It's the beginning of grilling season -- er, at least it is for us in southern California -- and with Slashfood's Steak Day coming up next week, it's a good time to start thinking about the grill that's hiding underneath moldy leaves and a dusty tarp on your patio. Maybe it's time for a new grill?

If it time to buy a new grill, the question that remains to be asked is whether you should go with gas or charcoal. Jon Bonne has written a good list of the pros and cons of both. As a summary, where one has a pro, it is a con for the other.

Gas grills can be used year-round, are easy to use, heat quickly, have temperature controls, and are relatively easy to clean. Charcoal grills, on the other hand, are difficult to use in say, winter, take a long time to heat and prepare the charcoal, rely only on the griller's experience and eye for temperature control, and are a bear to clean.

On the other hand, nothing beats the flavor that comes from charcoal, charcoal grills are much cheaper, and though they may lack temperature controls, they can heat to much higher temperatures than a gas grill.

In the end, it's up to you, so go get yourself a gas grill, you know, if you want to wimp out like that.

If you read Jeffrey Steingarten's It must have been something I ate, you'll not only know that the best way to make a pizza is in a very, very hot wood-burning (or coal-burning) oven, but that it is likely to be nearly impossible to find one to use, let alone one to use on a regular basis. Jeffrey spent months trying to achieve the perfect pizza, getting grills up to temperatures in excess of 650F - at which point he decided that, with the addition of wood chips and extra coals, he could make a reasonably good pizza.

Instead of going to all that trouble, you can use VillaWare's Grill-Top Pizza Stone. It was created to take advantage of the high heat a gas grill can generate to produce a great crust. The stone itself is set on a rack above the grates of the grill, because it gets better heat exposure there. Personally, I'm a fan of grilled pizza, but this sounds like a fantastic idea. Maybe your grill won't get up as high as Jeffrey's modified one, but this sounds (to put it mildly) significantly safer. I know Mother's Day isn't past us (in the US) yet, but I think I'm getting a good idea of a Father's Day gift already....