Tom's 10 Rules of Summer Barbecue Etiquette

Here they are...

1. Elect one grillmeister for the day. Do not mess with his grilling technique, even if he chars hamburgers beyond recognition.
2. Never put ketchup on a hot dog, unless your child under 14 years of age refuses to eat it any other way.
3. Beer coolers should be scrubbed with Brillo and bleach precisely once per barbecue season – at the beginning. There’s no need to clean them at any other time.
4. Grill tools are to be used for grilling only and should never leave the area immediately surrounding the grill, save for cleaning. There is nothing more frustrating than spending 20 minutes looking for something as silly as hot dog tongs.
5. The dog has legal rights to all burgers, chicken, hot dogs and steaks that fall on the ground or any such items that fall through the grill and can be safely retrieved. The cat gets any fish or lobster fragments.
6. There are three acceptable answers to the question, “How would you like your steak?” Those three answers are “Black as your soul,” “Medium” and “Still mooing.” Anyone that requests “lightly seared on the outside, but pink on the inside” will be banished to the Hamptons forever.
7. Acceptable barbecue games: horseshoes, beer ball, drinking croquet, Beirut, bocce, wiffle ball, Zoom/Schwartz, President-Asshole, speed quarters and flip cup. Unacceptable barbecue games: badminton, regular croquet, Pictionary, lawn darts, throwing the Frisbee around like a hippy, hacky sack, whale tails, zoomy zoom.
8. Insect protection should take the form of dozens of tiki torches filled with citronella oil and an electric bug zapper. Hosts are not required to stock “Skin So Soft,” Off! or any other bug repellant that doesn’t work.
9. Be mindful of the carefully-crafted beer consumption strategy. There’s the limited quantity of Kickoff Beer, which is usually premium stuff like Philosopher’s, Guinness, McSorley’s, Sierra Nevada, etc. Then there’s the crap beer – Bud, Coors Light, Pabst Blue Ribbon, etc. You are supposed to drink the Kickoff Beer until you get a buzz, then switch to the crap beer. You’re a chucklehead if you drink Kickoff Beer and never switch over. You’re a saint if you start out with crap beer and leave your Kickoff Beer for others.
10. The charcoal-propane fight has already been fought and propane is the victor. Charcoal is great for steaks, burgers and hot dogs, but do you want your salmon steak to have a smoky, mesquite flavor? I didn’t think so. Besides, I’d rather refill my propane tank once a month at the beer store than have to go to Wal-Mart for giant bags of charcoal every time I want to grill. Don’t bring up charcoal’s supposed superiority. Your arguments will fall on deaf ears.

I Think I Might Cry

Adriana La Cuervo: Worm Food

Missed the usual Sunday night HBO fare because I was down at the iMedia Summit. But when I got back, I caught the rerun of The Sopranos on Monday night.

Killing off Adriana was uncool enough, but luring her into the car by telling her Christopher had tried to kill himself and that Silvio was swinging by to pick her up? Man, that's just cold. And now she's apparently worm food in the Pine Barrens. I think I'm gonna cry. [Sniff...]

BTW, here's a prediction. I betcha Carmela takes Tony's $600K, builds the "spec house," dumps his ass and moves into it.

Ow!

I wasn't paying attention this morning and I stubbed my toe on the metal frame of my bed. Took the nail of my second toe clean off. I can only imagine what my downstairs neighbor must have heard... (*BONK* Ow! Ow! Ow! Oh, jeez... *CLUNK* Where the fuck are the Band-Aids?!?!?!)

That *CLUNK* sound was me, trying to hop to the bathroom on one foot, failing miserably and tripping over a pile of clothes on the floor. Falling all over myself, I got blood from my toe all over the rug. On top of this, the only Band-Aids left in the box in my medicine cabinet were those little itty-bitty ones that wusses use for papercuts and such.

There are some days where you just shouldn't get out of bed.

New Product Idea

So I came up with this cool idea over the weekend. Every time my sister and I go to Target, we notice these cool patio fire pits that they sell for under $100. We were thinking of getting one for our patio out in Wading River and lighting it up for parties and barbecues and such. Which got me thinking...

What if I bought a six foot circle of stainless steel and pounded it into a giant wok? I could stick it over the fire pit and invite a couple dozen people over for a shrimp stir fry. What if I also built a metal stand to keep the wok centered over the fire pit? Maybe with an adjustable height thingy to keep the wok the appropriate distance from the fire? We could be the Weber of Chinese food.

Sara hates the idea. Then again, she hates all my cool product ideas. Screw it - I'll get Dennis the Welder to make me a prototype out on Long Island. We'll test it out and maybe if it works, we could sell a kit in Target that comes with the giant wok, fire pit stand, and a booklet of giant wok recipes. When consumers aren't using the wok for cooking food, they could fill it with ice and use it to stick beer in.

Then there's the line extension - the giant seafood steamer. I've only got one big steamer left and it's 20 years old at least. I can't find them in any stores anymore and it's a giant pain in the ass when we want to have big clambakes and such. Maybe I could make a big seafood steamer that would fit on the wok stand. We can test them in coastal markets. It would rock.