This weekend I have been relaxing and grilling on my back patio. I have stayed put mainly because my car needs new brake pads and rotars and I'm not willing to risk going out--and it's been a good thing. I've needed the rest.
My parents taught my brothers and I to cook, and "grill", at a young age. Granted, they ate plenty of battered pancakes, undercooked burgers, and a generous amount of mishaps on my part--but I did come out a decent cook on the other side, or I'd like to think so at least. Now, I can turn on a grill (electric), light a charcoal grill, and get a Traeger ready, but it wasn't until I lived with my oldest brother, Ryan, that I really learned and garnered a love for the grill. He would use the grill all the time. We had steak, burgers, salmon on cedar planks and salt blocks...we were LIVIN'.
When I moved to Denison (in my...mmm...third or fourth year...) I came back with an old charcoal grill that was at Big John's that our neighbor Darlene let me have. Let me tell you...I used this old, beat up, probably spent ten years in rain and snow, charcoal grill every day for at least the last three months of summer into fall and again when spring came into summer. It might sound dumb, but this charcoal grill and I had a bond. I could sit outside and watch it smoke until the coals were that perfect gray color, and then I would grill whatever cut of meat for however long my brother taught me to grill it and boy was I living the dream. Guaranteed, my mom got tired of hearing about my love for this grill over the phone. But the old charcoal grill took something I had very little of--patience. I couldn't just turn it on, wait ten minutes, and put the meat on like I could with my parents electric grill. I had to get the coals lit, let them smoke, and then after they rested I could put the meat on. This process reminded me, or even more sent me back in time, to when I was an altar girl swinging incense. In order for the incense to smell and smoke, and fill the church with the presence of the Holy Spirit, the coals have to be lit and burn together much like they do in a charcoal grill.
Today, unlike a lot of weekends, I am grilling. I still have a charcoal grill but have upgraded to the lovely Akorn Char Griller gifted to me (us) by my roommates parents. The Akorn is fancy, easy, has smoke handles and three different grilling platforms. My original charcoal grill was simple, one rack, three wheel rods--that constantly fell off when grilling, watch out baby! But boy did I love that grill. It taught me so much about grilling and about life. Just the same as the incense always did--I learned so much about being careful (not to burn down the sacristy), and how to get it just at that burning temperature that the whole church smelled and looked like the Holy Spirit had come down.
Anyways...eat them ribs.
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