I know this post is bit off the beaten path but it’s dear to my heart….
Just about every Sunday from Fathers Day till late September I head to my back yard and I BQ and Grill….
It’s bit of a pain form my wife because she has to prepare the stuff that I grill and BBQ and side things….
But the food lasts for most of the week and the reviews are pretty good…..
Back in the day I would go to the store and get briquets and little fuel to start my fire….
And I would just cook everything by open grilling…..
But I didn’t like the idea that I was using petroleum on my fire and then open day I read the side panel on the bracket bag and the part about some crazy stuff might be mixed in the compressed little square pieces coming out of the bag….
Hmmmmm????
So….
A few years ago I began using ‘lump wood’ pieces for my fire…..
Yea!…..
Then I started to watch some BBQ shows on TV and found out that BBQing and Grilling are TWO separate things!….
Hmmmm?
Well?
This old dog went out and brought a unit that had a cover that I could BBQ (Close cook) and Open to grill on….
Ok….
I was half way there….
Last year I move from the lighter brequets to stage brush to light my fires and added chucks of Hickory hardwood to blackened lump wood….
I’m a happy man these days….
Here’s a piece on how I have company in how I cook from the cooks that get paid to cook your food….
While there’s nothing novel about wood-burning grills in restaurants (Wolfgang Puck and Alice Waters have used them for decades), what is new is the zeal of the chefs using them, the variety of equipment now available, and the growing number of American home cooks who are forsaking gas and charcoal to master the ancient art of grilling over a wood fire in their backyards.
One such convert is Marco Birch, a Manhattan financier by day and ardent wood griller on weekends. “We discovered parrilla grilling during a bike trip to Argentina,” he recalled. “The sparks and flames grabbed our attention; the unique earthy smoke flavor of the meat sealed the deal.”
So Mr. Birch bought a 48-inch NorthFork Ironworks parrilla (an Argentinian-style wood-burning grill) from Brendan McCarthy, a grill builder and fly-fishing guide in Greenport, N.Y.
Mr. McCarthy had experienced his own wood-fire epiphany during an outing with the grill maestro Francis Mallmann, who has restaurants in South America, France and Miami. “Propane has no flavor, and charcoal isn’t much better,” Mr. McCarthy said. “The aroma and flavor of wood are in a league of their own.”
That flavor comes from the high, dry heat of a wood fire (1,000 degrees or more), which caramelizes the proteins in meats and the plant sugars in fruits and vegetables. But wood-grilled foods get even more of their distinctive flavor and edge from the fragrant smoke….
image…pinsdady.com