Trophy-grill regrets

The Baltimore Sun

It was a mistake to get rid of it, I know that now. But what's done is done. If I could turn back the hands of time, sure, maybe things would be different and ... OK, enough with the internal monologue.

Let me explain.

At some point on this Fourth of July afternoon, I'll go out the back door of my estate in Greater Cockeysville - on a clear day you can see all the way to the Jiffy Lube, and even to the famous Mark Downs Furniture warehouse - and fire up the gas grill.

The grill stands off to one side of the deck like a shiny silver altar.

Oh, this baby is a beauty.

Three-hundred-sixty square inches of primary cooking area. A sear-and-grill burner. A 12,000 BTU side burner. A little rack for your tongs and spatula and any other junk you need.

But even as this liquid-propane-fueled monster roars to life with 35,000 BTU's of awesome cooking power, it'll hit me: I miss my little Weber grill.

The rusty kettle grill that squatted on the deck like some kind of black mutant toad - oh, I miss it badly.

Why did we get rid of it? Who knows? Who knows why any of us make the bonehead moves we make in life?

In my case, I'd go to cookouts at friends' houses and marvel at how effortlessly they cooked with their fancy gas grills.

They didn't lug bags of dirty charcoal out of dusty tool sheds, or try to light books of damp matches. Their hands were clean.

They walked up to the grill and pushed a little button and - Voila! - blue flames danced joyfully under cast-iron cooking grids.

Then they slapped on great slabs of meat and went back to their Sam Adams Summer Ales and their conversations about the housing market boom as the food sizzled contentedly.

Never mind that the electronic ignition on every gas grill stops working about two days after you buy it.

I was seduced.

Who wouldn't be at the sight of all that gleaming stainless steel, the shiny temperature gauges, the Chernobyl-like power harnessed under that gunmetal-gray lid?

So two summers ago, I bought a gas grill.

Someone recommended one from Kenmore's Quantum Series. It sounded like I was buying a luxury car: a Kenmore Quantum.

We brought the new grill home, hooked up the LP tank without blowing everyone up, fired up a porterhouse steak as thick as a Baseball Encyclopedia.

I started missing my little Weber maybe five seconds later.

I missed its homely porcelain bowl and lid.

I missed the smell of charcoal in the air, that thick, intoxicating odor of burning mineral carbon, brown coal and paraffin that seeps deep into the food and makes FDA officials blanch.

I missed the great swirling clouds of smoke that emanated from the Weber, too.

You'd be grilling and look out on the deck and see so much smoke pouring from the lid, and for an instant your heart would seize and you'd be certain the entire house was on fire.

I even missed the color: black with heavy rust overtones.

Let's face it, black is a great color for a grill. It's basic, no-nonsense, a color that says: "We're not grilling any frou-frou food here, Jack."

Don't come around here looking for asparagus or tofu or any other la-dee-da items, OK?

We're firing up burgers and hot dogs, steaks and chicken, stuff that'll make your cholesterol level red-line somewhere around 420 before it's all over.

Oh, well. The little Weber's gone now. One day I threw it in the trunk of my car and drove it to the dump.

I backed up into the spot where the scowling, sunburned guy in the bib overalls told me to back up and threw the Weber over a ledge.

It landed on the concrete below with a loud crack! and broke into a few pieces, although the porcelain lid remained intact. You couldn't crack that lid with 10 sticks of dynamite, let alone a fall of 20 feet.

Life goes on.

Now I grill with my own fancy gas grill, from the Kenmore Quantum Series.

I don't bother with charcoal briquettes.

My hands are clean.

But my soul just isn't the same.

kevin.cowherd@baltsun.com

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