Old Grill Gives New Hope

I’ve always had a love affair with magazines. When I was a boy, I wasn’t allowed to go to many movies or watch TV on a school night, so I leaned about pop culture through the twisted osmosis of Mad. As a teenager, I fawned over the road tests in Car and Driver and the rich photographs in the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated. Those movies, cars, women may have been out of reach, but I loved reading about them.

I’m decades older, but I have the same feelings now about Bon Appetit. The current issue is all about grilling, and I swear each page makes me hungry. And there’s this, from the section Oliver Strand’s entry on steaks:

“Sometimes flavor should be earned. Which is why I bake bread with a natural starter, make my own vinegar, and grill over wood that I fell with a Stihl 290, a chain saw known as the Farm Boss. But when it comes to steak, I keep it simple: I walk to the butcher around the corner, pick up some dry-aged steaks—preferably thick, bone-in New York strips marbled with fat, aged at least four weeks—and call it a day.”

If only I could bake with natural starter! Make my own vinegar! And grill over wood I cut myself! But life—kids, work, real estate, extended family, visiting relatives—keeps getting in the way. Still I hold out hope. At my father-in-law’s house, there’s an old grill that is waiting to be fixed up (that’s a picture of it, above). And his garage is half full of firewood from his property. Someday, baby, someday. For the full Bon Appetit story about grilling, click here. Or better yet, pick up a copy.