Attitude Adjustment

Tiger-striped with sweet-hot sauce, this salmon was a wonderful soother for My Beloved, who had dragged in from The Week From Hell at work, starving and frustrated and ready to call it quits.

While I would be happy to have him cut back or even retire fully, I don't want him to do so on such a sour note. So, when he called from the road to explain what a crappy day and week he had had, I was glad I had some lovely salmon on hand.

Cousin Jan introduced us a while back to Sartain's Menu Sauce, a locally made sweet-hot sort of sauce that works equally well on chicken, meat and fish. I liberally painted both sides of a fillet of salmon and set it aside for about half an hour while I prepped the rest of the meal, then grilled it, non-skin side down first, on the Jenn-Air (I have despaired of having a summer this year so didn't haul out the barbecue and brave the 60-degree, windy evening). After about five minutes, I flipped it to the skin side and let it rip for another five minutes or so, until it was sizzling happily where the skin meets the flesh. My Beloved likes his fish rare, so I cut it down the middle and slid his off the skin, leaving mine to obtain near-opaque perfection.

By the time he had worked his way through grilled corn, tiger salmon, green beans and cherry tomatoes, his attitude had swung back toward the cheerful again. He's a resilient soul.