Cooking Out

OK, it went alright. The grill does work. Sigh of relief. The electric igniter might need some adjustment; I'll check on that. It is possible that it was just the initial start up, "burning the dust out of the pipes," so to speak. There are three sets of burners in the grill itself and another on the side cooker, and when I tried to light it last night, the center one wouldn't light without the aid of a lighter. One of the adjacent burners did, so it could be that it was just the "first time jitters." I'll see how it does when we do the steaks tonight.

The burgers were good. I tried a new recipe from a friend who works in an upscale restaurant here, and the flavor was excellent, but the patties were a little mooshy. She always gives me recipes in one of two ways ... they are either restaurant size and I have to scale it down, or like last night, in terms of "about this much (fingers held 1/4 inch apart) of so-and-so, and maybe yay much of that." Not exactly science, but the way that really good cooks/chefs like herself cook. Clearly "about this much" of the liquid ingredient was too much. Part of one patty broke off, falling onto the heat-plate below the grill. No matter ... when I was finished cooking the patties, I moved the grill plate and fished it out. It was cooked, so it went onto the plate with the others.

And then ..........

I turned with a plate of burger patties and toasted French bread to go into the house, and ... I have no idea what really happened here ... somehow I guess I tipped the plate and everything, yes, everything slid right off onto the deck! I howled my, uh, displeasure, and Gail ran out the door, and her response was perfect ... "Five second rule!!!" I was already beginning to pick up what I could, and she helped. Then we let China Doll go out and clean up the rest!! Can we say "happy puppy"?

We put provolone and Muenster slices on the French bread slices and added lettuce, tomatoes and condiments as desired. It was very good! But we had to pull out occasional sunflower seed shell, compliments of the birds who feast at my feeders every day! It was, well, interesting, anyway! So the report card .....

Correct assembly of grill - A (pending ignition follow-up)

Preparation and cooking of burgers - A

Food handling - D-

Comedy routine opening act - A+

Tonight is steak night. I'll let Gail carry them into the house.




While I was cooking, I looked to the North and noticed how mystic the Carrizo and Vera Cruz Mountains looked. It was hazy after a day with quite a lot of rain, almost an inch here at my place. I was in town when pitchforks and puppy dog tails flew out of the sky!









This is a mountain in back of my house, roughly NNW. Not so "mystic," but certainly a pretty shot.













The Capitans to the East were also not "mystic, but in the last vestiges of twilight and being teased with some clouds, very pretty, as well.













Another shot of those shadowy ones to the North .....




A while later, after our bird-seed dinner, we were both reading and Gail looked out the window and said, "Ohhhhuuuuuu." Yeah, I got the camera again to capture the moon flirting with us from behind come very dark clouds.


I promised a disclaimer if I post pix I've "enhanced," and this is it ... the is some light adjustment on these. What we saw was beautiful, but in the camera, there was not enough distinction to produce a really good picture. The night was very dark, giving me insufficient light to show the moon, so I have changed some settings to bring it closer to what we saw.







The moon kept slipping in and out of the clouds with a beautiful, slightly eerie effect.














This one has a bit more of the moon showing, making it more "printable."












Another of the better ones.


















And this one is nice if you click to enlarge it. A nice mix of the dark clouds and sky with highlights by the moon.


A good evening, all considered. Yep .......

Life is beautiful!!!