Grilling

The sky was extremely fickle today, pouring on and off all day, and probably deserves the blame for fewer people coming out to the campground than we expected. But although the skies were dreary and grey for most of the day, the clouds parted just long enough for us to do some grilling!

Some of you haven't met Pop, so let me tell you that one of his passions is cooking meat. It doesn't matter whether it's grilling, broasting, baking, roasting, frying or smoking - Pop loves to do it. Twice in my life (two times) Pop has given me a masters level exposition on the different cuts of beef; contrasting their relative strengths and weaknesses, comparing their values, and even giving me some of his own personal secrets to selecting and special ordering the choicest pieces.

He loves preparing meat so much, in fact, that I'm towing a double axle 14 foot trailer, the sole purpose of which is to aid in the preparation of pork burgers! Most people would be content to throw the pork burgers in the three empty freezers our RVs have between them and then either use the grills provided by the campgrounds or bring along a portable weber. That's not the way Pop rolls. The phrase "packing light" is anathema to him.

Our chuck wagon has a deep freeze, a locking chest/cabinet (stocked with charcoal, lighter fluid, hickory logs, cooking utensils, and spices), two propane tanks, and an enormous grill all mounted on it. This grill has seen better days - it's literally coming apart at the seams. Every day on the road results in a few more spot welds popping free. Today, one of the lid's hinges came undone and I spent a good 10-20 minutes re-attaching it and then securing everything with zip ties so that it didn't fly off and decapitate someone when I hit the next bump.

About 11am we began the grilling process. First, we lit the coals. When those had burned down sufficiently, we placed some hickory logs on top of them to add some rich, smoky flavor. For most of the grilling process, we kept the huge propane burner under the grill on for added heat - the lid, as I mentioned, is coming apart, and doesn't hold heat very well.

The only thing that can improve a meat cooking experience for Pop is an audience! He was spicing and flipping burgers, checking on the logs, explaining the advantages of the chuck wagon, and speculating on the tastiness of the burgers. He was loving it!

I'm happy to report that the burgers were delicious.

I have some video that I've been trying for hours to edit, convert, and/or upload with little success. And unfortunately, I can't just go to Walmart and buy some cheap video editing software (Windows Movie Maker will not edit .mov files, which is unfortunately the format in which most cameras, including mine, shoot video) because my netbook doesn't have a cd/dvd drive (easy, Micah) ... But I haven't given up yet - I hope to post some videos soonish!

We're still in Caddo Mills, but we'll be heading to Leander (outside of Austin) tomorrow!