Jammin'. Summer BLT.

It's raining tomatoes. After a sleepy start, gushingly ripe heirlooms have finally crashed our farmers markets in dizzying waves. From farm stand to farm stand, brilliant patchworks of homegrown color tease, beckon, and shamelessly flaunt their  bejeweled innocent flooziness. Lost in the spell of the sultry purples, perky greens, vibrant reds, carefree oranges, demure whites, and come hither hybrids, the challenge of choosing is real. With varying sugar to acid ratios, all the colors and varieties bring something different to the table. When it comes to summer tomatoes, we love what we love. Taste, like beauty,  lies in the eye of the beholder. I'm easy. Very easy. Whether sweet, tart, ugly, gnarled, or drop dead gorgeous, I adore them all. They flaunt, I fall. Win.

With so many tomatoes, kick back, and enjoy the ride.
Really, nothing tops the simplistic beauty of a sliced and salted ripe-to-the-core sun-kissed summer tomato. Boom, call it a day. Or, for a throwback to childhood, toss a few sliced tomatoes on cheap supermarket white bread with a mayo smear, take a bite, and feel the juicy drip. Not feeling it? More is more. Slap crunchy bacon, crisp wet lettuce, and ripe tomatoes on toasted bread for a classic summer B.L.T.. Salty. Wet. Sweet. Heaven. Better yet, take it up a notch and replace the crispy bacon with bacon jam for a slammin' heirloom tomato homespun home run.

Scoot on over B.L.T., there's a new kid in town.

Bacon Jam, Basil, and Heirloom Tomato Sandwich.
The B.B.T.

Bacon Jam.
Bacon jam just might be the beacon for all that is good and right in this world.
Small effort, big payoff.

After heating a large cast iron skillet over a medium flame, I sliced 1 lb  Stone Cross Farm smoked
bacon into 3/4" pieces and tossed them into the skillet. When the bacon started to crisp, I scooped it out with a slotted spoon, set it aside. reserved 1 Tablespoon bacon fat in the hot skillet, drained the remaining fat, and added 1 cup chopped Boyle County Red Bull candy onions. After sweating the onions until they turned translucent, I scattered 4 minced garlic cloves into the skillet. Just before the garlic browned, I deglazed the skillet with 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar and 1/3 cup brewed coffee, scraped the tasty bacon bits from the bottom of the pan, and I added 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/4 cup Oberholtzer's sorghum, 3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar, and cracked black pepper. After tumbling the reserved bacon into the molten mix, I brought the jam to a boil, reduced it to a low simmer, covered the skillet, and let it bubble away for 1 1/2 hours, stirring and adding a splash of water from time to time.

When jammy enough, I pulled the bacon jam from the heat, scraped it into a container, licked the spatula bone clean, and set it aside.

Summer love.
Heirloom Tomatoes.
Toasted bread.
Bacon jam.
Say no more.

Build it and they will come.
After slathering bacon jam onto toasted Bluegrass Bakery Black Pepper Parmesan Bread, I feathered fresh garden basil into the sticky jam, piled wet juicy slices of Casey County, Pulaski County, Fayette County heirloom tomatoes over the basil, drizzled the jewels with extra virgin olive, and finished

with a flurry of flaked sea salt, cracked black pepper, and snipped garden chives.

Green Zebra. Lemon Boy. Mountain Trash Red. Cherokee Purple. Big White. Kentucky Beefsteak. Orange Persimmon. Purple Plum. Taste the colors.

Kentucky wonders.
With pig jam.

Fabulous.

Pick One. Eat Five.

I was never a good strawberry picker. Whether dispatched to forage the family farm for wild strawberries or carted away to crawl around endless rows of ankle high berries through dusty U-Pick strawberry fields, I was that kid. You know the one? The grazer. The kid who ate everything. Pick one. Eat five. That was my game. Full belly. Empty baskets. Small hauls.

Not much has changed, really. Well, not that much. Nowadays, I don't pick a lot of strawberries.
When they're in season, I'll stop by the farmers market and nab a pint on my way to work. Like clockwork, they're gone before I get to work. Morning snacks. Stained fingers. Stained lips. Hulls on my shirt. Empty baskets. Happy country boy.

Last week, I changed things up a bit and stopped by the market after work. Game changer. Armed with full baskets of Henry County strawberries, I finally (and coyly) shared a few strawberries with Michael.

So, here's the deal. With strawberry season just getting under way, there will be plenty of time for shortcakes, ice creams, macerated sauces, and salads. With that in mind. I took my drive-by stash down an unexpected detour.




Grilled Spatchcocked Chicken with Fresh Strawberry-Bourbon Barbecue Sauce.
Simple and fun.

Mise en Place.
Barbecue Sauce.
After hulling and chopping 2 cups of Henry County strawberries, I tumbled them into a food processor before adding 2 cloves minced garlic, 1 minced shallot, 1/2 cup light brown sugar, 1/2 cup ketchup, 1/2 cup Woodford County Country Rock sorghum, 2 tablespoons white balsamic vinegar, 1/4 cup Makers Mark bourbon, salt, and cracked black pepper. I pureed the mix, strained it into a sauce pan, simmered the seedless sauce for 35 minutes, and pulled it from the heat to cool.

Chicken.  
So, I really didn't want to get all fiddly with turning several pieces of chicken around the grill, so I spatchcocked (butterflied) a whole Marksbury Farm chicken. Grilling or roasting a whole spatchcocked chicken allows it to cook evenly and more quickly.  Using kitchen shears, I removed the backbone from the neck to the tail, trimming some excess fat along the way. To help the chicken flatten out, I flipped the splayed chicken over and sliced the piece of cartilage covering the center of the breast bone (some folks remove the entire breastbone), flipped it back over and cracked the bird until it was evenly flattened. Instead of removing the wing tips (personal favorite), I tucked them under the breast before seasoning the chicken with smoked salt and cracked black pepper. With the cock spatched, I set it aside.

Fire.
I stacked a heaping pile of charcoal into the center of the grill, lit it up, and let it rip. When the coals were ashen and ready to go, I scooped them to one side of the grill to allow for two heat sources. After tossing soaked hickory chips onto the glowing embers, I nestled the chicken onto the cooler side of the grill, closed the lid, and let the chicken cook for 30-35 minutes, turning and flipping it every 10 minutes or so.  When the internal temperature reached 165 degrees and the juices ran clear, I brushed the chicken with the strawberry-bourbon barbecue sauce and slid it over to the hot side of the grill. As the heat caramelized the meat, I turned, basted, moved, and babysat the chicken until it was burnished and lacquered with bits of char before removing it from the grill to rest.

Messy business. Held together by the candied sticky skin,  the tender juicy meat slipped off the bones with whispering ease. Pull. Swipe. Suck. Repeat. Finger food. Funny, while fortified with sorghum and brown sugar, the sauce wasn't achingly sweet. The bright sweet acidity of the strawberries balanced the mellowed caramel/vanilla undertones of the bourbon, the slight anise hints of the wilted basil, and the dark smoky sweetness of the Kentucky sorghum. Fruity. Salty. Sweet. Sensational.

Kentucky barbecue
with a strawberry twist.

Fire up the grill
and pass the bourbon.