My Grillrection

CHIP OF WISDOM:

Proverbs 18, Verse 20

"Ability to give wise advice satisfies like a good meal!"

---

CHIPPED WISDOM:

On my commute home from work, NPR is typically what prevents me from killing at least seven people.  Many would say that's a pretty compelling reason to donate during their fund drives, but I don't.  I did just donate $100 to the psych hospital I work for, but that's because I do development, and haven't netted us a single cent yet, so I figured I should be putting some money in the old coffers.  

Guilt, paranoia, and fear are amazing elixirs, and that's spoken from one who drinks of each.  Heavily.

Today, on my drive home, I was listening to that Terry Gross show and she had on two delightful pedants from "America's Test Kitchen".  They were delightfully droll, answering culinary questions culled from "Fresh Air's" production staff.  

What's the safe amount of time to keep potato salad outside at a picnic.

Two hours!  Except in extreme heat!  And it's really the POTATOES that are the problem, the mayonnaise is just the vehicle for the bacteria-- the carrier, if you will!  WHO KNEW?!!!!

Got too much zucchini from your hipster CSA?  

WELL.

Did you know a cold zucchini salad, using just olive oil, herbs and Parmesan is the PERFECT way to get rid of two pounds of zucchini as long as you're ready to serve it to a party of six as a first course and you're able to slice it very thin with a mandoline that you can get from ANY HOME GOODS STORE!!!!

POOF!  There's the solution to your zucchini problem!

My.  Word.

My attention was piqued, I must say, when the subject came to grilling hamburgers.  There was a very in-depth discussion of thickness, and how one should make a divot in the top of a burger, because it expands when cooked and if you don't make a divot then the burger becomes quite round and NEAR IMPOSSIBLE to put toppings on top of or put on a bun

#areyoufuckingkiddingmealreadywiththisshit?

and to be perfectly honest I sort of tuned out at that point even though, as I just said, my interest was piqued, but it really wasn't my interest, per say, it was more my jealousy factor.  

My ineptitude factor.

My dunce factor.

IDIOT.

See, I don't grill.  

Grille?

Get outta my grill, MOKAY?!

I would, I think, maybe enjoy grilling.  But I don't.  I don't do it.

Why?

I don't know how.

Maybe it's not a Jewish thing.  I don't know.  When you imagine cookouts, or at least, when I do, there's a good looking guy (Jews, by the way, aren't good looking-- at least the guys aren't-- sorry, Etan), at the grill in a KISS ME, I'M GOYISH apron and maybe he's got a highball in one hand or the latest edition of Whale Shorts Quarterly in the other and in the other (yeah, he's got three fucking hands-- so what?) he's got the sterling silver spatula engraved with his ancestors' escutcheon and he's flipping the most delectable, divot-embossed burgers you've ever seen, lovingly coated in Worscheschestichercheshire sauce or Bearnaise or Hollandaise or HappyDays sauce and his ex-field hockey star princess trophy wife with the impossible curvatures and the Jackie O sunglasses is bending over to inspect the Kentucky Bluegrass and, well, you get the idea.

My uncle grilled when we were kids but he never showed me the ropes.  And the chicken was always dry anyway.  

Maybe I just wasn't interested as an eight year old.  That's probably it.  I was into three piece suits and bagpipes-- what the hell did I want to know from burning the shit out of meat on some contraption that looked like a crematorium?

Well, now, of course, I wish someone had shown me the ropes.  Because, when I see people grilling, I feel incompetent, inept, impotent.  I have no grill potency.  

Where is my grillrection?

My wife, a couple years ago, bought some dumb tiny charcoal grill for eight bucks or something-- it looks like a huge bowling bowl on tiny stilts-- you've seen the type.  It's what Christian kids use to play grillmeister when they're four.  Anyway, I was terrified of this thing, because I don't know what to do. Nobody taught me.  There was no handsome non-Jew to give me advice.  To take me under his slightly powerful arm, hold me close and say, 

"Now, see here, son-- these, these are the tongs.  Can you say 'to-n-gs'?"

"Thhhuhnges."

"Good!" he'd beam, the stem of his pipe jutting out from betwixt his gleaming, jail bar-straight teeth, "and this, this is roast pork.  Can you say 'roast pork'?"

"Challah!"

"Good!"

But, no.  It was not that way.  Not for me.  For me, there is only mystery, and anxiety.  A bad marriage.

I mean...

Charcoal?  Bricks.  They look like dog turds.  What do you do with them?  I know, the bag has instructions.  I can't read.  

Do you pour gasoline on it?  

Do you spray it with hairspray and light it?

How long does it burn?  Is it safe to do on the porch?  Are there laws governing what you can do with these things?  How long does meat cook for?  Bacteria.  Salmonella.  E-coli.  Lysterium.  Listerine.  I've Got a Little List.

I'm scared.

Hold me.

I don't want to be scared of food and food preparation mechanisms that seem backward and counter-intuitive, but I am.  Like I'm scared of, you know, everything-- from getting fired to getting Typhus to getting a bill I can't pay to getting insulted or assaulted or attacked or loved or denied or spit on or shit on or eating raw or undercooked food that may increase your chances of turning into a learning disabled tuna.  

If "American's Test Kitchen" has an on-staff fucking psychiatrist, I want a turn.  When's my turn?

Tag.  I'm it.