salon's new food columnist, francis lam, is SO FUCKING ANNOYING. at the risk of being sexist/ageist, he writes like a 16-year-old-girl's livejournal. so tedious, mediocre and insulting.

BUT

the rib marinade he wrote about a couple days ago is totally simple and perfect, like the garlic/soy sauce/black pepper marinade for steak that always wows the shit out of everyone and they think you're lying when you tell them what's in it. mr. lam's consists of a bunch of garlic, soy sauce and honey and that's it. he says we should use more honey than soy sauce, but i think equal parts is about right.

i ignored the terrible writing and did pretty much what he told me to, which was: 3/4 c each soy sauce and honey and half a head of garlic for the marinade, reserve half a cup and soak 3lb baby back ribs in the rest for 2 hours, tent ribs in foil and cook at 325 for 1 3/4 hr, remove ribs and set aside, crank oven to 450 while boiling reserved and leftover marinade and whatever juice accumulated in the foil until it is no longer toxic and becomes a syrup, pour some syrup over ribs and reserve the rest for rice, put ribs on a baking sheet and blast the hell out of them for 10 minutes or until they become slightly charred.

next time i think i might go for longer at a lower temp to combat gristle, but these were still really, really good. had them with the rice and an asian-style slaw with apples and a lot of scallions and cilantro in it. unfortunately we ate this at 10 PM the night before krav class and i almost ralphed on my partner today. worth it though.