Our old gas grill died a horrible death earlier this year. Despite being stainless steel here and there, many of the surfaces weren’t, and their time to die had come. Using a friend’s theory of predictive grill lifespans (we’ll call him Grill Master J), the life span of a grill is one year for every Franklin thrown at the seller. In this case, that was about right — just about five years.

Now, Grill Master J is a huge proponent for the Big Green Egg (BGE), which is essentially a kiln in which to cook your food. Becky (known as Grill Mistress B from here on) has been listening to the BGE conversation with great interest as Grill Master J has been learning his craft on his BGE.

Well, today, the clouds parted, the heavens opened, and a BGE landed on our deck. OK, so we went to Smoke-N-Fire, and picked it up, but you get the idea.

After watching the DVD that came with it, we decided to forego the quick meal (hamburgers) and dive right into a pair of T-bones, rubbed with something Grill Mistress B found in a book. After getting the charcoal lit, getting the temperature right (650°F), we seared the sacrificial cow on two minutes a side, and then let it cook down to about 450°F for about four minutes, pulling off the most scrumptious steaks we’ve had in a very long time.

I got my hands dirty with the charcoal. I burned my hand on the meat thermometer (because I’m an idiot sometimes… for some reason, it didn’t strike me that a thermometer in a 450°F+ kiln might actually be hot!). So, we’re converts from gas to lump charcoal. We’re newbie eggheads. We’re sitting with smiles on our faces.

In my best Snoopy voice, I can only say….

CURSE YOU GRILL MASTER J !!!! 🙂