Getting all up in your grill

A week of unseasonably nice weather (for a few days, Mother Nature leapfrogged over spring to give us a little taste of summer) turned this young man’s fancy to thoughts of…grilling. After a thorough — I’m still trying to get the last of the gunk out from under my nails — cleaning earlier in the week, I’ve celebrated the end of a long winter with a few nice grill-centric meals.

Grilling lines up nicely with the healthier eating kick we’re on here at the Modern family compound. As gas prices and food prices continue to rise, we’re making a real effort both to stretch our food dollar as much as we can and to devote the greatest possible percentage of every food dollar to the purchase of, you know, food. This makes trips to the market something of a balancing act. Real food, particularly things like produce, tend to be more expensive than the packaged, processed, partially hydrogenated, high-fructosized. You get more fruit roll-ups for your grocery dollar than you can real fruit.

Okay, so none of this is a revelation. I’ve known for a long time the difference between a real strawberry (or apple, or peach) and a machine-extruded strip of strawberryish plasticine. I know which one is better. I know which one is cheaper. So what’s the point, here?

At present, mindfulness is the point. At present, we’re thinking a lot more about our food when we buy it, and when we consume it.

I’ve always been a by the list grocery shopper. Obsessive-compulsively so at times. I’m not immune to the occasional impulse purchase or good deal, but by and large I have a plan and I stick to it. Improvisational grocery shopping doesn’t work for me; it’s too easy to go over budget, and even easier to load up on things that are not remotely necessary. Lately, in addition to making lists based on what we need, I’m also becoming a circular shopper.

For a long time now, I’ve shopped at one particular store. Not out of any tremendous sense of loyalty, but because they usually offer slightly better specials, which makes them the cost-effective option. Now that I’m shopping mindfully, which has had the added effect of further simplifying an already straightforward list, I’m comparison shopping among markets a lot more. With a pared down list, the value proposition of one store over another on any particular week becomes much easier to determine. I suppose if I were truly dedicated, I would make two or more lists, and break up my shopping trip to maximize value, but I’m not there yet. The gas price and time value costs of multiple shopping excursions outweigh any marginal savings, at least for the time being.

Like the markets themselves, the circulars offer a lot of deals on things I don’t need, heavily discounted in the hope of convinving me that maybe I do need them after all. So, while my actual frozen pizza (or processed cheese single, or store brand ketchup) need is zero, I have to consider whether loading up on ten frozen pizzas for ten bucks might not be such a bad idea. Fortunately, I’m sufficiently cynical that that line of thought usually culminates in the realization that convincing people that buying a whole lot of something they don’t need is a “savings” is part of the reason our economy and our collective values are so screwed up.

So it’s grilling season, and I can get a good deal on a rainbow assortment of grilling sauces and marinades featuring our good friend high-fructose corn syrup, and its hench-additives, the nefarious twins artificial and natural flavor.

Here’s my thing: given a reasonably well-stocked pantry, who needs prepackaged sauces? How hard is it to mix soy sauce and ginger to make a soy-ginger marinade? Absent a smoker to give you the tang of mesquite, why not just add a couple drops of liquid smoke to some chili and lime juice? Sure, chipotles in adobo aren’t a staple in some households, but a choice between a chemical slurry of faux chipotle and mesquite flavor and picking up a can of chilis is really no choice at all. Lemon-pepper? Herb and garlic? Make them at home. They’ll taste better, and you’ll have more control over what goes onto your food.

I speak from guilty experience when I say the main reason people opt for prepackaged sauces is time and convenience. Open the bottle, glug a portion over your food, mix it up to evenly distribute the marinade, and let it sit. Elapsed time, maybe 30 seconds. Simplicity itself.

Know what else is simple? Take a clove or two of garlic, and chop it finely. Transfer to a small bowl. Give it a few shakes of oregano and basil (or toss in a chiffonade of fresh herbs if you have them on hand). Add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil, half again as much lemon juice, and a dollop each of mustard and honey. Whisk to emulsify. Pour over a boneless pork tenderloin and distribute evenly over the meat. Elapsed time, maybe three minutes, four if you take a minute to rinse out the bowl and clean your knife and cutting board. The result, however, is at least six times better than the prepackaged option:

Preheat your grill to medium-high heat. Remove the tenderloin from the marinade, and wipe off any excess. Sear the tenderloin on all sides, then grill covered for 20-25 minutes, turning periodically. Let the meat rest for five minutes before slicing. Accompaniments at the cook’s discretion (grilled tortilla and a cucumber salad go very well with this meal).