grilling lessons

Fire that’s closest kept burns most of all. – Wm Shakespeare, 
The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Act I. Scene II.

William Shakespeare may have said a secret love is the hottest (most passionate) love of all.   I love sleeping.  I love walking the dogs.   I love that the weekend is around the corner.  On an early Friday, intimacy is awesome, probably, no, definitely, edging out my love of barbecue from the night before.  As a dog-owner,  there is rarely an opportunity for some solitary time unless I plan a distraction like a bone or biscuit.  But in the middle of the night,  I heard a  “fistling” noise from the other room.  Comet had found the wrapper for the roast I barbecued last night, and was ‘quietly’ slurping it clean.  And now that I was awake….

Flames of passion are fortunately less scorching than my barbecue grill is often given to do.   “Low” heat is not necessarily any ‘lower’ than the “High” setting unless I play with it.   Yesterday I got home early enough to walk the critters, wash and put away the dishes, enjoy a cold adult beverage, and start the barbecue grill.  I even took the time to water my backyard plants and fruit trees.   My roast was happily grilling away and I turned it to the “low” side of the grill to get evenly cooked.  (It was the wrapper that I had left next to the grill that Comet was enjoying in the wee hours this morning.)

I turned to continue watering.  A little time later – I was conscious behind me of flames curling from under the closed lid and shooting out the chimney.  Low?  Dang it!  Meat drippings are once again flame-broiling my dinner!   Now my response is NOT going to get me interviewed on the FOOD NETWORK, or have Guy Fieri or Hell’s Kitchen dude visiting my back patio.  But it is still pretty man-skills awesome anyway.   I extinguished the flames, with careful application of  hose spray,  avoiding the meat entirely!   I continued cooking the remaining fifteen minutes unperturbed.  Dexter and Comet were  monitoring all further grill activity volunteering to sample anything I cut off.

Twenty minutes later as my spouse arrived home,  the roast was carved, cooked still a tad medium-rare and not charred. The boys (D & C) got some of the sliced meat as a bribe for silence and drippings on their dry food.   In all the passion of secret fires, my wife and I dined “Brazilian” style: meat unadulterated with any side dish.  And there was no need to mention my burnt offerings approach to barbecue.

I really need to scrub that grill before I do another episode.

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