Sunday, August 23, 2015

BBQ on a T-Day


Right after witnessing Sky Writing and duly buying the advertised brand, to show my support for such stellar acrobatics (and to have ice cream), there appeared in my vista, in New Seasons, a slab of salmon on sale.  Ever since the neighbors sold their house and left, gifting me with two items, BBQ and lawn mower, I've wanted to try them both.

I've tried the mower, it works great, and today is T-day (try-day) for the BBQ, me having purchased a part of that slab at $8.99 a pound.  Carol and I sampled it last night using ordinary cookware, indoors.  Now I'm ready to fire up this Webber and find out what I'm able to do.

I've invited a guest for the occasion.  As I am not an accomplished BBQer in this chapter, or at least rusty from times gone by (our family used to live in Braai Country, Southern Africa), I'm leaving a wider margin of error and not subjecting too many guinea pigs to my culinary experiment.

The atmosphere has been much a topic these last few days, Metro Portland just getting a whiff of what truly is driving many crazy as these fires are so vast.  No relief in sight for the Bend area right now, where a lot of people have put a lot of nest eggs, in the form of expansive homes.

The Metolius Fire was another tragedy the locals still speak of.  That part of Oregon is a tinder box, relative to say Willamette Valley, a lowland under intensive cultivation.

So Portland is not getting huge sympathy and indeed its citizens are resigned to just toughing it out, as driving to clean air would mean going all the way to Nevada, and that's just not that practical.

Adding a plume from mesquite chips will not significantly impact PPM (parts per million).  We're doing our best to make efficient use of fresh fish, with skills-building exercise.  Like in scouting.  The dad is supposed to know how to grill in this culture.  I'm ready to give it a try, today is T-day.  I'll be the dad in this scene.

Of course I made some mistakes:  not enough charcoal and the fish slabs should have been in foil, though this way I at least got those stripes, like in the pictures, with the foil to follow.  Deke showed up and we did the chimney part again, using that special cylindrical device to get things going.

This time I turned the cylinder over on top of the lower grill instead of letting everything just sit on the bottom of the grill.  Live and learn.

The salmon turned out great.  Mom got some too, along with coleslaw and potato salad from Freddies.

We did a taste test comparing Dr. Pepper made with sugar, versus diet.

Summer fun.