New Jersey has really been a not so nice place to live this summer. I’m sure this has been true of several eastern seaboard states, but I’m not there, so I can only guess. For the past two months in NJ, it’s been either 95+ degrees with 100% humidity, or it’s been pouring buckets. Both situations have kept me from using my (still) brand new grill that I got this year.
I’ve probably used it 5 times since May, down from last year when I used it an average of probably two or three times per week. Last year I had the ol’ Weber kettle. This year I have the Brinkman whose advertisement slogan is that this thing can cook or smoke up to 100lbs. of food! Both are charcoal grills.
I have a deep dark secret about why I use charcoal grills. My family and friends think I’m some kind of hardcore purist or something. A charcoal elitist maybe. I dunno. But the truth is that those gas tanks scare the bejeezus outta me. When I was a kid, my grandmother used to freak out if the kids got too close to the gas grill, so to keep us away she would lean on the possibility of the gas tank exploding to sufficiently scare us away. Well, it worked. I’m likely to use charcoal for the rest of my life, not that it’s free of danger itself.