's Magazine.
