BBQ tips

There's an old joke much favored by us die-hard charcoal folks. A guy goes for his first parachute jump. He's heading down down down and struggling with this cord and that cord and he's starting to panic and he suddenly sees a guy coming the other way. He shouts over, hey bro, you know anything about parachutes?

Sorry man... you know anything about gas barbecues?

I had a Weber charcoal unit for twenty years. Here's the secret to its longevity; I never cleaned the damned thing.

Now I can hear the germ-a-phobic crowd shrieking "OH MY GAWD!!!" but lets think it through for a minute. It takes a good 45 minutes to get a bed of coals good and red. By that time every single microbe and bacterium has been baked into oblivion. Meanwhile, the residual flavors of a thousand bbqs are infusing your latest dining experience with their accumulated flavors.

It's a no-brainer.

The good thing about charcoal is that once you've fired things up you have some flexibility in terms of when dinner might happen, and on a typical summer evening that flexibility is welcome. If that first batch of coals dies down and is no longer fit for those inch-and-a-half thick rib-eyes, why, you just add another layer of charcoal.

Then you've got another 45 minutes of shoot-the-shit time before you have to pay attention.

Mind you there has been many an evening when we went through that cycle several times. All of a sudden it's midnight, and oops! You're out of charcoal!

That's when you order in a pizza.

Now in your charcoal world you've got your machine-processed charcoal "briquettes" on the one hand and your genuine "lump" charcoal on the other. I'm partial to the lump charcoal, but be warned; it doesn't afford nearly the amount of shoot-the-shit time. You gotta be on top of your game with that stuff.

I'm told the briquettes were an invention of Henry Ford. Had an abundance of charcoal left over as a by-product of the steel-making process back in the day when Ford made their own steel. Voila! The charcoal briquette! Kingsford is the brand that grew out of this discovery.

Or so I'm told.

On the other side of the great BBQ debate you've got your gas crowd. Ya, I can see the advantages. But, if you're looking for advantages, why not just cook in the gas oven in your kitchen?

Truth is, my original Weber was replaced not just by another Weber, but by a gas unit as well. Just for those times when ordering in a pizza at midnight isn't practical.

And just so you know, neither one has ever seen a scrub brush.