You can't go wrong with a Weber
30th May, 2007
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This must be what it's like when you go shopping for coffins. First they show you the budget models made from recycled fruit cases with the legend "Best Bowen Mangoes" still faintly legible on the lid. Then they shuffle you along to the mid-range models enhanced with a modest splash of chrome, quite acceptable but rather common, akin to the Commodore of coffins. Finally you would be shown a sarcophagus of such splendour as to guarantee that the arrival of the occupant in the next world would be greeted with "ooohs" and "aaahs" of celestial admiration.
Fortunately, we were not shopping for coffins. We were shopping for barbecues, my wife having finally tired of the battered heirloom that would regularly burst into flames as the grease-encrusted detritus of a thousand steaks and bangers combusted in a spectacular lightshow. We hadn't been on the showroom floor for more than a minute when the sales staff began stalking us. By now we had begun to fondle the merchandise, trailing fingers along barbecue grills and casting surreptitious glances at the price tags. "These are the budget-priced models," said the salesman, his tone indicating that a person would have to be in a particularly parlous financial state to even contemplate buying one. I thought of my family's first barbie, a collection of cement blocks with a grill beneath which you piled wood, which you then lit. Open fires in your back yard in 2007? Outrageous! Call the police! I am unsure as to what penalties such an antisocial act as lighting an old-style barbie would incur now but have no doubt that in our over-governed nanny society, it would involve several years' penal servitude. We moved away from the cheap end of barbie town and into middle-class territory. Lord, but they were large, all chrome-encrusted and with wok attachments and hoods beneath which you could roast a fatted calf. The macho male within me stirred. I had never owned a new barbie and these looked so big and blokey. For a moment I imagined myself standing before one, tongs in one hand, bottle of beer in the other as my guests gathered around and admired the perfectly cooked steaks sizzling on the grill. "...And then there are these," said the salesman, indicating a row of stainless steel creations sitting a respectable distance from the more bourgeois models, the overhead lights gleaming off their sleek flanks. Unfortunately, the lights also gleamed off their price tags. Seven grand seemed a bit steep for a barbie. For that money, I'd want a five-year supply of red wine thrown in, a quick calculation confirming that if the salesman would agree to this, I could come out in front on the deal. The suggestion was greeted with a stony silence and so we moved on to the Weber display. I had dealt with one of these previously, having been convinced by a friend that Weber cooking was akin to a religious experience. Roast beef, lamb, chicken, duck, fish - there was nothing that could not be cooked by a Weber and the flavours were seductive, he extolled. Like an idiot, I believed him and subsequently spent an hour standing in front of one trying to get charcoal to ignite. Two packets of firestarters and a significant quantity of methylated spirits later, I was rewarded with a lot of smoke, a few flickers of flame and nary enough heat to so much as warm a snag. The Weber was wheeled away and never used again.
"How do they work?" asked my wife.
We now own a large, black, gas-fired Weber and, in my defence, it was only a cheap bottle of red. |
