Sometimes it takes just the right things to happen in perfect sequence, otherwise one would never: 1) meet the love of one's life, 2) get the job of a lifetime, or 3) fall in love with your gas grill.
I ticked off the other two long ago, but only just fell into #3. And I do mean fell.
The history: bought all-gas Viking pro range for my new kitchen. Ordered the configuration of six burners and an indoor grill. Hired an expert in high-end appliances for the install. Hated the gas grill from day one. It didn't splay the flame/heat, rather, some flame from the two burners that ran the length of the grill would come through and burn a stripe into whatever you had on the grill--meanwhile the rest would hardly brown. I occasionally grilled vegetables on it, but found it pretty useless for anything else. Making things worse, my husband insisted on dismantling it down to the burners to clean it after every use which blew the labor cost-benefit analysis all to hell. I looked into buying a kit to convert it from grill to griddle, but of course this is Viking so such a thing doesn't exist. Oh, and I did call the installer back out to make sure it was installed correctly. And when I had a good repairman out on another occasion, I told him my complaints and had him confirm that nothing more could be done to make it work better. Conclusion: none.
So what happened: in early December I apparently cooked on it, and so Bob dismantled it and cleaned it and this time, took the time he saw a different possibility for re-assembly. He reversed two pieces and had me check that out. It actually did seem to work a bit better on a slice of bread, but I was hardly excited. Then one night we had a local chef here, and he grilled pork on his makeshift wood-fired 'grill'. The pork was this fatty heritage pork he raises on his farm. Later that same night, one of his sous chefs decided to fire up my grill and cook off all the fatty trimmings. I warned him it was useless but undaunted he persisted--and it was magical. Flames everywhere. The pork cooked beautifully and got these lovely, flavorful charred tips.
Look at these flames on last night's dinner!
If Bob hadn't reversed those pieces, and if the chef hadn't cooked that fatty pork, I'd have never figured out that my grill could do that. I had given up on it so completely I'd have never tested it with anything so spectacular.
Add to the blessings that I can now buy local, organic, heritage pork. A grilled pork chop, shared, is like our new favorite food. I who would cook pork chops occasionally always marinated them pretty fully as most pork is pretty tasteless. But this local pork from Jack Mountain Meats, seasoned with naught but salt and flame? WOW.
