Oh summer, how I’ve missed you!  2020 has been a long year.  Winter seemed to go on for an inordinate amount of time.  Finally, the sunny days are getting more consistent and my favourite fruits and vegetables are coming into season.

Apparently, there’s still a boom in home vegetable growing in New Zealand, which started with the Level 4 lockdown back in March.  I heard a radio interview where Mathew Dolan, chief executive for New Zealand Plant Producers Incorporated, said sales of vegetable seedlings across the country went up by 50 per cent during the lockdown and remained at that level afterwards.  I’m guessing once people discovered the satisfaction of growing vegetables, they kept doing it even when it didn’t seem such a necessity. 

I’m not particularly good at gardening but I keep trying.  One thing I have done lately is put up a fence to keep the chickens away from the garden, which seems obvious, yet I resisted for a long time because I like to interact with my flock and I thought I was being a permaculture hero by working with the chickens instead of against them.  The thing which ultimately changed my mind about the fence is that I’d really like to grow a crop of corn and there’s no way my chickens would be able to resist eating it all before it’s ready to harvest. 

Therefore, this summer I expect to have a nice corn crop, which I’ll be barbecuing to my heart’s delight.  The kids and I love corn.  The chickens can pick over the leftovers.

The first time I saw corn being barbecued was in Mexico back in the 1990s.  Street vendors would be out on the streets at night with large, portable barbecues and piles of freshly harvested corn.  You’d order a couple of cobs, pay a few pesos and the vendor would shuck the corn, roll it around in some powdered parmesan and chuck it on the hot grate, rotating it until it was just cooked, still juicy, with the cheese giving it a crisp coating.  They’d smother it in chilli sauce before handing it over so you had to be quick with your Spanish if you didn’t want the parmesan or the chilli.

At home I like to put my corn on the barbecue, still inside its husk, then shuck it after it’s cooked.  That way the kernels steam themselves inside the pod and come out soft and juicy, which is a nice option for guests who don’t like the slightly more chewy, toasted feel of kernels which have been straight on the grill.  I find it takes about five minutes on a hot grate, rotating every minute or so, to cook the corn the way I like it.  The husk might get a little bit burnt but that doesn’t matter, since the kernels are protected.

Another favourite corn-barbecue combination at our place is corn fritters.  I have a quick and simple method for preparing them:  Crack one egg (or equivalent binding substitute) into a bowl.  Add half a cup of flour plus a teaspoon of baking powder and mix well.  Then add a 400g can of creamed corn and the kernels of one cob of fresh corn.  Stir it all together and plop tablespoon sized portions onto the greased hotplate. Flip when bubbles appear.

I also hope to stop the chickens eating my capsicums and tomatoes, because I want to throw those on the barbecue, too.  The poor chickens will be peering over the fence with their mouths watering.  Hopefully there will be plenty of scraps for them to pick over afterwards. 

Bring on summer!