Girl Meets Grill

For our first wedding anniversary, Ed and I got a gas grill. Year round, we'd use that bad boy, mostly to make steaks or kebabs.

It had a design flaw that resulted in replacing the heating element. Twice. As a result, not that long after we moved to Florida, the grill was history.

Some sucker found it out at the curb and probably looked at the exterior and thought we were nuts for getting rid of a perfectly good grill. It was gone before the garbage men showed the next day. It was going to suck for that person to find that Sunbeam no longer existed and the crucial part to using that grill, the heating element, could not be replaced.

It's been on our list of 'wants' to replace our grill. This year, I told Ed we'd get a new one. However, we have champagne tastes and a beer budget. As is typical, Ed did a bunch of research, then we looked around. One of the places on the list to check was not as full of outdoor lifestyle products as we'd hoped. We were upfront with the salesperson that we were in the market for a grill. He gave us the name of a place, conveniently located right by Game Teen's school.

We walked in and were immediately taken with the SMELL in this place. They knew grilling and smoking foodstuffs. That much was clear. The couple who owned the place offered assistance and we were honest that we were in the market for a grill, but probably couldn't afford the lovely models they were selling.

I don't know if our appreciation for their wares was obvious, or if the guy was just an overly friendly sort, but he told us he was about to sell his demo of one of the grills, as he did every six months. He told us that if we were visiting on a weekend, we would already be loading one of these grills in the car, because the smell of the meats smoking on it would weaken us.

We already were smelling the remnants of those demonstrations when he opened the demo to show the features, and we were struck by the overwhelming sense of YUM that came out of that lid. Smoker and grill, this baby was wood pellet and had temperature control from 150 to 500. Visions of smoked meats and wood fired pizzas danced in my head.

The price-a bargain. A serious bargain. Factor in how long one bag of wood pellets cook compared to a tank of propane and it's in the realm of 'why not'. Ed asked my opinion and I said "I'll take THAT one." I even told the guy he needn't bother with cleaning the inside out like he'd offered.

So, this is what was going on at our house two hours later:
that's my dry rub on the chops: brown sugar, kosher salt, garlic and rosemary.

Yeah, I know, barbeque season is over where you are.

We're just getting started...

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