Lawrence of Rome was a third century martyr whose feast day falls on August 10. He lived during a time when Roman authorities persecuted Christians almost as much as Barack Obama does today.
Born in modern day Spain, Lawrence traveled to Rome with his teacher and future Pope Sixtus II (Yr. Wonkette's confirmation saint), who ordained him as a deacon and put him in charge of the treasury. Emperor Valerian needed funds for a war with Persia, so he ordered the execution of all Christian clergy and the seizure of their treasure. (In another commonality with Obama, Valerian ultimately suffered embarrassing defeat at the hands of the Persians.)
The Christians did their best to keep everything on the DL, but the cops busted Pope Sixtus II and some of his pals saying mass in a crypt and cut all their heads off on the spot.
Lawrence was in another town at the time with all the church's money, so he avoided decapitation. The local prefect summoned him and demanded that he bring along the treasures of the church. Here's where Lawrence began to earn his stripes as the patron saint of ball breakers. He had already distributed all the gold and jewels to the poor and dirty, who probably blew it all at the track, so he just brought all of those folks with him to the prefect and said, "People are treasure. Even these poor dirtbags. Isn't that a sweet sentiment?"
The prefect did not find the sentiment to be sweet, so he ordered that Lawrence be cooked to death on a gridiron, which is why St. Lawrence is typically depicted with a holy gridiron. When he had been cooking for a while, he solidified his patronage of comedians by saying, "Hey, I'm done on this side, you can flip me over now!"
Peaches are in season, so let's cook some on the grill for St. Lawrence, then soak them in amaretto for ourselves, and put ice cream on top of the whole thing. This recipe is for one peach, which will serve one or two people. Scale up accordingly.
St. Lawrence's Grilled Peaches
1 peach
Some melted butter
2 shots of amaretto
2 scoops of vanilla ice cream
1 small handful of sliced almonds
Honey, for drizzling
Get your grill going at medium heat.
Put one of the shots of amaretto into a cordial glass.
Toast the almonds in a dry frying pan.
It is optional for you to remove the skin of the peach. It gets a little bitter when you grill it. To make it easier to peel, cut an "X" into the bottom of the peach (i.e., "score" it), drop it a pot of boiling water for 1 minute, then directly into an ice bath. The skin should peel right off.
Cut the peach in half and remove the stone. Please note that all peaches are different, and the ease of peeling, halving, and removing the stone varies greatly from one peach to the next. Just do your best and remember the whole thing is going to be covered with ice cream.
Brush the peach with melted butter and place on the grill.
Cook for 4-5 minutes per side. Remove from the grill.
Pierce a few places on the flat sides of the peach halves with a fork. Pour about a half of a shot of amaretto on each half peach.
Place half of a peach on a dish, put a scoop of ice cream right where the pit used to be, sprinkle with the toasted almonds, and drizzle with honey.
And finally, marvel at the thought that a man who was cooked to death for being a smart ass would have one of the world's largest estuaries named after him over 1,000 years later.
Hopefully, 1700 years from now, all religions will be dead.
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