This past Saturday at our very own North Market, we attended the Grillmasters Festival for 2006. It was billed as the North Market’s “first of its annual summer food festivals with a tribute to backyard cooking enthusiasts.” Now we do passably well grilling out on our own gas grill, but the thought of tasting the delicately grilled creations of those more gifted with a grill than us was enough to lure us down there for a couple of hours. One of the celebrity chefs was going to be CaJohn, so we also didn’t want to miss him wowing the crowds with his yummy recipes. So…loading up our temperamental toddlers, we headed to downtown Columbus in search of the Grillmasters!

Our timing was absolutely perfect. As we strolled up to the cooking tent, we saw CaJohn in his fancy chilehead cooking attire, whipping up some Grilled Fusion Tacos with Fruit & Pepper Salsa. Working some magic with the meat, in this case skirt steak, is truly the secret to making this good, so we ambled closer to take a closer look.

Skirt steak has always seemed a little tough and gristly, but this cut of it seemed to cut as easily as top round. Cutting into a smaller dice was the task to make this meat suitable for the soft taco shells.

The end result was a snack fit for any grill devotee. The meat was tender and delicate, and nearly perfectly cooked to taste. What really made the dish, though, was the fruit & pepper salsa. We weren’t sure if the fruit would be a little too sweet, but the combo of fruit, peppers, and Curry Fruit Pepper sauce was a perfect compliment to the steak taco.

What grilling event would be complete without dessert? Next up was Grilled Banana Split Sundaes. Starting with the sundae ingredients, minus the ice cream, on the skewers, they easily transferred to the grill for an easy & quick stop there.

After wading through the line to get a plate of this, Linda and I found ourselves nearly stabbing each others fingers to make sure we each got half of it to try. We’d never tasted a grilled sundae before and don’t know how we’d do it on our grill…but tasting is believing. We have the recipe if anyone wants it.

Being the chileheads that we are, we hung around for a little bit to see what other stuff was happening. Even having had some ice cream, we stopped at the Jose Madrid salsa booth to taste their selection. They were all pretty good, but in the end we opted for a small container of their guacamole instead. It puts to shame anything we usually get at our local supermarkets. Next time we’ll bring some others home to try as well.

In the end, our overly stimulated toddlers kept our trip somewhat shorter than we hoped…but still a fun time. After a little Vietnamese food for lunch, we made our way home, but not before picking up a couple of pepper plants for the outside as well. If you include the fact that it wasn’t blisteringly hot, it made for a nearly perfect day. We made a mental note to do this again sometime soon.

No comments yet.

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI