Heaven in a Weber Grill
6 minutes
I’ve grilled in a snowstorm. Well, okay, it was actually a light falling snow, with big, slow-moving flakes, but I have grilled in the rain, holding an umbrella over the Weber. That’s how important this ritual is to me. Every Sunday. Out back. Just me and my burgers.
It’s been a while since I’ve read Homer’s Iliad, but, if memory serves, it prominently features scenes of roasting meats, and eating them. That only makes sense in a story full of gods. Grilling is sacred. It’s not easy to explain why, but I’ll give it a go, in a roundabout way.
I used to live in Annapolis, MD. It’s still my favorite place on earth, though I rarely have a chance to visit. When, in the 10th grade, my family moved to the D.C. area, I immediately perceived a difference in tone between the two regions. I could not have articulated it then, but I think I can now. It’s this: Annapolis has a healthy culture of leisure, and Potomac does not. In Naptown, free time is time to enjoy Annapolis. In DC-Suburbia, “free time” doesn’t exist anyway, and recreation time (which had better be structured!) has a function. Fun has to make you more healthy, or a better worker, or prepare you for your career. It’s the law; I think. Here there’s almost no culture of leisure as distinct from recreation. And all recreation is work-oriented. This is a point of religion, by the way. It’s something to feel guilty about.
I’m not a trained philosopher, but I’d define leisure as time and effort dedicated to cultivating and receiving the good things in life for their own sake, whereas recreation means engaging in non-work activities for the sake of refreshment. Obviously there’s overlap, but I don’t want to get bogged down with that. Maybe recreation is really a subset of leisure. In any event, Annapolitans (and Duluthians, and no doubt many other little pockets of ians throughout America) know how to leisure, while D.C. suburbians (generally) do not.
I realize that I’m painting with a very wide brush — a sort of Chestertonian grill brush — but I think it’s a fairly accurate stroke anyway. There are cultures whose values are so dominated by the idea of man-as-doer, that leisure, properly speaking, doesn’t exist. The activities of leisure, yes; but not the thing itself. But back to grilling.
I do not grill because it’s the most efficient way to get food on the table Sunday night. I’m not sure if the cost of meat and charcoal over time adds up to more than the cost of whatever else we’d be eating. I don’t know if it’s healthy, and I don’t care. For me grilling is an almost meditative activity. It’s a way of remembering that I am a man, and of being more human.
First, there’s the ritual of food preparation. I season the burgers on both sides, then set them in a covered dish, giving the seasonings time to work their way into the meat. The five-year-old notices, and performs his part of the ritual; getting me a hot dog to grill, because he doesn’t like burgers, brats, or basically anything. Then it’s time to prepare the cheese slices, and, when I’m feeling ambitious, to soak the bun bottoms in butter, so that the Wife can toast them on the griddle. If I haven’t done so already, I go down to clean the grill, and get the coals going. Then I return to collect the things I’ll need: tongs, a spatula, paper towels and vegetable oil so the burgers won’t stick, and a clean 9x13 pan with a cover. Of course I’ll also need a beer, or booze and a can of diet coke. Now it’s time to check on those coals!
When they’re white, I move them over to one side. The two-zone fire is the single best discovery I’ve made since I started grilling a few years ago. It lets me control the heat for each individual burger, which is especially useful, because I often shape the burgers myself from ground meat, and they’re bound to be a little uneven. I oil the grate, set it over the coals, and close the cover. With the air holes open, I can feel with my hand when the heat is at about 500°. I give The Wife the heads up that burgers are going on. That’s the cue to turn the griddle on, and set the table. I try to listen to a podcast, or maybe some music if I’m in the mood. Sometimes I just quietly think, or plot out a story. The five-year-old will come down to visit in the middle. He’ll ask to have a sip of my diet coke (sans booze,) and/or to be thrown up in the air and caught. I’ll remind myself that even though I’d like to be alone, that desire has to be moderated. I’m the sort of person who’d be happy on a desert island, if I had enough books...and that isn’t always a good thing.
The actual grilling makes me joyful. To think that I get to do something so grown up. To work in the mediums of fire and flesh, to take what is raw and unprocessed and to transform it into something useful and delicious. I don’t need a thermometer anymore. I watch the juices bubble up through the top, then turn each over when it’s ready. Some burgers take more time. Sometimes it's better to cook them 75% of the way, then let the warm zone finish them off slow. We live in a townhouse neighborhood, but I’m usually the only one grilling outside in late fall and winter. I honestly don’t know why these other people even own grills. I guess for them, it’s a summer novelty, like going to the pool. Maybe grilling in the cold violates some middle class norm of which I’m unaware. I sure hope so.
When it’s all done, I deputize the kids to carry upstairs the instruments of preparation. Then we sit down to eat. By now the table has been laid. The Wife has vegetables cut, and toasted burger rolls ready to go. There will be pickles on the table, and way too many sauces, because the five-year-old likes to “help.” We say grace, which, lately, has been a drawn-out affair, as the five-year-old has developed his own special blessing to be tacked-on to the regular blessing. His grace, which he wants us to repeat after him phrase-by-phrase, goes like this: “Dear Fawtha, you’re wanted for our food. Amen.”
I’m blessed with children who’ll give it to me straight when it comes to Sunday dinner. If it’s a little overcooked, they’ll tell me. If it’s heavenly — and, I’ll be honest, it usually is — they’ll let me know too. Everyone is happy. Everyone is together. Certainly this is re-creation-al; it helps us to recharge for the coming week, but it’s also a way of pursuing higher goods. Grilling allows me to take a sublime, primal experience and share it directly with other human beings. In that way it’s a bit like writing a story, and giving it to others to read. And, as with art-creation, there’s no way to cash out this experience in the antiseptic terms of labor and productivity. Writing a story is not about “producing stuff,” even though it is producing. Grilling is also not about “getting dinner on the table,” though it does that. And this is why I think of grilling as more a form of leisure than recreation.
Leisure is about the pursuit of more, and higher life. Recreation, like sleep, has to do with the maintenance of work. We need time off work in order to work better. But we need time off the work-rest-work-rest dynamic in order to direct ourselves to the things that life is about, whether or not those higher things have immediate utility. Whom would you find the more interesting dinner companion: the man who, through well-used leisure, has gained an intimate and expansive knowledge of the insect world, or the man who, for the sake of his job, knows which chemicals kill which ants? Or what is more likely to take you out of yourself, and forget time: a beautiful sunset seen from a mountain, or a glib, technical survey of the same? (If you answered B to either of these, please steer clear of my dinner table!)
I’ve become frustrated over the years at the inability of some VERY IMPORTANT PEOPLE with VERY IMPORTANT JOBS in my VERY IMPORTANT REGION to value truth, goodness, and beauty for their own sake. And by no means is this limited to secularists or materialists. There are plenty of religious utilitarians. I seem to live in an area that breeds pragmatism, reductionism, and workaholism. Chesterton, being very harsh about rich people, said somewhere that “in order to make all of that money, you have to be boring enough to want it.” Well, that’s not entirely true. I am always happy when I encounter the rare wealthy person who genuinely appreciates his or her wealth. If you can afford to tour Europe, and write memoirs, pursue the arts, and go sailing about the world on a lark, by all means do it! Believe me, most of us poor and middling people aren’t judging you. We’re just wondering why you won’t shut up and enjoy yourselves. That’s what we would do, after all.
I am happy here with my grill, and will not begrudge you your much larger backyard, or your troop of ponies. But please do not tell me that you are visiting Tuscany because it makes you a more efficient worker, or because there’s a conference there on fossil fuels, or that you are learning to garden because you want to help the environment, or that you’re scaling the heights of Machu Picchu because you want to raise awareness about Incas. Have the guts do something enjoyable because it is enjoyable, dammit! Stop trying to make it practical and VERY IMPORTANT. And, while you’re at it, let your kids outside just to wander, and not for the sake of some pragmatic end, real or imaginary.
Meanwhile, every Sunday, I’ll be here in my backyard, flipping burgers, tossing five-year-olds, and waiting patiently for my mansion in the sky.
© 2021 Joseph Breslin All Rights Reserved