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Food

WEDNESDAY, MAY 25 , 2022. SECTION E EZ EE

DESSERT

Poke cake is a classic, but

add fresh blueberries and

it’s amazing. E8

MORE AT WASHINGTONPOST.COM

Congee E2

Chaman Kaliya (Paneer in Yellow

Gravy) E3

Poached Salmon and Napa Slaw

With Citrus-Miso Dressing E6

Chat At noon: l ive.washingtonpost.com

BY MONICA ENG

Special to The Washington Post

In 1966, Boston’s public television station

produced two groundbreaking TV shows in

the same studio.

One was Julia Child’s “The French Chef.”

The other was “Cooking with Joyce Chen.”

A half-century later, almost 20 years after

her death, Child still looms larger than life in

American culture — she’s even the subject of a

new HBO series — while Chen, who died in

1994, has largely faded into the mist of

Chinese American history.

In fact, many outside the Boston area — this

writer included — had never even heard of the

Chinese American cookbook author, restaura-

teur and entrepreneur until 2014, when she

landed on a series of U.S. postage stamps

celebrating American culinary figures that

also included James Beard, Edna Lewis and

Child.

This month, GBH (formerly WGBH) is

hoping to change that by highlighting its

recent release of a little-known documentary

Chen produced for the station chronicling her

family’s trip back to China shortly after

President Richard M. Nixon opened diplomat-

ic relations with the communist nation in

1972. “Joyce Chen’s China” is streaming on the
      American Archive of Public Broadcasting,
      which also hosts 11 episodes of her black-and-
      white cooking show.
      The fascinating documentary, largely shot
      by her teenage son, blends equal parts travel
      log, home movie, state propaganda, Sunday
      morning political talk show and cooking
      SEE JOYCE CHEN ON E4

When you crave

Chinese food,

thank Joyce Chen

Child got the fame and television career,

but Chen’s impact helped launch a cuisine in America

JIN XIA FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

hair spray into a very cost-

effective flamethrower, I know

that well, and I send salutes to

fire-tenders of any gender. For

some reason, though, the

cookouts in my world have

tended toward my husband or

friends’ husbands or my dad

manning the grill while I’m

womanning the drinks. I don’t

know why that is, but probably

our local fire department is more

relaxed because of it.

Whether you’re a fire-cooking

newbie, an old charred hand, or

just one of the lucky, lightly

smoked hungry hordes waiting

for the bounty to come off the

grill, cooking out is thirsty work.

Beer, of course, enjoys a long-

lived hegemony as the traditional

quaff of cookouts, and no wonder

SEE SPIRITS ON E6

Rejoice, my fellow

Americans: The

season is upon us

when men

sporting jocular T-

shirts — “Body by

brisket,” “It’s all fun and games

till someone burns their wiener”

and other such classics — gather

around blackened metal

containers of fire to exchange

ancient wisdoms and argue the

comparative virtues of apple

wood vs. mesquite, wet mop vs.

dry rub, Big Green Eggs Are a

Game Changer vs. Big Green

Eggs Are For the Weak.

Please, don’t send me

indignant notes pointing out that

it’s not just men who enjoy

playing with fire. Having once, as

a curious preteen, accidentally

on purpose turned a canister of

Spirits

M. CARRIE

ALLAN

Grilling fruit makes for

sexy, smoky cocktails

salt and pepper, and stuffed with

sprigs of fresh herbs. Then they

are wrapped in strips of thin,

center-cut (this is important, so

more on this later) bacon, placed

on a grill over indirect heat,

covered, and grilled until the

bacon crisps, about 15 to 20

minutes. No flipping required.

The resulting fish is moist with

a scrumptious, smoky flavor. We

have done this several times at

my house now. The last time, we

ate two of the fish hot off the grill.

Then we deboned the rest and ate

the smoky fish cold the next night

on a makeshift dinner board with

the bacon, rough chopped, next

to crackers, hummus, grape

SEE DINNER IN MINUTES ON E8

If I write about

cooking fish, I

almost always get

a comment about

how smelly it is. If

I suggest moving

the cooking

outside to the

grill, I hear from

folks with sad

tales of losing

fillets to the white-

hot coals or winding up with

overcooked, dried-out food.

Enter grilling expert and

cookbook author Elizabeth

Karmel’s grilled bacon-wrapped

trout.

The beauty of this technique

for cooking whole fish is its

simplicity. The head-on, tail-on,

cleaned fish are rubbed with a bit

of olive oil, lightly seasoned with

Ann

Maloney

DINNER IN

MINUTES

Your fish won’t stick

if it’s wrapped in bacon

SCOTT SUCHMAN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

FOOD STYLING BY LISA CHERKASKY

FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

RECIPES ON E6

Golden Brown Sour Cocktail,

above l Spine and Spice

Cocktail l Smoked Strawberry

Aperitif

RECIPE ON E8

Grilled Bacon-Wrapped Trout