The Best Ever Salmon

I thought the other day about grilling a piece of fresh, wild caught salmon. That brought me back to the signature event in salmon cooking.
Years ago an old friend, then a part-time salmon fisher in Sitka, brought a big King Salmon with him from Alaska. In a styro cooler. A big-ass cooler. This was a beautiful fresh fish.
Sal and I were living at Rainbow Farm and the house and gardens had not yet been much renovated. The barbecue was a squarish construction of piled bricks on an old concrete pad left over from the DC generator from the ‘20s. It had a grill found somewhere for a cooking surface. It was fine for steaks and chickens, but way too small for the fish, so Bob and I enlarged it with more bricks, making it longer. We put the fish on a piece of heavy duty foil, fueled the fire with wood and some charcoal and cooked it, in the open sometimes, sometimes tented with foil.
After several beers and more or less continuous checking it was just done.
We struggled it off the grill and into the house, where many people feasted on the perfectly cooked flesh. Never was there a better fish.
I never grill a piece of salmon without thinking of that King. And the friends we shared it with. If there were ever “good old days” that was surely one of them.

Image: The guy doesn't look much like Bob, but the fish is the right size. http://fishwithjd.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Bodega-Bay-king-Salmon.jpg