The beauty of the grill (#3)

Different people have different definitions of when the Spring actually begins. To me, the Spring season commences as soon as it's time to turn that clock forward one hour. Sure it sucks feeling like an hour of your life has been zapped away from you, but the benefits of the hour change mean one thing to me: there is still plenty of light when I get home from work.

For some reason this year the time change in Atlanta coincided with excellent weather. I can't tell you how good of a mood I was in last Monday afternoon. I was actually using the AC in my car and the sun was shining brightly as I drove home. I guess the point of the story isn't about Daylight Savings Time, it's more about how good I felt because of the weather and more sunlight. And if you know me well enough, there's always one thing I do when the weather is great and I am in a great mood: I light up my barbeque pit and grill some grub.

Before we go any further, I think we need to define barbeque. For me, "barbecuing" (sp) is the process of preparing meat (or chicken or fish) over a fire (coals or wood, depending on the taste you want). Barbeque is NOT preparing meat using gas. Look if that's your style, that's cool, I am trying not to hate. But if you want that real fire taste...charcoal or wood is the way to go.

*On a side note, I was once at a dinner party and the host had a propane grill. To make matters worse he was grilling (take a deep breath) vegetables (exhale slowly). I damn near died when I saw that. Actually, and I don't think I am making too much of this, a small part of me died when I saw that. I felt helpless. I wondered if he bought an expensive ass grill just to put fire to artichokes. I mean I don't want to sound mean, and he was a vegetarian so I can kinda forgive him, but still.*

I'll be the first to admit that I am not an expert when it comes to bbqing. I have learned many lessons from my bbq mentor (my father) but just like anything in life, the best way to learn is by doing, and messing up. The first issue I had in my younger days was creating a quality fire. I would spray some lighter fluid on the charcoal, watch it burn...then watch it die. I thought that was it for the fire. I quickly learned that a good fire is like a woman. It requires patience, caring, understanding, and a frisbee or paper plate to help it out a bit. The other issue I had was the actual cooking process. I either burned the meat or it came out too dry. I educated myself on the methods of direct and indirect grilling. Direct grilling meant a shorter grill time, but you had to eat the meat right then and there for it to be any good (most of the time was too dry). Indirect grilling meant more time but a better test. Also the thinner the cut the less direct heat it needs.

Wow, this has been a tough post to write. I feel like I am going in a million different directions with what I want to say. Basically everything comes down to this: very few things give me the peace of mind that bbqing does. When I am in my backyard bbqing, I feel like nothing else matters. I think about my past, present and future all at once. I sit in the warm sun, with a beer in my hand and all the worries in the world go away, at least for a couple hours. I think about home and all the people that I miss. I think about how much my dad loves to grill. I am pretty sure he lights up his pit at least once a week. He has his beer nearby and his guitar in his lap. I guess he passed on his love for the craft to me.

All in all I am glad that I have a place to grill. I don't know if I could ever live in a place that didn't give me access to a pit, or my pit rather. When I think about my future I see me and my cousins and uncles or me and my buddies enjoying a cold one , waiting for that first batch of fajitas to come off that grill. We'd have chicken, sausage, fajita, heat up some elote, some tortillas, quesadillas and just eat. Read that last sentence one more time. If you grew up with that kind of memory you are a lucky person.  When I grill I think about passing down that same memory to my children, younger cousins, nephews and nieces.