Official Start of 2006 BBQ Season

Yesterday we kicked off the 2006 BBQ season at our house. I drove over to the grocery store with our empty propane tank and paid my whopping $18.00 for a refill. Grabbed a pack of burgers, hot-dogs, BBQ, and onion rings, and then headed home to start my fire.

The old grill had been sitting since last fall and was rusted, and cold. I plugged in the tank turned on the valve. I could hear the gas rushing through the hose and into the charcoal chamber. Lit a piece a paper and tossed it in, and then waited.

Then like a cave-woman discovering fire for the first time, a smile came to my face as a big whoosh ignited the fumes and the burners below the coals lit. As life came back to the ancient gas grill, I couldn't help but feel that primal feeling you only get cooking over an open flame.

Now came the difficult part of finding the grill scraper/brush. I knew I had seen it a while back, but couldn't find it. Today I remembered it was in the car when I used it to scrape ice of the window last month. Oh well. I found a putty knife and got to work cleaning the cooking grate. Eventually you reach a point where you just say, "screw it, it'll burn off"

After I was convinced the grill was at a hot enough point that all the germs had been killed, and it was safe enough to burn my food on it, I proceeded adding my processed pork hot-dogs, and god knows what; preshaped hamburgers.

It's at this point I should mention I suck at grilling out. This is most definitely something that individuals of the more masculine persuasion are genetically inborn to be better at. Since Chance is the closest thing to testosterone in this household and he's only 3, we were going to have to settle for my burnt hamburgers.

I ended up doing alright though. I brought in my plate of searing animal meat and toasted some buns. Add some cheese, pickles, and piled exactly no more then two onion rings on each burger. Then I glopped a burger full of BBQ sauce onto each burger, and whala! Dinner was done.

Tsk, tsk. Is BBQing genetic? First of all, real BBQing happens over charcoal -- more even heat and better flavor. Second, you shouldn't be cleaning the grill before cooking, clean it after cooking. Another advantage of charcoal is that the grill will still be hot after you've finished dinner, so you can clean it quite easily when the grease easily wipes off. And finally, there is no BBQ season in NC. With evening temps never much below 40 all winter this year, BBQing is always an option.

This reminds me of that cartoon.... oh gosh the name escapes me... but it's got Hank the propane salesman as a Dad!!! Anyhow, Charcoal is WAY to difficult for me... We had one like that growing up and I can't count on one hand how many times dad pratically burned himself lighting it. What I really want is my own fire pit in the back yard. Now that would be cool.