Growing up in New England, my family never knew how to properly cook corn. My mother used the time honored tradition of husking the corn, then putting it in a pot of water, bringing the water to a boil and the boiling it until what she considered done. This was usually somewhere between soggy and sodden with the added bonus of having the majority of flavor and nutrients removed for health reasons. Ms Cocktail also grew up in New England and she also suffered from this time honored tradition. It took Ms Cocktail working with a wonderful lady from Iowa who was kind enough to teach us that you brought the water to a boil first, you added the corn and then no longer than 5 minutes in the boiling water. Voila! Perfect boiled corn every time.

I then discovered that you can cook corn on the grill. This adds a wonderful roasted flavor to the corn, unlike anything you can possibly get from boiling it. There are two approaches to grilling corn, either in the husk or shucked. If you grill it in the husk, you should soak the whole ear of corn in water for about a half an hour to an hour prior to placing on the grill. Then grill over indirect medium heat for about 25 minutes, turning two or three times to keep the husk from burning. This essentially steams the corn within its own husk and adds a touch of that roasted flavor to it. The other way to do it is to shuck the corn, spray the ear down with olive oil, then grill over direct medium heat for ten to twelve minutes, turning frequently. This gives the corn a nice roasted flavor with some browning of the kernals to help compliment that flavor.

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A mole is the little vermin digging a tunnel through your back yard that causes your dog to begin excavating cubic yards of material in a futile attempt to remove that scourge from the face of the earth. Mole (pronounced moh-lay) is a central Mexican sauce that is a mixture (in the local language mole translates as "mixture") of various types of ingredients.

Several years back, I took Ms Cocktail on a surprise trip to 10,000 Waves, a truly wonderful Japanese resort/spa nestled in the hills outside Sante Fe, New Mexico. It is the kind of place that one goes to unplug from the world and do a complete reset of your nervous system. However, one of my co-worker's daughter's roomate (how do ya like that for several steps removed) was the maitre d' of a little restaurant in the historic section of Sante Fe named Cafe Pasqual's. I was told that it would be worth visiting this restaurant and was I ever not disappointed. It was here that Ms Cocktail and I were first introduced to the gastronomic delight that is mole.

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