Spiedis -- Skewered Summer, Simple and Perfect

Late June, and the summer has settled into its deep phase — the heat constant, the light long, the kitchen producing the seasonal dishes that the Lowcountry demands: cold shrimp salad, tomato sandwiches, peach cobbler, the food of a season that wants nothing heavy and everything fresh.

I have been spending afternoons with Mama — not caregiving hours (Ruth and Gloria cover those) but companionship hours, the hours when I sit beside her in the garden or in the kitchen and I simply am. The being is the visit. The visit does not require words. Mama does not speak much now — a word here, a hum there, the occasional sentence that arrives like a postcard from a distant country, legible but clearly from far away. The sentences are treasures. I catch them the way a collector catches butterflies: carefully, with reverence, knowing that the catching is the preserving and the preserving is the work.

Carrie has been writing in her Parsonage Kitchen journal — not recipes now but stories. She is writing the stories that I have told her about Mama, about Beaufort, about the parsonage kitchen. The writing is the second generation of the preservation project: I preserved Mama's recipes. Carrie is preserving my stories about Mama's recipes. And the double preservation is the insurance, the redundancy that a librarian builds into every important collection: two copies, two locations, two women writing the same love in different handwriting.

I made tomato sandwiches every day this week — the June dish, the simplest dish, the dish that requires only a tomato and bread and mayonnaise and the willingness to let the tomato be the star. The tomato was the star. The star was the summer. And the summer was the sandwich, which is to say the summer was simple and perfect and brief.

The tomato sandwiches carried us through the week — simple, starring the season, asking nothing of the cook but patience and good bread — but when evening came and Mama was settled and the garden had gone gold in the late light, I wanted something that could hold the feeling of the day without being heavy. Spiedis are that dish: meat marinated long and slow, threaded onto skewers, cooked over heat until the outside chars just slightly and the inside stays tender — the kind of food that feels effortless because the work happened quietly, hours before. It felt right to make them this week, something that rewards the waiting, the way Mama’s sentences do, arriving whole and bright from wherever they come from.

Spiedis

Prep Time: 20 minutes (plus 8—24 hours marinating) | Cook Time: 15 minutes | Total Time: 8 hours 35 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 2 lbs boneless chicken thighs or pork shoulder, cut into 1 1/2-inch cubes
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
• 2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon fresh mint, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon fresh basil, finely chopped
• 1 teaspoon dried oregano
• 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 6 Italian sub rolls or thick slices of bread, for serving

Instructions

1. Make the marinade. In a bowl or large zip-top bag, whisk together the olive oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice, garlic, mint, basil, oregano, red pepper flakes, salt, and black pepper until well combined.
2. Marinate the meat. Add the cubed meat to the marinade, toss to coat thoroughly, seal, and refrigerate for at least 8 hours and up to 24. The longer it rests, the more tender and flavorful the result.
3. Prepare the skewers. If using wooden skewers, soak them in water for 30 minutes before grilling. Thread the marinated meat onto skewers, leaving a small gap between pieces for even cooking.
4. Grill over medium-high heat. Preheat your grill or grill pan to medium-high. Cook the skewers 12—15 minutes, turning every 3—4 minutes, until the meat is cooked through and lightly charred on the edges.
5. Rest and serve. Let the skewers rest 3 minutes off the heat. Slide the meat off the skewer directly onto a roll or piece of bread, folding the bread around it in the traditional Spiedis style.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 390 | Protein: 31g | Fat: 18g | Carbs: 26g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 420mg