Summer Manifesto Part 1



So I finally conquered my fear and grilled some corn for the first time last Friday.  I have never in my life shucked an ear of corn and for some reason I have been fearful of doing it. I can’t even recall seeing anyone in my family do it even though I grew up in the south and my family loved corn. I bought two ears of corn during a recent grocery trip thinking the whole time that if it doesn’t turn out I will have only wasted two. Even with them sitting in my refrigerator, I was scared to cook them.  It took almost a week for me to get up the nerve to do it. I have been collecting grilled corn recipes for years so finding a good recipe wasn’t even the issue. Ironically, I finally decided on a version from the recent issue of Healthy Cooking magazine despite all the ones I have collected.  

First, I shucked the corn and it turned out to be so simple that I can’t believe that I made such a big deal of it. All I had to do was pull up the husks and cut off the end. The ears I had barely had any silk on them so even that was simple. I put both ears on a double thickness of aluminum foil. The Healthy Cooking recipe calls for brushing olive oil along with garlic cloves on the ears and then adding a sprinkle of sugar. I improvised by brushing garlic powder along with the  olive oil as it is what I happened to have on hand along with a heavy handed sprinkling of Montreal Steak Seasoning and a pinch of sugar. As my family can tell you, if I grill it I usually put that seasoning on it. It always turns out great on anything you use it on. I especially like to use it on chicken and vegetables that I am grilling. The flavor is really robust as the seasoning is very coarse. The next thing I did was wrap each corn in its own packet and grill on high heat for about 15 minutes.

The result was delicious! The corn was the perfect consistency of crispy and tender. I plan to visit my local farmer’s market and stock up on some locally grown corn because I can only imagine how good this recipe will turn out when I use the best corn possible.  

One Summer Manifesto item successfully completed! Here’s to summer and trying new things! I would love to hear your grilling tips and summer eating ideas.