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July 10, 2009
Island Cooking: A culinary tour with local Kevin McCabe
By LYNNE FOSTER
The last page of Kevin McCabe’s new book contains a recipe for
Summer Breeze, a refreshing cocktail blend of Kevin’s own
creation.
If I were you, I would get a copy of “25 Secrets Revealed: A
Culinary Tour.” Go straight to that last page. Find a
comfy spot outside to relax with some friends. Then stir up a
batch. You will need their help to mix it! And to drink it!
Now you are ready to read this delightful book aloud to your companions. That would please McCabe.
McCabe’s writing style is as friendly and open as he is, like
talking with a friend. His stories are delightful, leaving me
wanting to hear more and his recipes are really mouth-watering.
The colorful cover was designed by his wife, the popular artist Kim
Mosher, who captured McCabe’s great loves -- the tropics, the
lighthouse, the surf, and fish.
The book’s release is timely since many of his ingredients are
back in season now and warm weather lures you outdoors where you can
really enjoy his style of cooking and eating.
His food reminds me of summertime gatherings because his meals are
meant to be shared with friends and family and are celebratory in
nature.
The Buxton house where McCabe and Mosher live is a hive of activity
with people always coming and going, and everyone pitches in at
mealtime. He likens the scene to a “good circus.
Everyone has a chore and there is one ringleader.”
Kevin McCabe is that ringleader.
It’s all the better if you catch your dinner as McCabe usually
does, but if not, there are good seafood markets on the islands where
you can get freshly caught fish and shellfish from local waters. 
Before the recent widespread beach closures during the spring and
summer nesting season for birds and turtles, McCabe would head out with
his fishing gear, hook a Spanish mackerel or more, only what he needed
for dinner, and be back home preparing it within an hour.
His cats and the largemouth bass and turtles in his backyard pond got
the scraps, so the sustainable nature of his fishing activity was
complete.
He bemoans the fact that “Any place that’s any good for
fishing is closed so everybody’s suffering right down the food
chain.”
Speckled trout fishing is his “little specialty,” and he
does field testing for Daiwa products, so the company keeps him
supplied with all of his trout fishing needs. McCabe believes that
there is “a lot of science to trout fishing. You need to do
your homework and know not only where to go but also what conditions
are favorable.”
He grumbles that he and his trout-fishing friends “seem to always have someone chasing us down.”
“But,” he adds, “it is not a group sport and if you see me fishing in a crowd, I am hungry!”
McCabe and Mosher maintain a kitchen garden bulging with the vegetables
and herbs and spices that they use in all of their cooking and share
with elderly neighbors.
What they don’t use fresh they dry; stringing chili peppers,
coriander and fennel (for seeds), and oregano leaves for his chili mix
and tomato sauce.
Tomatoes get turned into rich red tomato paste, and peppers become
pepper sauce for the humans and cayenne pepper spray that he uses to
try to protect the garden from roaming deer.
What they don’t catch or grow, they gather from the wild or
receive as “food gifts” from friends across the sound.
From mainland peanuts, McCabe makes peanut butter that he spreads on
homemade bread and tops with jelly made from the wild grapes that grow
on the island.
He and Mosher have observed that some years the grape vines “need
natural pruning. When the tips get beaten as after a storm, you get a
phenomenal crop.”
Pecans and walnuts mix with fresh basil to become pesto that he likes to use as a crust for his fish.
A good friend brings him fresh venison every deer-hunting season, the
only red meat he likes and he promises, “A nice deer tenderloin
is your free ticket to the trout-hole!”
He uses deer meat in his award winning chili and adds dried island bay leaf among other local ingredients.
“25 Secrets Revealed” is delightful. It is what
McCabe calls a “culinary tour” as he takes us along his
trail of discovery to great surfing, fishing, and eating that began in
his childhood along our beaches and took him on many exotic excursions.
As the title states, McCabe reveals 25 of his in-demand food secrets, but here I will reveal only one.
The book is available locally in a variety of retail stores and marinas and by phone order at 252-995-4788.
For your summer picnic, try Kevin’s fish salad from his
“Summer Gifts” section. Spanish mackerel is readily
available now and is perfect for this dish.
McCabe writes: “People have asked for this recipe for
decades. Try making it when stuffing tomatoes or you need an easy
dinner for the beach. What could be better than your feet up, the
sun going down, and a big plate of fish salad? Only one
suggestion, make a Summer Breeze! Be careful with this gift or
you might just miss the sunset.”
KEVIN’S FISH SALAD
6 skinned boneless fish filets, 8-10 inches long with the center line cut out
1/4 cup finely chopped red onion
1/4 cup finely chopped celery
1/4 cup finely chopped sweet red pepper
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup sweet relish
1 tablespoon chopped capers and 1 tablespoon of the brine they are in
1 tablespoon chopped flat leaf parsley or cilantro
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
2 tablespoons orange juice
2 hard boiled eggs, chopped
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1 teaspoon dried tarragon
Shake of hot sauce
Salt and pepper to taste
Put 2 quarts of water into a heavy saucepan and bring to a boil.
Cut the filets up into 2 inch pieces and drop into water for 2-3 minutes or until soft.
Drain off the foam and rinse in cold water.
Add the fish and all the ingredients to a large chilled bowl and mix well. Cover and chill for at least 2 hours.
Great on a sandwich, bed of lettuce or stuffed summertime tomatoes!
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