Burning Man

It took almost until the end of July but last weekend I finally had myself a proper summer day. Thanks to a break in the humidity that wasn't filled with rain I was able to grill some burgers on the back deck for lunch, wash my truck for the first time in ages and spend some quality time in the back yard without it requiring an ice shower to get my body temperature back inside the normal range. These are the kinds of days which make me think (briefly) about moving to a warmer climate so I could do this all the time before I remember constant heat would make me more miserable than being able to sit outside in December would be able to make up for. I was beginning to fear I was never going to get one of these days this summer, not because of the weather but because my grill has been acting up. It started last fall when I tried to get one last night of grilling in but couldn't because the flame wouldn't get hot enough. It was a consistently low burn and the thermometer never got above 200 degrees. At the time I had chalked it up to the fact it was a very cold night but when the same thing happened a few weeks ago I finally came to grips with the fact that it was the grill. My first thought was that I was going to have to take the whole grill apart to clean it which I was willing to do but, given how many years of grease and ash have built up inside there, is something I would have rather avoided doing if I could. That was when I did some checking on the internet and discovered that low flame is a sign that the grill has an issue with its regulator and, thankfully, that is a much easier fix.

Basically, the regulator thinks there is a leak somewhere and restricts how much propane can go through. The solution is to turn off the gas, unscrew the tank from the grill and open up the burners for a minute. After letting it air out, close the taps, reattach the tank and turn the gas on slowly. Once it is all the way on as long as you don't smell gas (which would mean there really is a leak) everything should be back to normal. The first time I tried this it worked for a short while but not long enough for the ambitious meal I was trying to make. The good news is that hamburgers take a lot less time to grill and so far in the times I have used it since then the gas has stayed working long enough to get my burgers cooked. Now, since I have an obsessive personality it should come as no surprise that once I got my grill working and one successful barbecue under my belt I immediately wanted to have another one. That was why last night I went out and bought some more food to cook and was having a grand old time grilling it all out on the deck, enjoying weather which is much more in line with the summers I am used to. Even better, the grill was now humming along with all three burners producing healthy-sized flames that would never make you guess a couple weeks ago this grill would have taken two hours to cook a single hot dog. But unfortunately while my grill is back to acting like it did last summer, I am not quite back up to speed on my grilling skills.

You see, the best part about eating a burger off the grill instead of off a griddle is the flame-cooked taste. I have no data to back this up, but I think cooking over an open fire makes everything taste exponentially better, which is why I prefer Burger King to McDonald's. Meanwhile, the worst part about flames is that they are really fucking hot and really fucking unpredictable. But, the desire to cook over an open flame without our houses burning to the ground is exactly why someone in history invented the stove, so we could have a little more control over our fires. I mean, there is a reason advanced society has moved away from cooking with an open fire pit in the middle of the kitchens and that is because fire is going to do whatever it wants to. You would think cooking with propane would help regulate the fire a little bit, but even when you can control how big the flames can be there is no way to control how and when grease will drip off a cooking burger, onto a hot burner and produce a small fireball (which looks ever so dramatic and adds an element of danger to the meal). So I shouldn't have been too surprised when as I was nearly done (because this always happens near the end) and just putting the cheese on my burgers one of these flames jumped up and got my hand.

It's funny, but burning hair is one of those things which you forget how it smells until the second you smell it again. Fortunately I happen to be a tall lad and thus my hands weren't too close to the flame, but in the .003 seconds it took for my brain to react and pull my hand away it cost me most of the hair on the back of my knuckles and a small patch from the back of my hand. I ran my hand under some cold water for a few minutes and I don't appear any the worse for wear. (I'm sure every chef out there is scoffing at me for complaining about getting a little singed when they lost all the hair up to their elbows the first week of culinary school and never looked back.) I mean, it clearly couldn't have been too bad if my first concern was picking up the piece of cheese I had dropped and transferring it onto the burger before it completely melted through the grate. (Priorities, people. Priorities.) Plus, I am a hairy enough man that I could lose a few patches and still have more than enough to go around. Besides, I'm sure this exact thing is a new exotic hair removal treatment at an upscale spa. Still, I probably won't be organizing a big night of s'more making for the next couple of weeks because while I still think flame-cooked makes everything taste better, including a few burnt hairs definitely leaves a funky after taste.