Grilled Summer Squash

First cutting started Monday. The big swather went out at five-thirty in the morning under a sky the color of old steel and by Wednesday evening I had eighty acres laid down in windrows and a forecast that held three more days of dry. That is the only forecast that matters in June. You watch the sky and you watch the radar and you watch the swallows because the swallows know things people do not, and you cut when the cutting is right and you bale when the baling is right and you do not argue with weather you cannot change.

Patrick stood on the porch Monday morning and watched me start the swather. He has not run the swather in three years. He used to be the only man on this ranch who could keep her running — he had a feel for the angle of the sickle, for the speed in heavy grass versus thin, for when to back off and when to push through. I learned what I know from him but I do not have his hand for machinery. I have my own hand for it now, six seasons of hay harvest in, and he watches me and I think he is watching the way a teacher watches a student who has learned the lesson but not, yet, the music of the lesson. He does not say anything. He does not need to. I am improving. The hay will be in by the Fourth.

Tom Whelan came over Wednesday afternoon while the windrows were drying and we rebuilt the gate at the south corner. Eighty-one years old and he can still hang a gate level on the first try. I am not exaggerating. I held the post and he sighted down the line and we set the hinge with a single bubble adjustment and the gate swung true. He is teaching me to be old. He does not know he is doing this. He thinks he is just teaching me to hang a gate.

I cooked elk burgers for him after. The last of last fall's elk, ground with a little fat back from a hog Cole and Tara raised, salted and peppered and grilled hard over hot coals until the outside had a real crust and the inside was just past medium. Tomato from Mom's greenhouse — the first slicer of the season, the size of a small fist, sweet and acid in equal measure. White cheddar from Wilcoxson's. Mom's sourdough buns. Tom ate two and asked if I thought there was a heaven and if so whether they served burgers like this. I told him I did not know about heaven but the elk had a good life and the cheddar had a good life and the bun had a good life and a man eating them all together had a good life, and that might be all heaven was anyway. He said he could live with that theology. He said he had been looking for that theology a long time. He said it with a smile and a mouthful of meat and we sat on the porch as the sun went and the swallows came in to roost and Patrick joined us for a while without speaking and the gate hung true at the south corner of the home pasture and that was Wednesday.

The book had a review in a Wyoming paper this week. Sarah forwarded it. Short, friendly, the phrase quietly devastating in the second paragraph which I sat with for a long time because that is not how I think of the book and not, I would have said, how I think of myself. But the reviewer is a stranger and strangers see things people who know you do not, and devastating is a word I will not argue with. Quiet I will accept.

The baler ran Friday. Two thousand pounds an hour, fifty-pound bales, my back at the end of the day a thing I owned but did not love. I stack with a kicker now — Patrick used to stack by hand and there are pictures of him at twenty-five throwing bales onto a truck like a man arguing with the world — but even with the kicker by sundown I was tired the way only haying makes you tired, which is a deep cellular tired, the kind sleep actually fixes. I slept eight hours Friday night. The longest stretch in six weeks. The body was so tired the mind gave up. I will take it.

Saturday I made a chicken in cast iron. Whole bird, Mom's laying flock cull, two hours in the oven over a bed of new potatoes from the garden and yellow onions and rosemary from the pot by the kitchen door. The skin came out the color of polished mahogany. I deboned the carcass for stock after dinner — the stock is on the stove now as I write this, twelve hours in, the kitchen smelling the way it should smell on a Sunday in June: chicken stock and old wood and coffee and a fire in the hearth that nobody actually needs because it is sixty-eight degrees outside, but the fire is there because some Sundays you light a fire just to watch it. Patrick is in his chair. Mom is reading. The hay is in the field. The world is, for this one Sunday, in order.

When I cooked those elk burgers for Tom, I wanted something alongside them that matched the season — something that came off the same fire, that tasted like June without making work of itself. Summer squash was already coming in, and hot coals do something to it that a pan never quite manages: the edges go a little dark and sweet and the middle stays tender, and it sits well next to meat that has its own strong character. It is the kind of side dish that does not ask for attention, which, after a week of haying, is exactly what I needed.

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 10 min | Total Time: 20 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

2 medium yellow summer squash, sliced lengthwise into 1/4-inch planks
2 medium zucchini, sliced lengthwise into 1/4-inch planks
2 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
2 tablespoons fresh parsley or basil, roughly chopped, for serving
Flaky sea salt, for finishing

Instructions

Prepare the squash. Slice the yellow squash and zucchini lengthwise into 1/4-inch planks. Pat them dry with a clean towel — surface moisture is the enemy of a good char.
Season. In a large bowl, toss the squash planks with olive oil, kosher salt, black pepper, garlic powder, and red pepper flakes if using. Make sure every surface is coated.
Heat the grill. Build a hot, even fire or heat a gas grill to high. You want the grates clean and well-seasoned. Over coals, wait until the coals are glowing white with no black centers.
Grill the squash. Lay the planks directly over the heat. Grill without moving them for 3—4 minutes until grill marks form and the edges begin to char at the corners. Flip once and cook another 3—4 minutes. The squash should be tender through but not collapsed.
Finish and serve. Transfer to a platter, scatter fresh parsley or basil over the top, and finish with a pinch of flaky sea salt. Serve immediately alongside burgers or grilled meat while the coals are still going.

Nutrition (per serving)

Grilled Summer Squash — A Side Worthy of the Last Good Elk