Outdoor entertaining can be fun and easy, whether you have a professional chef or not.
Food & Entertaining
Grills Gone Wild
Sauté, grill, smoke and boil — all this can be done outdoors for the easiest summer entertaining.

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John and Kathy Klag toast with Bellinis on their back patio. Surrounded by their daughter, Caitlin, and friends Bev and Bruce Gilbert, the couple can entertain with minimal effort. That’s because today, the Gilberts, owners of Regarding Kitchens and designers of the Klags’ indoor and outdoor kitchens, have brought corporate chef Silverio Pagano along to show them how to do so.

A simple menu and a few items prepared beforehand made a light, quick and healthy meal for this crowd. “With this type of food, they can actually spend time with their guests,” Silverio says, adding that no one has to be a grill master to prepare the dishes.

On the menu: smoked shrimp wrapped in snow pea with remoulade sauce and chicken quesadillas with raspberry chipotle sauce. Sound enticing yet? Add some Prosecco and peaches, and a delicious afternoon is ahead.

Before arriving, Silverio mixed raspberry seedless jelly with chipotle peppers from a can. He whipped up the remoulade ingredients a few days ahead and chopped the veggies for the quesadillas that morning. Ready to begin, he placed a sauté pan directly on   the grill to sear the chicken before grilling to hold in the juice. “Most people think you can’t do this, but you don’t have to go inside for this part,” Silverio says. “The grill is a heat source, right?” In fact, his first experience with a grill was making soup. Yes, soup. Silverio also blanched the peas in a saucepan on the grill before cooling them in the nearby sink. He can even keep them cool in the undercounter fridge, along with other snacks and drinks. In one 30-minute lesson, he has shown how versatile and easy an outdoor kitchen can be, something the Klags are glad to know now that they’ve committed to owning one.

The couple hadn’t done much outdoor cooking before, but they’ve always enjoyed using their backyard, with its extensive landscaping and crystal clear pool. When they decided to redo their indoor kitchen, Bev saw an opportunity for a two-in-one deal. The kitchen wall to the outside had a small porch overhang that wasn’t doing much, so she grabbed the space and integrated it into the design, using plumbing and electrical already in place to create a kitchen on both sides.

“We bumped out the kitchen on the inside because it was too small for the size of the house,” Bev explains. “Then we realized they would have everything but an outdoor kitchen.”

Installing an outdoor kitchen was a   new concept for the Klags, but only because they had never considered it for themselves. “Doing both kitchens at the same time made it easier, and it was about the same price for both as some of the other bids for just the indoor kitchen,” Kathy says.

The design is a simple “L” shape with room enough to prepare and plate food. If the Klags do want to use the indoor kitchen simultaneously, the window has a ledge beneath it that allows food to be passed through. A compartmentalized sink keeps condiments and ice at hand.

Amazingly, the stucco on the kitchen’s base perfectly matches that of the house. “We wanted it to look like it had been there all along,” Bev says. Hand-painted tiles and mosaic glass tiles the color of the pool water accent the countertop.

So, while the kitchen looks good and the food tastes great, the Klags can simply relax, enjoy and toast with a second (or third) Bellini.

Sign up for a class
Regarding Kitchens hosts cooking classes on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays featuring Silverio. Classes are about two hours long, cost $40-$50 per person and vary in menu selection. Visit www.regardingkitchens.com for a schedule.



Click to the next page to see Silverio’s patio party recipes.