The grill was going to change my life. It was completely and totally going to change my cooking game. Everyone says it is so easy to cook on the grill. I asked for one for Christmas and had dreams of making perfect burgers and hot dogs. I imagined myself standing by the grill drinking a beer all nonchalantly flipping my burgers. I even flipped them about three feet in the air in my imagination and caught them perfectly on the spatula. I’d flip my hair and smile shyly. “What? Awe, stop! That was nothing!” to all the nonexistent imaginary fans watching me grill. Hey- it’s MY imagination!
I was going to be one of those people who doesn’t even have to use a meat thermometer. They just know when the burgers are done. come on, how do they do that??? It’s like a Spidey sense but for meat. Do they get a little tingling feeling inside them when the meat reaches the exact temperature. I’m always running around with my meat thermometer in my apron pocket. Kidding- I have never worn an apron, but I am surprised that didn’t make it in my fantasy. I probably should have tried the apron. That might have made all the difference. Who knows? Too late now. Anyway, I always had my meat thermometer handy but this grill, THIS GRILL, was going to change our lives.
I would take my dog for a walk and smell someone grilling. That’s going to be us, I’d say to the dog. She seemed excited. Remember that she always loves my cooking.
My brother and I put it together immediately. We even took pictures with the grill. Big smiles anticipating all the cooking successes this grill would bring. I got grill utensils in a cute little zip up pouch! With a handle. I’d hold it like a briefcase and swing it as I walked out the back door. “Just going to do some grillin,” I’d say to no one in particular. Probably just to the dogs. I had a grill cover too. I was going to take such good care of that grill. I was going to tuck that cute little grill in every night with that cover and tell him what a good grill he was. In the mornings, I would pull the cover off and sing, “Good Morning Glory,” from Brighton Beach Memoirs to him. We were going to be best friends. My grill and I.
My brother and I right after putting the grill together. Can’t you just see the hope in our eyes?
The first attempt was burgers. I aimed too high though. My friend RT has been trying to teach me to cook for 20 years. He was excited about the grill too. He gave me a great recipe where you put cheese inside the burgers. It sounded perfect. Almost perfect except that I did not realize to had to mold the burgers closed after you add the cheese. Without this important piece of information, half the burger was falling on the ground or in the grill and cheese was just melted all over the grates.
Ok, that was too tricky. We decided to try regular burgers but they were too thick, burned on the outside, raw on the inside. No one ate them. It was a little discouraging, but I was still optimistic. I’d tackle burgers again later.
RT tried a fool proof one and gave me a recipe for kebabs on the grill. I made the kebabs like he instructed me to. I loaded the skewers and put them on the grill. I patted myself on the back and even took a cute little picture of me with my grill. Then RT texts and asks for a pic of my kebabs. Already on the grill I text back proudly. One quick tip, he writes back, if using wooden skewers, put the food tightly next to each other on the skewer to keep it from burning…
What?!?! I run as fast as lightning to the grill and yank it open and yep…. Parts of the skewers are burned completely, and some have even fallen into the bottom of the grill. Other parts are still burning on the top of the grill. We will blame that for the disaster that night but if I am being entirely honest, the meat was also burned. I guess I had not developed the Spidey meat thermometer sense yet.
That wasn’t the last straw though. That wasn’t the final grill disaster that made me give up grilling and put all my hope in the air fryer. The real grill disaster was a doozy.
There was a grilled chicken recipe that was so easy and so good my friend said. My family would be so impressed. This one was going to be different. I made the little marinade with olive oil and spices and stuck my chicken in the fridge for a couple hours. I would keep checking on it and asking, “Are you ready to become a delicious meal?” I was trying to bond with the chicken.
I had the recipe written down, I was feeling confident, I was telling the chicken that he does not intimidate me. I was ready to cook the chicken. I walked outside swinging my cute little grill utensil bag, heated up the grill and I was ready. I might have even drunk a beer, feeling all smug and confident.
When the grill was hot, I opened the bag, pulled a piece of chicken out with tongs and plopped it on the grill. There was a little sizzle and a little fire but that’s what grills do I thought, so I just kept going with the rest of the chicken.
It didn’t take long until there was a lot of fire! A lot! Huge fire! Fire coming out of the bottom of the grill also! How does fire come out of the bottom of a grill? I was carefully trying to pull the grill out away from the house while it was on fire because I saw the siding slowly melting. I’d pull it towards me inch by inch while turning my face away from the flames and telling myself it was going to be ok. I was not really believing myself.
Later, when I retell this story, I have a friend who says.” everybody always says to pull the grill 8 feet from the house!”
“ Everybody? Who is everybody?” I reply. “I know everybody and I have never heard that!”
“Humph,’” was my reply. That is what my dog says to me when I say something he doesn’t want to hear. It’s a pretty good line so I’ve started using it. OK, back to the grill being on fire.
Of course this happened to be the night when my kid had five friends over. They all pop their heads out the back door while I’m pulling this grill away from the house and flames are shooting up and down. They ask if everything is OK. I put on my best smile and say, “yes yes, it’s supposed to be like this.”
So they go back inside while I keep opening the grill and begging the fire to go down. They popped their heads out again and my son says he thinks that he should probably get the fire extinguisher. I said no no, this is fine. It’s supposed to be like this.
A minute later he says he’s going to get the fire extinguisher, and I say OK, if it will make you feel better. It’s under the kitchen sink I tell him. Guess what? I have no idea why and I have no idea how this happened, but there is NO fire extinguisher under the sink. There is no fire extinguisher anywhere in the house! I know, how could I be such a terrible cook and not make sure the first thing I have is a fire extinguisher? I really thought there was one under the sink, but I have a feeling that was the house I lived in before.
My son’s friend Max sticks his head out of the door and asks if I want him to call his dad, who lives across the neighborhood, to bring a fire extinguisher. Once again, I say no no, everything’s fine. It’s supposed to be like that.
But a minute later, he sticks his head out, sees the flames (that are not listening to me when I beg them to quiet down) and says he’s going to call his parents and I do not object.
But then, I notice that the fire is going out a little bit. It’s getting better! It’s getting better! The fire listened!! It does not appear that I’m going to burn my house down and my kids, and all their friends also. What a relief!
I call Max‘s mom, Kellie Borelli and I ask where they are and she says they are on their way over with the fire extinguisher and am I ok? I tell Kellie about it and she says that has happened to her before. She said she actually called the fire department to come out and put out the fire in her grill! When they got there, they told her all she had to do was keep her grill closed. Sorry to throw you under the bus with your cooking failures, Kellie, but I need someone to make me look good at a moment like this. Misery loves company. We all had a good laugh and they ended up turning around because I really didn’t need the fire extinguisher after all. This time.
Later, I was recapping the story to RT (ready to blame him for me almost setting my house on fire) and he said, “you did shake the oil off the chicken really well before you put it on the grill, right?” I said “no! Why would I do that??? You didn’t tell me to do that??? How am I supposed to know that?” And he says “well, oil, and fire….”
He says he will be sure to give me more specific instructions from then on. I still blame him.
This is an actual picture of the actual chicken I was cooking on that day. After the fire died down, I thought I needed a picture to remember it by. Not for use in my blog because who would’ve ever thought I would started a blog about all my kitchen failures.
That really might’ve been the last time I used the grill. Poor little guy doesn’t even have his cover on anymore. It blew off and I didn’t even feel like putting it back on. The dogs have peed on it and my brother and I used it to drag yard waste across the yard. I’d like to say I’m not giving up on the grill and I’d like to say I’ll be back to the grill, but I probably won’t.
It’s still on my deck, though, rusted and sad with that first bottle of propane. I was thinking I’d go through a bottle a month with all the grilling I’d be doing. I was budgeting for that! A friend asked me the other day if my grill still even works? I don’t know, but that’s OK! The grill didn’t work out. I think I will buy an air fryer.
Yes! I can just picture now how successful I will be with an air fryer. I should’ve bought myself an apron for the air fryer. Couldn’t hurt. That’s another post.
I moved out of that rental house about a month ago. I was nervous that I was going to get charged for the melted siding and I couldn’t even imagine how much that was going to cost. It turns out they didn’t charge me for it. I don’t even know if they saw it! I sure hope my property manager never reads this. My brother says it’s fine and just looks like weather damage but to me it completely looks like melted siding. Yes, I got lucky on one thing, I guess.
Cooking Failures 