It took me just short of forever to get the charcoal going tonight.  This humidity sucks. While I absolutely and totally and completely love the taste of food on a charcoal grill, I am really disliking little things like the dampness of the charcoal and the time it takes to get a fire going in this weather.  I went through half a newspaper with the charcoal chimney.  Bah.  Humbug.  I may have to rethink this come fall – or figure out a way to be able to go both gas and charcoal grilling…  Time to do some research, because I like to grill year-round.  This is not going to be an easy task when it’s snowing!

In the meantime, the fire eventually started and I eventually cooked up a couple of burgers.  Pretty yummy burgers.  First off, they weren’t the 1/2-3/4 pound burgers of yore.  They were respectable 5oz-ish burgers with minced garlic, onion, bell pepper and just a bit of bleu cheese mixed in.  Grilled to perfection, and them topped with mushrooms sauteed in a teaspoon of butter and finished with a splash of red wine.  I oven-roasted a sweet potato (I wasn’t about to wait for the grill!) and since the oven was already on, steamed the cauliflower in the oven at the same time.

Simple.  And good.

We’ve both been doing really well, so as a reward tonight – we went out and got ice cream cones!  We brought Cybil and got her a bowl of vanilla – she loves her ice cream, as well.  The little kids were screaming with delight and all came over to pet her.  She was a hit.  And so was my ice cream cone.  And I was a good boy – I got a single scoop instead of my traditional double.

I’m working on it…….