- No matter how hard you try to apply your male engineering logic regarding the concept of casual and simple, a gathering on a holiday means 'social event' to a female, and your initial idea of a minimal effort day goes out the window.
- Don't mess with a BBQ grill when it's loaded with cooking food for a hungry and waiting set of guests. This latter lesson played out like something out of a Seinfeld episode, with me in the hapless role of "George".
After working with the landlord to learn the ropes on lighting and operation of the rather large brick gas BBQ on the property, only to have him relate not having any recollection of it's being used for about 25 years, and a couple of slightly uncomfortable attempts to light it, we both agreed the right choice would be to just disconnect and cap the gas line, shutting it off from even before the BBQ, and use charcoal. That worked for me just fine, and after a thorough scrubbing of the horizontal grill, I piled up the briquettes, soaked them once or twice with some lighter fluid, returned the grill to it's resting place, and awaited the arrival of our guests. Once they arrived, I successfully ignited the flames, allowed the charcoal to read it's optimal heat, spread the coals and set about the task of cooking the burgers, hot dogs and sausages.
I'd positioned about 4 burgers, 4 hot dogs and a couple of sausages atop of the grill, when my efforts to adjust them, while talking w/my good friend who'd come w/his wife and two children, caused one of the hot dogs to fall from the grill and onto the coals. My friend wisely suggested i raise the grill to access it, and he'd run it inside, wash it off, and we'd return it to complete cooking... no guests being the wiser. A brilliant plan and one of the reasons he's on the payroll. The BBQ has a rectangular grill suspended with a chain on each side, and a circular crank used to raise and lower it. I raised it, grabbed the renegade wiener, and off it was whisked for a quick charcoalectomy.
Lowering the grill, I paused for a moment and attempted to moderately adjust it within it's 'seat' on the chain, with the intention of positioning it such that any further loss would be prevented, and in one glorious and slow motion moment, the entire grill dislodged from it's frame, and fell directly onto the coals below, the selection of cooking meats all going along for the ride. The impact caused a large plume of steam, made all the more apparent by my son's gleeful cry of 'STEAM' at the occurrence, and an audible increase in the sizzling only drew more attention to the snafu. Although it appeared to have not drawn any further attention, all but one burger stayed in position... yes everything was now directly atop of the coals, and I had to act fast or they'd incinerate in seconds.
About this time, my friend returned with the resurrected frankfurter in hand, and somehow managed to both groan and laugh at the same time as I was frantically removing the meats. He stepped in to help out, and between the two of us, each using one or more various bbq tools, we lifted the grill out of the embers only to have it drop again and again... realizing the limited options we had at that time, we determined the only course of action would be to rotate it 90 degrees, offset to avoid falling again, and complete the task of feeding the masses. The coals, due to the repeated crashing of the grill upon them, were turned to dust, so the remaining cooking took longer and longer, but fortunately i kept up with the guests and it all worked out in the long run. Only one guest had actually seen the fiasco play out, everybody else had a good time, and i learned not to mess with the grill. :-)