Hot grills excite most men

April 17, 2005

Resslin' Around by Casey Ressler

One of the best parts of spring is that first real barbecue, when "the boys" can sit around the grill, throw large chunks of red meat on the hot grate and make up fishing lies for an hour or so, all for the sake of being men.

Last week, my family geared up for the first barbecue of the season by firing up the grill for the first time in a few weeks, as sort of a test run. First of all, though, I had to go get the grill out of the woods. Yes, the woods - the last windstorm turned the grill into a two-wheeled metal cart that hurdled across our yard and into the woods where, feet up, it came to rest. It was about 25 feet from where it normally sits, on our huge 1-foot by 1-foot square deck, which hopefully will be upgraded later this summer.

Once I got the tarp off it - real Alaskans use a tarp, duct tape and seven bungee cords instead of one of those fancy-schmancy prefitted grill covers - I realized my grill didn't survive the flight across the lawn as well as it could have. Its handle was busted off, and a large chunk of metal was missing from the lid. How metal "tears" I'll never know, but there are lots of things I'll never know, like if my refrigerator light goes out when I shut the door, so I don't really worry about them.

A few burgers were tossed on the grill, and they took about an hour to brown. While this helped get the beers in the refrigerator finished in a timely manner (I almost ended up coming to rest, feet up, in the woods after that hour), it didn't do a whole lot for the rumbling in my somewhat large belly. Turns out having a large hole in the front of your grill isn't the best way to regulate temperature and keep heat inside. I would have been better off zipping my truck up and down the road and then throwing those patties on the hood.

After spilling through leaves and snow and grime on its fatal flight, the grill probably was much dirtier than the hood of my truck as well.

Dinner that night was perfect - charred meat always is, despite the less-than-stellar effort to get it ont the plate - but it did leave me with a list of a few things I need to fix before having everyone over for the first big barbecue of the summer.

Casey Ressler (valleylife@

frontiersman.com) is the Valley Life editor. His favorite show is Boy Meets Grill on the Food Network.