Friday, April 25, 2008

Grillin'


For many years we had charcoal grills. Every so often we'd cook outside, eat at the picnic table, and just have an "escape the house routine" type meal. I always wound up being the chef (using that term very loosely), but I've never really been into creative cooking. I could manage a reasonable steak, some BBQ chicken, burgers and dogs and the like, but gourmet it wasn't. I was always happy to settle for edible, and the closest I ever got to shish-kabob was roasting a hotdog on a stick over a camp fire. We gave the last charcoal grill away about July '87 and other than a few wiener roasts, and propane stove cooking on a camping trip, our home cooking has been in the kitchen.

Then about a month ago we bought a small outdoor grill made by Char-Broil. One of those $99 dollar items, but manufactured in the state of Georgia. No sense in spending a lot unless we decide we really want to do this sort of thing on a regular basis. After I assembled it and tried to fire it up, I found I couldn't get a spark from the igniter. I called the manufacturer. I got a three or four number menu, selected the appropriate number expecting a secondary list - but immediately reached a live person. It took me a second to orient to the idea I'd reached a live person that easily. Of course that's one of the differences between a for-profit business and a government bureaucracy. I talked to a very nice lady that was American, residing in America, spoke very distinctly and pleasantly, apologized for the problem, and they shipped a new part to me free of charge. If I ever upgrade to a larger grill it will be that brand just because of that.

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