It's NO FUN if you can't experiment, am I right?

[addicted-to-smoke]

There are two kinds of people in this world. No, seriously, only TWO!

1) Those that can and must follow the recipe. These, in my experience, are usually fantastic cooks who can RELIABLY get the job done and impress a crowd small or large or extra large.

2) Those that have tried to follow the recipe, ruined it all to hell and back "because the recipe is plainly stupid" despite doing fairly well in English classes and general Reading Comprehension and figured they have pretty much nothing left to lose by more or less feeling their way. I blame it all (OK not all) on @1buckie . Actually I credit Ken for much critical and moral support during some formative months just a couple years ago. Statesman? It's an embarrassment to ever wonder why.

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>> chicken wings and some corn <<

I was jonsin' to heat up this weekend's acquisition, a freebie 18.5" OTS that had come with the cheapo gray Weber cover (#7450 in good shape), 2 half-full cans of lighter fluid and a Weber chimney that looked like it'd been used once.







After I'd freed the sweeps with a hammer and performed a brief cleanup this well-used 16 yr old was ready for action. Wait, forget I said that last part OK? I am NOT going to name this grill LOLITA.

Lighter fluid, sure, because I can't even find my Weber cubes for some reason. And My Performer's covered up tonight and I'm too whiny to move stuff around for this and it's LATE and I gotta get food on the table sometime tonight for "those meddling kids."

I soaked a full chimney of K-Blue and lit the side, through the chimney holes, and top of it. You're probably saying to yourself, "Why yes A-T-S, I quite frequently use a spare 26er to light coals for my 18er" and really, why wouldn't you?




At this juncture is was time to dip into one of the the horse feed bags and retrieve some dried apple wood.




I wanted to burn off the bark prior to putting it on the grill, while the coals finished starting.




After the "campfire" smell abated and it began to look like char I figured I was done, but no, when removing the wood from the chimney and setting aside I got a bunch of new white smoke. Oh well. Wait a while longer for that.




The wings (remember? we're cooking wings ...) were about to get a lot of heat. You've never used two baskets of coals in an 18? Good thing basic grill grates for an 18 are cheap, because I essentially obliterated any protective oil on them, as well as probably the nickel plating in the center.




Did I mention the wings were frozen? Straight from the freezer and splashed with two kinds of Weber seasoning, mesquite and sriracha.




You can't tell from this picture but AMAZING things are happing here.




When removing the lid I placed it in the 26 for safe keeping ... it sat there for a minute or so while tended to the chicken, turning and whatnot, and then went to replace the lid. I grasped the handle. BAD MOVE. Almost burned my hand and had to abort. I realize the heat was right under the handle but wow, I hate the plastic handles. Grabbed a mitt.

Turned them like twice, repositioned the ones cooking too fast, spooned a water/vinegar mixture over them a few times (can't find my spritzer!) and gave a light coat of Sweet Baby Ray's Wing Glaze/Sauce on them at the end yada yada and done. They went through full phases of sticking to the grate to feeling rubbery to feeling light/well done in less than an hour probably. Not a lot here but it's just me and the kids.




Foiled and brought in the wings ... now for the corn, ALSO frozen from a freakin' bag. Just enough for us 3 tonight. Used my Goodwill-sourced shaker without the lid, added a little white pepper, salt and Annatto (Achiote Molido). In the 10+ years we've had it I have no idea what Achiote does besides add "dry" red color and good karma but both are good enough for me.

Lid didn't fit with the shaker. Dang those flat tops.



I only let the corn go for a few minutes. I was concerned that a zillion degrees of direct heat (the smoke wood was now ash) would surely burn them in no time. Stirred a few times and removed.



After it was all plated (ha! no pic) I dove into the corn and LOL'd ... it was luke warn at best, cold! The Boy said, "It's OK ...." but I had to microwave mine for 20 secs.

And it was amazing corn, frozen or not, and only available from a kettle-fired grill (as usual.) And yeah, the chicken was pretty much on-point also.

[addicted-to-smoke]

Forgot to mention I'd flipped the charcoal grate because it was drooping from years of use apparently, so the cook grate was resting on the charcoal, and that while preheating the grill the handle began to smell ...

[jd]

that's good

[iCARRY]

This was entertaining.


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[Travis]

Love your write ups. Good stories. Thx.

[varekai]

That was a great story before bed. night all!

[Lumpy Coal]

Good story. 

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[MikeRocksTheRed]

Nice write up, find, and cook! 

So where do I fall into the two types of people list?  I can follow a recipe, but generally look at them for an overall idea then don't need to follow it, or I follow a recipe once step by step then don't need to follow it on future reproductions.  Does that make me a 1.5 or a 2.5 (trying to stick with your only two people theory by adding sub-people, LOL) on this list?  I'm thinking mabye a 2.5 since really in the end I'm not using recipies step by step very much and never measure anything when I cook.  This "I just know" method of cooking can tend to really piss off the 1's in your list that can't cook without a recipe and measuring everything.

[addicted-to-smoke]

You are a sub-species of #2 with some #1 bloodlines present. I've often used a recipe as a starting point and just riff off of it. Cookbooks are famous for sending you to the store for all sorts of stuff you'll never need again and then it sits in the cupboard forever. Cardamom? That tiny bottle cost me like $10, now I've gotta find more recipes that call for cardamom, and you can't just throw it in anything because of the taste. Dang.

One of the funniest was when in Weber's new Big Burgers book they have you make a "topping sauce" ... wasn't difficult and I had "most" everything. When done, I realized it was 1000 Island dressing. Motherfscker, I already had that in the fridge! They actually SELL that stuff in stores, already bottled!

One of the best cooks I know if a friend who must follow directions. Awesome results but I can't cook with her because she'll soon want to strangle me. But at least I'll never buy 1000 Island dressing again!

[stubblebum]

Nice story. Funny thing that made me laugh was the lighter fluid. I don't know what it says about the type of people that use lighter fluid, but every used kettle that I have ever picked up that included lighter fluid have one thing in common. They came with two partially full bottles of lighter fluid. I have probably picked up five grills with lighter fluid included. Always two partially full bottles, not one, or three, not a case, but two partial bottles.

[MikeRocksTheRed]

You are a sub-species of #2 with some #1 bloodlines present. I've often used a recipe as a starting point and just riff off of it. Cookbooks are famous for sending you to the store for all sorts of stuff you'll never need again and then it sits in the cupboard forever. Cardamom? That tiny bottle cost me like $10, now I've gotta find more recipes that call for cardamom, and you can't just throw it in anything because of the taste. Dang.

One of the funniest was when in Weber's new Big Burgers book they have you make a "topping sauce" ... wasn't difficult and I had "most" everything. When done, I realized it was 1000 Island dressing. Motherfscker, I already had that in the fridge! They actually SELL that stuff in stores, already bottled!

One of the best cooks I know if a friend who must follow directions. Awesome results but I can't cook with her because she'll soon want to strangle me. But at least I'll never buy 1000 Island dressing again!

Hilarious!!!  I totally agree on buying specialty things you'll never use again.  Google is your friend when it comes to that, as you can usually find something you already have on hand as a replacement.  Cracks me up that you made 1000 Island that you already had!   You are absolutely right about good cooks following recipies.  My ex gf could cook really well following recipies and would get pissed off watching me cook.  She never understood how I just knew what spices to use and how much.  Every once in a while she would have a recipe that didn't come out quite right and she would invite me into the kitchen to do my spice magic.  She never understood how I would grab 3-5 spices and fix stuff that she figured might just need a little more of one thing.

A good example of having to adapt recipies is cooking chinese food on the full blown replaces the cooking grate weber wok.  That thing is to big to cook one thing for a minute then remove those ingredients to cook something else, then add back later....I have to really think through those recipies and figure out what order to put things in so that everything cooks properly without having to "remove and reserve" things.  So far so good though.  It's also a good example of having to buy a bunch of crap that seldom gets used, like Oyster Sauce, seasame oil, fresh ginger, etc..  I will say though, building chinese dishes from scratch instead of from just a jar of "stir fry" sauce is kind of rewarding.  I've done Beef w/ Broccoli and Shrimp Lo Mein now and both were good.  The BwB tasted 100% like it came from a Chinese restaurant.  The Shrio Lo Mein was good, but not quite authentic.

[MikeRocksTheRed]

Nice story. Funny thing that made me laugh was the lighter fluid. I don't know what it says about the type of people that use lighter fluid, but every used kettle that I have ever picked up that included lighter fluid have one thing in common. They came with two partially full bottles of lighter fluid. I have probably picked up five grills with lighter fluid included. Always two partially full bottles, not one, or three, not a case, but two partial bottles.

So true.  I'm thinking its one of those things you haven't inventoried when you go to buy charcoal then can't remember if you have any or where in the hell it is so you just get another one.  I mean why wouldn't you...how are you going to get that new bag of coals going if you don't have lighter fluid!!!!  LOL

[stubblebum]

Nice story. Funny thing that made me laugh was the lighter fluid. I don't know what it says about the type of people that use lighter fluid, but every used kettle that I have ever picked up that included lighter fluid have one thing in common. They came with two partially full bottles of lighter fluid. I have probably picked up five grills with lighter fluid included. Always two partially full bottles, not one, or three, not a case, but two partial bottles.

So true.  I'm thinking its one of those things you haven't inventoried when you go to buy charcoal then can't remember if you have any or where in the hell it is so you just get another one.  I mean why wouldn't you...how are you going to get that new bag of coals going if you don't have lighter fluid!!!!  LOL

That explains why someone might have two bottles, but not why they would start that second bottle without finishing the first.

[MikeRocksTheRed]

Nice story. Funny thing that made me laugh was the lighter fluid. I don't know what it says about the type of people that use lighter fluid, but every used kettle that I have ever picked up that included lighter fluid have one thing in common. They came with two partially full bottles of lighter fluid. I have probably picked up five grills with lighter fluid included. Always two partially full bottles, not one, or three, not a case, but two partial bottles.

So true.  I'm thinking its one of those things you haven't inventoried when you go to buy charcoal then can't remember if you have any or where in the hell it is so you just get another one.  I mean why wouldn't you...how are you going to get that new bag of coals going if you don't have lighter fluid!!!!  LOL

That explains why someone might have two bottles, but not why they would start that second bottle without finishing the first.

Sure it does.  They don't think they have the intial bottle, so they get a new one.  Open it up along with the new charcoal, then when putting it away they discover they already had an opened bottle.

My mom uses the old electic coil starter most of the time but my Dad still uses lighter fluid.  It's a crap shoot trying to find where it ends up.  Sometimes it's in the pool shed, sometimes it ends up under the deck, other times it ends up on a random shelf in the garage or the mud room.  I've never haad to go on the lighter fluid hunt to grill at their house, but certainly have to get the fire pit going...a few times.  Probably never ends up in the same place becase once its outside for grilling its a crapshoot as to who grabs it and puts it somewhere after the grilling is done.  Another factor might be the person who ends up with two cans of fluid and multiple half full bags of the same charcoal might not no the shelf life of them and therefore just gets new ones each time they grill.  Who knows?!!!!!  LOL

[addicted-to-smoke]

I now have two stick lighters I can't find. Thankfully my Performer is a lot harder to misplace.