Make that salt mine

It would be easy to think, based on general media coverage, that salt was one of the biggest enemies you can face in the search for a healthy diet.

Funnily enough, my mother – who, as a physiotherapist, had first to undertake basic nursing training – has always found the advice on cutting salt to be contrary to what they were told.

The thinking then was that you would consume as much salt as your body required.

Of course, that was at the end of the 1940s and was before these halcyon days of vast amounts of processed foods stuffed with hidden salts and sugars.

Indeed, a few years ago, I read comments from a GP who was visited by a lady who was worried about her husband.

He apparently put what she thought was a lot of salt on his meal at dinner.

The doctor stressed that that was not a problem: the problem was those hidden salts.

Now I eat very little processed food. And I’m careful about how much I use in cooking – some in, say, casseroles etc, and some in potatoes, pasta or rice, but little else. I’d rather add later – sometimes as a specific garnish, as the French do with fleur de sel.

However, in the last week, there have been no starchy carbs – the weather ensures I have no inclination for them. So, a pretty much perfect diet from the perspective of salt advice.

Yesterday, an hour or so after a light lunch – some left-over boerevors and salad – I felt exhausted; really shattered.

The germ of an idea occurred to me.

I’d had no caffeine for several days, as a measure against dehydration in this hot weather (and I am not complaining about the weather, by the way).

I’d also been making more than usually sure that I was drinking plenty of water – probably little less than two litres by that stage yesterday afternoon.

So, all-round sensible stuff, combined with not spending too much time in the direct sun.

The inkling was really quite simple, although on the surface, slightly less sensible. I suddenly had the sense that I wanted – no: that I needed – salt, so I picked up a bag of ‘salty and sweet’ popcorn, into which I tossed extra salt, together with a can of diet Pepsi for the zip of some caffeine.

Half an hour later, I felt restored.

It seems that, in being so careful, I’d probably flushed away vital salts and minerals over the course of a few days, and not replenished these.

It’s easy to forget, given media coverage of health issues, that salt is essential to our good health.

We need it. It is not an optional extra. We don’t need sugar. But we do need salt.

And perhaps, because I usually have some caffeine in a day, my body was objecting to none.

So today, some caffeine, and a pot of cottage cheese for lunch, to which could be added salt – indeed, it’s bland enough that it benefits fro that, and a twist of pepper. Fruit to follow and plenty more water – this should be more balanced.

In the evening, Nigel Slater’s quick version of that Moroccan classic, chicken with lemons and olives. No rice, but a little salt in the cooking of this, plus, of course, the natural saltiness of the olives.

And at 8pm, I'm still feeling quite lively.

I can’t help but wonder, though, how many other people are experiencing anything similar.

A thought occurs. Some years ago, we were in Barcelona and The Other Half got a mild case of sun stroke. We only really realised when, later that day, he was exhausted and without an appetite, but found himself licking salt off his finger in a restaurant.

Somehow, he realised, with a salt cellar in front of him, that he needed it - and he's not a salt head.

My mother's tutors were probably right. What has changed, I suspect, is simply that the quantity of salt shovelled into processed foods has changed the equation. We need salt. Our bodies know it - and processed food exploits that.

Doesn't make the behaviour of the food industry any nicer, does it?

Food finds for hot days

Tuna griddled, with salad, samphire and aïoli

Sitting in a cupboard in the kitchen, buried under various odds and ends – including the vast fork and tongs and stuff for outdoor cooking – is a cast iron Typhoon griddle pan.

I can’t remember exactly when we bought it, but it was one of those seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time purchases from one of the housing stores on Tottenham Court Road.

It was also, as well as my memory is able to recall, either early in my cooking days – or maybe even before them.

You’re not supposed to wash it, but merely to wipe it out and, if necessary, re-season with a dab of oil.

I have rarely used it. In fact, I certainly haven’t used it since we finally got the ceramic hob installed to replace the rusting old ones.

And to be frank, I don’t think I really I’d quite ‘got it’ before then.

So it’s been filling space and gathering dust.

But on Tuesday, a stroll up Broadway Market had produced two small tuna steaks – ideal for this weather – and as I contemplated exactly what I was going to do with them, the griddle pan sprang to mind.

One of the differences, since we bought it, is that I’ve got a little more used to cooking with cast iron – the increase of Le Creuset pots and pans bears testimony to this.

So I knew rather more about what it means to get the thing hot – not rapidly, but over a decent time – and then how it will hold the heat.

So, once heated, the tuna was placed on it for a minute, rotated 90˚ for a further minute and then turned over, and the same process applied.

While the lines were nicely symmetrical, they weren’t perhaps as dark as I’d have hoped for, but the fish itself was beautifully cooked; still moist, which is the difficult bit with tuna; it’s easy to dry out.

It was served with a salad of orange segments and pickled beetroot, a garnish of samphire, and some aïoli – the sort made of just garlic and salt.

You don’t need much salt – that’s the easiest mistake to make. I took a few cloves of quite fresh garlic, minced them and then used the mortar and pestle to blend in a little salt and mix to a paste.

It seems astonishing to realise just how much we are trapped culturally in ways of cooking and eating. As an aside, I’m not sure why it should be so surprising, but it remains so.

It’s obvious that there are reasons that certain types of diet grow up in any country/culture – largely because of climate ands, from that, what grows locally.

But globalisation has had a massive impact on this in the UK, where we no longer have to think just in terms of what is available at any given time of the year.

That, however, has downsides. First, the flavour is never as good if something is flown half way around the world after being picked.

And second, there are a variety of environmental consequences – and this is without mentioning food miles.

Take just three products.

Asparagus grown in Peru for export is using so much water that it is draining wells that are used by local people.

Fine beans grown in Kenya take a staggering four litres of potable water to produce a single fine bean in Kenya, which is quite some cost. Thanks to John Walker for his excellent work on this.

And then there’s quinoa, the ‘miracle grain’ so beloved of trendy eaters. Grown in Peru and Bolivia (experiments to grow it have have, thus far, failed), Joanna Blythman reports that export has pushed up domestic prices to customers in those countries for whom it is a staple of their diet.

None of these are what ‘the global market’ is supposed to do, and all illustrate unintended consequences.

Given the general state of British food, it’s perhaps hardly surprising that:

a) people are out of touch with seasonal eating in this part of the world; and are

b) so ready to look elsewhere.

Add to this, of course, the rise to high levels of dominance of the food chain and grocery retail by a remarkably small number of big businesses, and you have a situation where it can feel difficult to take back control.

Sussex Fish

It’s easier if you have some space to grow some of your own food – even just a few herbs in a window box can make a difference.

It’s easier if you have local, independent shops that sell a variety of quality produce – and it’s helped if those are open at hours that fit in with the standard working day.

This is happening increasingly in the UK, as it does in France – particularly among younger businesses.

It does mean effort on our part – and an element of that comes in investing in the time to think about what we want to eat, and to plan.

But it is also becoming easier as more people create more young food businesses, producing more quality produce, and more markets appear to sell it.

At Borough Market the other day, I found a ‘new’ fish stall – Sussex Fish. They’ve been moved around quite a bit over the three years they’ve been at the market, which is why, on the rare occasions I’m down there, I’ve missed them.

Fresh, lovely fish – and the provenance is clear too. So for instance, the cod that I bought is sustainable, since it comes from the Channel.

This offered a delightful range of fresh fish, but also something as quirky as smoked bass. And why not, indeed?

Discovery of the trip, however, was Cannon & Cannon Fine Foods, with produce artisan British charcuterie, ethically and sustainably produced. Now this is seriously classy food.

Cod, Dorset coppa, lettuce, asparagus and dressing

Some Dorset coppa I bought as part of a three-for-a-tenner deal was utterly delightful, the air-dried pork loin is a joy and there’s still some air-dried venison to come. The company hopes to be launching an online shop soon.

I was served by a charming young man called Fabio, who observed that, as an Italian, he’d been skeptical at first, but was now a firm believer in this excellent British produce.

We’ve always been able to produce good meat; what’s been added in recent years are the skills to make that into fine charcuterie.

One of the specific things that I’d been on the lookout for was late-season asparagus and, sure enough, I found some.

And before leaving the flat, I’d pulled a small jar of chicken stock out of the freezer to defrost.

What I had in mind was a version of a French dish from Rick Stein’s Seafood Odyssey.

First, salt your cod fillet and leave for 20-30 minutes.

Take your stock, add a clove or two of garlic and some tarragon, and reduce.

Strain and allow to cool a little before whisking in olive oil and wine vinegar to taste.

Then pre-heat your grill to high.

Rinse your cod and pat dry. Place on a lightly oiled baking tray and lightly brush the fish with oil. Pop under the grill for approximately 10-12 minutes, until it's golden.

Top the fish with some prosciutto – or in this case, Dorset coppa – and give it another couple of minutes under the grill.

In the meantime, boil some asparagus spears and quarter some lettuces.

Serve the fish, topped with charcuterie, alongside lettuce and asparagus, drizzled with the dressing.

Simple and zingy and fresh. Perfect for these sweltering days.

Bread of heaven

For many people, the realisation that they’re likely to be made redundant in the not-too-distant future is one of the most unwelcome pieces of news that they can receive.

But for some, it can offer the opportunity for a major change of direction.

Bill King had spent years working in local government in the Cwmbran area of Wales. More than that – he was also a trade union convenor.

But when he realised that his own job was to be rationalised away, he saw a possibility and seized the opportunity with both hands.

“I’ve always cooked,” he explains in his soft burr, which is more West Country than Wales. With a father in the RAF, he was leaving the UK for Suez at three weeks old and only came back when he was 10.

“For my sins, I got a charity scholarship to a public school [he was in the same class as RSC and The Thick of It actor Roger Allam] and you did learn to cook.

“When you’ve eaten at 6 o’clock in the evening, you’re going to be hungry at 8 o’clock, 10 o’clock whatever. One of the first things I did, when I got into it, was set up what I suppose was one of the first ever supper clubs.

“It was a kind of covert dining club. We found a room that wasn’t being used, and I'd cook in one of the very small kitchens upstairs, and then 10 or 20 people would just get together and have food.

"So I always have cooked and was largely self-taught. Always done all the cooking at home."

His partner Janet never learned to cook, he explains, not least because her mother “god love her – couldn’t cook to save her life. She was set in her ways. For example, 1 April was salad season until the 30 October.

“And it went on a strict rotation: cheese, ham, cheese ham, with the immortal question: ‘ow d’ya want yer salad? On a plate or in a saaandwich?’

“And Sunday lunch would go pork, lamb, beef, chicken; pork, lamb, beef, chicken – irrespective of the weather. Friday lunchtime would be fish in plastic bags. Saturday lunch was always pie and chips from the chippy.

“She came and ate with us once and I’d cooked my usual incredibly rare bit of beef, and she said: ‘just how I love my beef!’ and I thought: ‘why do you cook yours like boot leather then?”

“So I’ve always cooked. I’m not artistic, but I put stuff into cooking that I probably couldn’t put into anything else.

“Years back – probably 20 years ago – I was given a voucher for a one-day course at Ballymaloe, and I went and had a great time, and thought: ‘I’ve got to go there; I’ve got to do the three-month course.”

That’s not cheap and, he says, every time he had just got the money together, “some major disaster would come up” and he was back to square one, saving for it.

But eventually, he had enough in the bank. Then, as the end of a lengthy job evaluation neared, which his union duties had seen him heavily involved in, it became “clear that I’d never be going back to my old job after it”.

His employer agreed that, under those circumstances and since it was really rather sensible to be planning for an alternative future, he could use a combination of paid leave and unpaid leave to make up the three months of the course.

“It was the best three months of my life,” he says.

“Extremely intense. People talk about going into the ‘Ballymaloe bubble’ and you do kind of live in one. It’s in the middle of a 100-acre organic farm with 10 acres of organic market garden, and effectively you do a three-year catering college course in 12 weeks.

“The way you do it – the average college course is nine to 3.30, breaks and whatever: at Ballymaloe, you’re in the kitchen from eight to 1.30. You get a short break, then at quarter to two, you’re back into demonstrations until, say, quarter past, half past five, with a tasting at the end.

“Then you get another quick tea break and there’s a lecture of some variety – could be on wine, cheese – so you’re generally finishing seven or eight o’clock at night. You go back, write out your work for the next day, file the recipes for what you’ve been cooking that day – and go to bed.

“And at 7 o'clock in the morning, you have ‘assorted duties’, which may be getting fresh veg out of the field, selecting the herbs from the herb garden ... or milking the cows.”

If those “assorted duties” mean milking the Jerseys, which Bill describes as “the prime job”, students then separate the milk to make butter and cheese, nipping back all morning to stir the curds for the latter.

It’s not difficult to see how three months of 18 to 19-hour days can mount into the equivalent of a three-year course.

And then there are the weekends: all on a ‘voluntary basis’ (Bill’s quotation marks). Students are sent out for a different kind of training – to Cork on a Friday to do a night shift with an artisan baker or to a hotel or restaurant to wait on tables for the evening, for instance.

The Ballymaloe philosophy, he explains, is an holistic one: students need to gain a really wide understanding of food – “where it comes from, how to use it, how to process it, how to serve it”; there are even some basic lessons in business.

The final exam requires students to complete such varied tasks as identifying 20 kinds of salad and drawing a diagram of a table setting, while “the first recipe you get at Ballymaloe is actually for compost”.

Because, he notes, as Ballymaloe founder and slow food doyen “Darina [Allen] says, ‘good food starts with good earth’.”

Bill is a delightful raconteur, and he happily describes things in great detail, seasoned with anecdote and his mimicry.

But after Ballymaloe, what then?

“I’ve always enjoyed making bread, and at Ballymaloe you make bread every day”. But there’s another rather special advantage.

“It’s the easiest way to get past environmental health,” he reveals.

“There’s very little risk in bread. Done properly, it’s flour, it’s water, it’s salt, it’s yeast. It bakes at 230 degrees. That will kill any bacteria.”

Even though he’s currently only got a double oven – there's another oven on order – he’s still able to bake from within his home kitchen.

There are still schedules for cleaning his kitchen and equipment, including deep cleans, but he doesn't have to wash his baking tins (“unless something sticks to them”). Regular use seasons them, and environmental health is happy with that, as long as he stores them upside down so that nothing can get inside.

But baking is “also something you can teach people – and teaching is far more profitable than making bread,” he adds with a wry version of his characteristic laugh.

“The overheads are extremely limited and it only takes four hours!”

Which is probably a good thing. He was given a helpful spreadsheet by the Welsh government when he started the business, and “the last time I looked at it, my hourly rate was 98p!”

On the other hand, he observes that his new career has made a ‘phenomenal’ difference to his quality of life.

“I loved my years in the trade union movement,” he adds, proudly pointing to his UNISON lifetime membership badge, “but I get the same adrenalin rush when I’ve done a really big bake” as after a week at annual conference.

Indeed, he had nipped up to Liverpool for the day to meet old friends and catch up on the gossip at this year's conference.

And he says that it’s an incredible buzz to have people going back, time again, to see him on a market “and saying things like: ‘thank god we’re here early ... you were out of such and such last week and it’s the best I’ve ever had’. And you think: ‘this is nice. This is what I want to do’.

Baking has also opened doors that he never expected, and he’s made many new friends.

He mentions Arun Kapil of Green Saffron Spices – “you will hear a hell of lot more of him” – and enthuses about how the former musician blends his spices, treating his work like music, looking to combine “high notes, low notes, medium notes”.

“I’ll tell you how good he is – he makes bespoke spice mixes for Mark Hix, Richard Corrigan and Gordon Ramsey, and he’s a consultant to some bloke called Blumenthal!”

It’s a friendship that means that, when Arun gives “tutored master classes and tastings” at this summer’s Abergavenny Food Festival, Bill will be baking the breads that he will use.

In September, he’s off to Cork for the Celtic Cook Off. It’s a sort of Ready Steady Cook-style competition, using just local ingredients, and featuring chefs from all across the Celtic world, including Cornwall and Brittany.

They’ll start the event with a big lunch – and Bill is the baker of choice for both the lunch and for the cook off.

Then in October, he’ll be doing a “hands-on session at the Newport Food Festival”.

It is, he says, a bit more “about who you know than how good you are”, but then again, you don't get invited back into that company if you're not good.

Just before Christmas last year, he reveals that Rachel Allen (Darina’s daughter-in-law) was over here and they’d met up, with her introducing him to some influential people as “the best baker we had at Ballymaloe!”

“I’m sure I wasn’t,” says Bill, “but that got me an in with chef and TV presenter Matt Tebbutt!”

He talks about the rising food scene in his part of Wales – not just top chefs, but good producers too.

And it’s clear that his own food philosophy extends way beyond bread.

There are farmers that he knows, and he describes not only how they look after their animals, but also how they slaughter them, in the least stressful manner possible. It’s light years away from the horror stories of industrialised, centralised abattoirs.

Which is a good thing, since (accidentally) he actually managed to take Janet on a visit to an abattoir on a recent wedding anniversary.

In the meantime, of course, the final product of such an approach, in your pan or under your grill, and most certainly on your plate, is so much better for having had such care taken.

“Don’t get me wrong,” he says, after observing that he’s always understood the value of fresh, quality ingredients, but “in many ways, there’s nothing as satisfying as a fishfinger sandwich, with ketchup, on some really thick, sliced industrial white.”

And he then gives another example of how to use a cheap, Chorleywood loaf.

“That bread is so flimsy … take the crusts off, roll it out – you can get it paper thin – dip in melted butter, either side; stick it in a bun tin, bake it off in the oven for 10 minutes, and you have the most amazing, crisp stuff.

“And I’ve had people say: ‘that’s the most amazing pastry we’ve tasted’, and you tell ’em: ‘actually, it’s just really cheap bread!’

He’s been contemplating that busy festival ‘season’ that is approaching, and remembering the festivals that he used to go to. The Jerry Garcia t-shirt gives a hint.

“It’s really worrying,” he muses, “to think that most of the people I went to see are dead.” And then he bursts out into Falstaffian laughter once more.

He remembers seeing “The Doors and Hendrix at the Isle of Wight.

“I first saw the Grateful Dead in ’72 … I love Jerry,” he adds, before noting that the food world has also led him to “a bigger Dead head than myself” in James Swift, who runs Trealy Farm, which makes British charcuterie.

The discovery of their mutual love of Grateful Dead came at last year’s Newport Food Festival, where Bill was the “official blogger or something to that effect”.

A completely accidental comment saw James revealing that he’d got recordings of 1,500 live shows.

Such is the way to start a friendship.

And with thoughts of such music, another strand of memory begins to unfurl.

“In those days, I was on a fairly macrobiotic diet – or mung beans 500 ways. The only place you could get them in Aberystwyth was a place called The Happy Stores, which was run by one of these weird and wonderful cults and they were all trying to recruit you if you went in to buy anything.

“‘A pound of balti peas, please’. ‘Would you like to come out to the ashram for a weekend?’ ‘No, just my peas please’.”

In a complete swing around from his admission of a brief period of vegetarianism, Bill has a book that he’s keen to recommend – An Irish Butcher Shop by Pat Whelan.

Pat is a seventh-generation farmer and fifth-generation butcher who now runs James Whelan Butchers in Ireland, and is committed to sustainability, nose-to-tail eating and quality, and Bill describes the book as a “a brilliant treatise on cooking”.

Pat’s philosophy is that ‘knowledge without sharing is merely information’, says Bill, so Pat shares it – and so does Bill himself.

The conversation wanders off into further discussion of the link between compassionate farming and the quality of produce, plus the disconnect in the UK between food and how it is produced, which allows a good laugh about a recent Apprentice competitor who thought that a field of horses was a field of dogs.

Bill would happily talk the hind legs off the proverbial donkey when it comes to matters culinary, but one thing’s clear: for this artisanal baker, finding himself forced into a career change in his mid-50s really has proved to be the bread of heaven.

Bill King Artisan Baker

Ballymaloe Cookery School

Green Saffron Spices

Trealy Farm Charcuterie

The Meat Course at Trealy Farm

James Whelan Butchers

Abergavenny Food Festival

Celtic Cook Off

Newport Food Festival

Cook – there's a caterpillar in my salad!

Chicken salad with orange and tarragon

This weather is glorious and, after a poor summer last year and a lengthy, demoralising winter that pretty much consumed the spring, nobody should be grumbling.

But, unaccustomed as we are to such soaring temperatures, it can make eating a little more difficult. After all, this is hardly meat-and-two-veg weather.

In which case, it seems the perfect opportunity to look toward the Mediterranean – not simply for holidays to come, but for culinary ideas for the here and now.

Wondering what to start the day with on Sunday, having seen The Other Half off to sunny Castleford for the Rugby League, I came up with a bit of an experiment: feta and strawberries. And it works.

It doesn’t need anything with it – the saltiness of the cheese gives seasoning. The textures are a nice contrast and the sweetness of good strawberries is always a joy.

What I’ve mentioned in the last week about vegetables and simplicity could hardly have been more timely.

For lunch on Sunday, some fine beans and late-season English asparagus, served with a piece of smoked mackerel and gooseberry terrine (Waitrose), and a drizzle of thick Balsamico – I opted for this over virgin oil, as it cuts through the natural sweetness of most of the other ingredients.

Dinner was back to Bruno Loubet terrain and his new book.

This time, a chance to try the grilled mackerel with salted, pressed watermelon and a lime mayonnaise.

I probably over-salted the watermelon, but the dish as a whole was light and fresh – perfect for this weather.

Mind, nothing in this weather, can lay a hand to a fresh gazpacho. There must be plenty of variations – every cook will have their own tweak – but the result is refreshing, nutritious, tasty and, well, simply perfect.

I was introduced to it one summer some years ago, when I was whinging about not knowing what to eat, by m’friend George, whose wife is Spanish. So it’s the real McCoy.

He wouldn’t give people the recipe unless decent tomatoes were available. In those days, I wondered why. Now, I have no doubts. It is a dish that needs good incidents – and a dish that is designed for exactly when they will be available.

It is, in other words, an icon of seasonal eating.

Smoked mackerel terrine and seasonal vegetables

You need properly ripe tomatoes – even better if you are growing your own and can pick them just as you need them. But otherwise, stick some on a plate and under the sun for a short while. That’ll help.

Take six or seven really ripe ones and blitz them. Follow that with a small cucumber – preferably one of those with a rough skin, which you peel first. This is also where using organic, if you can get it, is worth it too.

Next into the blender goes a handful of breadcrumbs.

Then a small onion – or as yesterday, a large shallot – followed by a clove of garlic (or two).

After that, it’s four tablespoons of wine vinegar. Actually, when making this yesterday, I realised that at the back of my great vinegar collection, I had a small bottle of raspberry champagne vinegar, with just about exactly the right amount left, so I used that.

Next, in goes a cup of olive oil and then salt to taste.

Chill. To serve, dilute to taste with either iced water or ice cubes.

And so thanks again to George for Gazpacho Doña Luisa.

It says everything about last summer that I never reached a point of wanting gazpacho: in the last few days, it’s been one of the things that was automatically on my mind.

I’d love to be able to make it in Collioure next month, given the divine tomatoes I can get there, but I don’t know whether there’ll be a blitzing facility. Fingers crossed.

What there will be, however, is a pan and a knife – and that’s all I’ll need for a ratatouille to make the most of local produce that I can find at the village market.

But back to the here and now.

On Sunday, I also roasted a chicken – my preferred River Café method; three and a half hours.

Set the oven to 80˚C (fan).

Stuff your bird – I can’t recall what the book says, as I just use what’s available. In this case, one and a half lemons and half a dozen cloves of garlic, crushed.

Pop the bird the usual way up in the tightest-fitting dish you’ve got. Pour in around 100ml of water and give it an hour. Then turn it over and give it another hour. Then turn it back to how it started – and give it a third hour.

There a caterpillar in here somewhere

Take it out and ratchet the heat up to 170˚C (fan). Message butter into the bird and season. At this point, you can add 200ml of vermouth, but it’s not essential. More water will do. And so give it a final half hour’s cooking.

The flesh will be tender and moist, and the skin will be crisp and brown.

It’s not really roast dinner weather, though, so the bird was then allowed to cool.

Yesterday’s first task was to strip the meat off it and make stock – easy enough, but rather hot for the weather!

The bulk of the stock has gone into the freezer, but a small jar was then further reduced, with the addition of the juice of half an orange and some tarragon leaves.

Strain and allow to cool, and then add some white wine vinegar, some olive oil and seasoning to taste.

Serve as a dressing over cold chicken, on a bed of leaves and garnished (if you feel so inclined) with an odd slice or segment of orange, and some fresh tarragon leaves.

The leaves on my plate were a combination of watercress and young lettuce leaves – the latter, the first crop from the potager.

Lesson one, though: rinse thoroughly before putting them in the salad spinner. That way, you’ll be able to rinse off any insect life that is too large to fall through the basket when you’re spinning it.

Mind, that small green caterpillar must have been dizzy.

The lettuce was a delight and the chicken was spot on.

Light dining that’s just perfect for these wonderful, hot days.