Romeo & Juliet

A sardine romance.

There are only a few weeks left in the sardine season. I have four beauties—long, plump and clear-eyed—ready to be grilled.

First, I stuff them with lemon and rosemary.

Then, I set up the grill on a metal table on the old wooden deck.

The charcoal bin contains only a few briquettes but also a box of binchotan that my brother-in-law gave me a few Christmases ago. Binchotan is made in Japan from ubame oak and processed in a kiln that turns the wood black. It is free of chemicals, smokeless, and burns for hours at a high temperature. Clank two pieces together and it will produce a clarion sound.

This should be fun!

According to the directions on the box, binchotan is very hard to ignite and the easiest thing is to stack it in a small metal grill chimney we use to barbecue. My husband has these little fire starters he bought for the fireplace that I figure will be better than newspaper. I place a couple on the bottom, pour in the last bits of charcoal, stack over them a teepee of binchotan sticks and then poke a lighter into one of the chimney holes. Nothing happens, so I lift the chimney up and sweep the lighter over the fire starters.

WOOSH, goes the flames up the chimney. I jump back high on my bare feet.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” I yell a couple of times, each one a little louder than the last.

“Hey,” I hear a male voice shout. It’s coming from the hunting lodge next door. “Are you okay?”

The flames are about as high as the wooden fence between the lodge and our house.

I scream, “yeah.”

“Something’s burning!” he calls with certainty.

The fire is giving out so much heat that I can’t touch the chimney. A couple of sparks have escaped and alarmingly scatter about the deck and my bare feet.

The sloping house and the ragged garden in mid-September. See the sign to the left showing a strung-up deer? That’s the hunting lodge’s processing hut.

A distinct feature of my small wooden house is that 90 years ago it was built on a steep hill. Eight sturdy cement pillars underneath the house keep it level to the street in front and support it as the ground slopes behind it. The section of the deck where I’ve place the grill is about 11 feet above the ground making it somewhat like a balcony. Below stands the man looking up at me. He is a sturdy fellow in jeans and a Mets t-shirt. His curly white hair puffs out from a hunter’s camouflage-printed baseball cap.

“It’s just the grill,” I assure him.

“You want me to come up?”

I loath being a hapless woman in distress and cry, “no, it’s okay.”

I run into the house, slip on clogs, run back out with a pair of oven mits to help reach gingerly for the chimney handle, then dump out the coals and the binchotan. Sparks flare further up into the gloaming sky.

The man continues to stand below, still looking up with what I take to be a dubious grin. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” I cry down to him again, trying for a casual lilt in my voice.

“Okay then,” he says and retreats back into the depths of the hunting lodge.

Five minutes later, I shake the grill to evenly distribute the heat. With my now singed mitt and long tongs, I manage to place the grill over the fire then slip on my four beautiful sardines.

Sardines take no time to cook—no more than two or three minutes on each side. The most important thing is to be sure the skin is nicely crisp. When you slide the fish off the grill, a little skin will probably remain on the grill but most will adhere to the delicate flesh. The two textures of crisp and tender is one of the most intense pleasures of eating grilled fish.

“Hey,” calls the man just as I am about to sit down with my sardines. “Everything come out ok?”

Grilled sardines on a bed of arugula with a glass of cold white wine.

I neighborly walk over to the balcony and gaze down at my neighbor. He smiles up at me.

“Smells good,” he says.

“Sardines,” I say.

“Wouldn’t think that. Love them.”

It’s awkward to consider turning around and leaving him down there alone with such evident longing.

“You want one?” I finally ask.

“Sure!”

I go inside and find an old plate. Even alone, the sardine looks like a banquet as I carefully carry it down the slope through the ragged late summer garden and give him the plate. His smile is as close to love as one could possibly give a sardine.

“Hope you like it,” I say. I expect him to turn away first but he doesn’t and I fear he is waiting for me to invite him up to the deck.

But then he says, “I’ll bring the plate back,” and walks to the lodge, disappearing into the darkened doorway.

I trudge back up through the garden to the deck and the three sardines waiting for me.

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