As I write this, it is Memorial Day, which ought to be more solemn, though perhaps our deceased veterans would appreciate that it has turned into a celebration of the sort they themselves would have liked.
It is, simultaneously, National Cookout Day. We are not vegetarians, though Natalie has tried that a few times. I am gustatorily neutral, but she is devoted to cooking and has a strong addiction to cow. Apparently, my gender dictates that I shall be the grillmaster, without qualifications save that I know about propane gas. We had a tiny gas grill when we lived in Athens, and it was there that our friend Cathy revealed that outdoor cooking need not be restricted to mild weather.
I don’t recall why we thought we felt obliged to buy a large grill when we moved to Lancaster, but we’ve gone through two of them since we moved here. One of them had a chicken rotisserie kit, so we tried roasting a chicken. Took about four hours, at which point we were ready to devour the unfortunate creature raw and decided to permanently outsource the task to Kroger.
When this last huge grill destroyed its third stainless steel burner, we decided to revert to a small table-top device as we had in Athens. It is currently perched atop the old grill, which I shall someday break up for scrap, and Natalie claims the little one, currently fueled by a propane tank filched from a Bernz-o-Matic torch, works fine.
I suppose I should have treated our noble procession of grills better, but I don’t really know how. My procedure is to 1. turn on the gas to its highest setting, 2. light the thing while crouching to avoid shrapnel from the inevitable explosion, and 3. consign the portion of innocent animal to the fire. And as the flames climb high into the night to light the sacrificial rite we set the kitchen timer to five minutes, which is sufficient to cremate anything offered by Giant Eagle.
That fire gets pretty impressive when the beef tallow ignites, and I wonder how our vegetarian (and diplomatic) neighbors regard our occasional funeral pyre. We’ve managed thus far to avoid melting anything on our messy back porch, but we maintain strict vigilance over the many incendiaries thereupon. I suppose I ought to store the starting fluid somewhere else.
Thanks to Natalie’s talent, common sense, and the biggest heart in history, we eat well around here. I imagine she’ll attempt another try at vegetarianism, but she’s amazing at that as well. I still do not know why she tolerates me.
Mark Kinsler, kinsler33@gmail.com, lives with Natalie and her cat in our crowded little house in Lancaster. Apologies to Don McLean.
This article originally appeared on Lancaster Eagle-Gazette: Confessions of a grillmaster who cannot cook
Reporting by Mark Kinsler, Special to the Eagle-Gazette / Lancaster Eagle-Gazette
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