Ah, summer.  Sure it’s cold and windy here in San Francisco, but the fresh produce is bountifully flowing in from the central valley, and filling my kitchen with great summer fruits and veggies.   My CSA box this week even smelled like summer when i opened it: it contained a huge musk melon and heirloom tomatoes, which filled the box with a fruity aroma.  Surely, with this sort of food, there had to be grilling involved? 

In addition, 24th Street has been steadily filling up with new business, and expanding past its Mexican roots.  One of my personal favorites is the Alhambra Halal Meat Company.  We walked in and found there to be a fantastic variety of meat, including a great selection of on the bone lamb.  We got three pounds of lamb shoulder steaks (bone in!) and put them in an overnight marinate of mint, rosemary, lemon juice and zest, and garlic. 

Here’s what they looked like when they hit the grill:

 

The we turned our attention to the box of delicious fruits and veggies.  Channeling a killer salad from Outstanding in the Field, Elianna built a salad of melon, heirloom tomatoes, prosciutto and lightly dressed everything in feta with a touch of white balsamic vinegar, basil and mint. 

 

 

Finally, to go with everything, we served african spiced lentils, which also grabbed a handful of summer with  few of our summer cheery tomatoes. 

All together, it looked something like this:

 

So what to drink? 

I rummaged through the fridge looking fro something that would stand up to the compliment the sweet melon, salty feta, spicy lentils, the fat on the lamb, and still bring out that summer feeling. It’s a tall order.

Luckily, I found a tall beer. 

 

 

Russian River’s new bottling line has allowed them to expand past their Belgium style beers, and start bottling their super hoppy IPAs.  Blind Pig is part of the initial release.  It’s less sweet and has less booze than Pliney, but packs a powerful hop punch.  The nose if full of citrus and herb, and the aftertaste is clean and fresh.  The bottle clearly instructs not to age, and drink immediately – we were only too happy to oblige.

In the past i’ve been very critical of “Extreme IPAs” – they often strike me as all hops and brute force, and no art.  However, the Blind Pig manages to be herbal powerful without overwhelming, and doing do with balance and at session beer levels of alcohol.  Amazingly, they’ve created an extreme session beer.

Then, it was time for dessert.

Tags: Blind Pig, Grilling, Lamb

This entry was posted on Friday, August 15th, 2008 at 7:04 pm and is filed under Pairings, Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.