According to industry research, the majority (58 percent) of grill owners use them year-round (I'm one of them, and have been known to dust a foot or so of snow off the barbie in the middle of January), but summer is really when grilling gets smokin' hot. With Father's Day and the whole "let's grill a big juicy steak for dad and buy him a tie" cliché less than a week away, let's talk a bitmore about barbecue-friendly wines. (And be sure to check out our expert grilling tips here).
Wine and grill pairing basics and four recommended vinos after the jump.
Grilling over a wood fire presents many nuanced delights, provided you have the right tools and a high threshold for sweat and smoke.
Sriracha Chili Sauce is a flagship product of Huy Fong Foods, and one that chefs like Jean-Georges Vongerichten love for its sweet, garlicky heat.
Le Fooding, the group that set France on fire with picnics of finger foods and plastic-cupped drinks, is coming stateside to introduce New Yorkers to a new generation of French chefs.
Across the country, drink menus are showing some love for homemade ginger ale.
Food safety is becoming a mess. Almost every element of processed foods is a potential pathogen carrier, and the industry is shifting the worry to the consumer.
Scotland Yard isn't just the famous face of London law enforcement. It's also a tasty Scotch and Drambuie twist on the Rusty Nail.
Carrots in their natural state are pretty gorgeous, with their weird bumps and silly trailing roots and vibrant green fronds. So we love how Cathy at Not Eating Out in New York immortalized the homely beauty of these carrots, contrasting their striking colors with a bright blue plate. These carrots are the antidote to those bags of shiny, vaguely embarrassed looking nubs that go by the misnomer "baby carrots," making those look like Kraft singles alongside a wedge of Lincolnshire Poacher.
Cook Cathy marinated and grilled them, and paired them with pea shoots for what was undoubtedly an excellent and beta carotene-packed meal. We like to imagine them blended into a simple, silky carrot soup, grated into a vinegary cole slaw or just peeled and dunked whole into hummus.
Veggie burgers are a large part of my diet. Whether homemade or of the Morningstar/Amy's/Dr.Praeger's variety, I eat 'em plain, pile on sauteed veggies, or cut them up and throw them in a salad. They never get old.
As one would expect, I also tend to order them when I'm out to dinner (often, they're one of only a few vegetarian options available). Sometimes they're amazing - in fact, I find that, not surprisingly, tiny, out-of-the-way cafes and family-run kitchens have the best, crispiest, most satisfying veggie burgers. This includes a crispy outer shell, just the right amount of spices, a good protein-to-vegetable ratio, an egg or two to bind the mix together, and a non-mushy middle.
Lately, though, I've found an unsettling trend among larger restaurant veggie burgers: The outer layer is crisped to perfection, but the middles are completely underdone! (If you're furrowing your brow, think of it as ordering a steak weIl done and it showing up rare).
In the era of "green" mink coats and "green" toenail polish, it's no surprise that there's a ton of advice out there on how to grill green this summer. Here are some of the top hints from across the wide, wide Web.
AOL Food has a whole slew of green tips. Try using a chimney starter rather than lighter fluid to get your briquettes going - it puts off way less CO2.
The Green Daily suggests buying a hybrid grill, so you can use the more efficient electric or gas element for the main source of heat and burn just a bit of wood for that charred aroma.
Char your burgers with environmentally-friendly charcoal: Nature's Grilling all-natural charcoal has no added chemicals or fillers, just pure carbonized wood. Their briquettes, they say, burn hotter and longer with less ash and no acrid aftertaste. Plus, they're made from wood harvested from region's that meet strict "resource management practices" and the company claims to plant 1,000,000 trees a year to lower their carbon footprint. Cowboy Charcoal also promises all-natural charcoal with no petroleum taste.
The Sierra Club lists their favorite environmentally-friendly grills. Consider a solar grill, like the Sport Solar Oven. At just ten pounds, you can carry it on picnics, on your boat and to the beach. On a sunny day, it can reach temperatures up to 260 degrees in the United States, up to 300 degrees in equatorial regions.
Lastly, use a non-toxic cleaner, like SoyClean BBQ Grill Cleaner, a soy-based product which is biodegradable, easy on your hands, and doesn't emit caustic fumes. Orange Plus cleanser is phosphate free and biodegradable, but promises to get the touch greasy bits off the grill.
You can even buy completely biodegradable disposable plates made of sugar cane and cornstarch, from Simply Biodegradable. Throw it all away in their compostable eco garbage bags, and Al Gore will come paste a gold star on your forehead.
Grilling and the summer season go hand-in-hand. So it's only natural that, once Memorial Day arrives, you break out the grill and the coals and the burgers (or, if you're me, the latter is of the faux variety).
But what if you're not too keen on that lighter fluid/coal taste on your food, and you don't want to invest in a gas grill? No problem - get yourself a Baja BBQ Firepack from Mike and Maaike. It's a great eco alternative to your typical grills, (46,200 tons of lighter fluid are sold each year, and they emit 14,500 tons of VOCs, or Volatile Organic Compounds, which can deplete the ozone layer and are generally unhealthy for our lungs).
So, how does the Baja BBQ work? Simple: Light the chemical-free, 100% recycled and biodegradable paper pulp container that contains 2 pounds of charcoal. It burns down on its own and after 15-20 minutes, you'll have a pile of charcoal that will perfectly grill your meat, veggies, or dessert without any of the added chemicals or gross lighter fluid taste.
Really, how can you not? How can you not serve piping hot chili out of a football-shaped crock pot and sling burgers on a football-shaped grill at your Super Bowl party? If you're going to go so far as donning a $100 apron in your tea's colors, you may as well go all out!
The Pro Pots slow cooker has three settings, but don't get too excited about fancy features. One of the settings is "Off," and the other is "Keep warm." Still, with a 1½ quart capacity, it's a cute way to serve a hot dip, and for some reason, the Pro Pot is screaming "Velveeta!" At only $39.99, it's not a bad deal for something you can use from September through January.
For a grill-heavy menu for a crowd, well, the Charcoal Companion Football Grill is probably too small with a grilling surface of 170 square inches, However, if you're making teeny tiny burgers, I wouldn't suggest anything less!
Apartment-dwellers often miss out on one of the great things about summer: backyard barbecues. Unless you're lucky enough to have a large deck, your grilling options will be severely limited when compared to those who have attached yards with room to set up whatever type of fire pit or grill that the city's codes permit. Frequently, a community grill is the best and most reliable option for those who don't have room for a barbecue of their own. In the not too distant future, however, there might be an alternative that won't send the fire marshal into fits. The Bruce Barbecue is a concept design based on a flower box. It sits over a railing (very securely) and uses charcoal for fuel. The advantage to its position on the balcony rail is that any smoke generated will flow up and away from the building - not into your apartment. The grill, although narrow, can fit a few burgers or steaks and because of its small size, it cleans up easily.
They're not for sale yet, but if you're feeling handy, you might want to get a metal flower box and give the construction a go yourself. Just be sure to check with your apartment manager (and buy a fire extinguisher) before installing it to be on the safe side!
Even if you're a serious griller, you probably don't pack up your large, home barbecue when you want to travel somewhere. The massive size of the bbq and the inconvenience of such a move just isn't worth the hassle. Alternatives usually include using the grill that is built in to the park/picnic grounds or wherever you are going or using a small, portable grill that might be adequate for hot dogs, but not much else.
Grilling fans can rest easy now, however, because Hammacher Schlemmer just added a Full-Sized Travel Grill to their spring lineup. The fully portable grill folds up to the size of a roller suitcase that tucks easily into cars for transport but can be unfolded to a height of 34" when you're ready to grill. IT weighs 69-lbs. The propane grill has a patented regulator system that ensures an even flow of gas under all conditions for even cooking, and the tank holds enough for 1 1/2 hour of cooking. The grilling surface is 345" sq. and can fit up to 12 steaks at a time.
I'll be honest, I have no idea if this is actually something that they do regularly in Chicago, or if it is just the name for the style of cooking, but either way it is still one of my favorites. Whenever I go to a steakhouse I order mine Chicago-style, which essentially is cooked to order in the center, but charred on the outside.
Just thinking about this last night was enough to make me brush the snow off my barbecue. I added some spices to a rib-eye cut and tossed it on the grill, no recipe required. Since I like my steak rare to medium-rare, I simply cooked the steak on the maximum heat setting my barbecue has, and grilled each side for about 3-4 minutes. If you like your steak more well-done, cook on medium heat until it almost reaches your desired doneness, then crank the heat or even pan-fry at the end, just to sear the outside.
I'm sure there is a long, detailed story as to why this method of cooking is referred to as "Chicago-style", so if any of you out there know, feel free to enlighten me.
It's a stereotype that foreign diners in the US are bad tippers. Whether this is true or not varies from restaurant to restaurant, but it isn't difficult to see why waiters and waitresses might expect people who aren't used to tipping their servers 15-20% at the end of a meal to simply not do it. If a waiter gets stiffed on the tip, the only real recourse is to curse at bad luck before continuing on to the next table. But the manager of the restaurant Aquagrill in New York decided that something should be done about this perceived issue. He decided to add an automatic 18% gratuity to the bill when the diners were foreign, because "foreigners don't tip."
In this instance, the party that was taxed consisted of four diners who all reside in the US, ordered in English and conversed amongst themselves in French during their meal. Their "foreignness" was apparently identified because they all spoke French, so the tax was applied. Adding a tax to a bill without informing the diners in advance is illegal, at least in New York City, where the Department of Consumer Affairs allows a 15% gratuity to be added to parties of 8 or more, as long as notification is conspicuously printed on the menu. The group confronted the manager and eventually paid the bill, noting that they would not return to the restaurant.
The owner of the restaurant, Jennifer Marshall, has since refunded their bill in full and blamed the poor judgment of the manager for the gaff.
Do you have a specialty pan at home? It could be something as simple as a specialized bundtcakemold or a bit more unusual, such as an aebleskiverpan. These pans all have fairly limited uses, but if you use them often enough, it's worth the extra cabinet space to save time in the long run.
Some pans, however, might take the specialty concept a bit too far. The Jesus pan might be a good example, except you can still use it for many different kinds of food. This pepper griddle, on the other hand, is made from cast-iron and has eight pepper-shaped indentations that are "recessed to evenly blister the Jalapeno pepper halves." It can be used to make stuffed peppers, and little else.
Stuffed peppers are good, but do you really need a pan dedicated to making them? If so, they're only $15.95 each.
Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet, which is known for their grills and outdoor kitchens, has just introduced a new product that will have pizza lovers pining: an artisan pizza oven. The oven has a 30,000 BTU burner (gas or propane) to get the heat level just right, and a wood-chip drawer so you can add in some of the smoky flavor a wood-burning oven would naturally provide. Under the low, domed roof, the floor of the oven is a professional composite baking stone that will turn out perfect crusts on pizzas (and breads) every time it is used. Unlike smaller stones that are used for baking in regular ovens, according to the manufacturer, this one will not become brittle or crack even after repeated or extended use.
It is made of stainless steel with a double-wall insulated design, so one of the best features of the oven is not just that it will produce pizza that is much better than you could make with a standard kitchen oven, but that it is very safe, despite the high heat that it operates at.
The ovens will be available for purchase next month, with a price tag of $3,900 each. They certainly aren't cheap, but if you really love your pizza, it might just be worth it.
We're not putting our grills away just yet with football season now in full gear. However, if you happen to have a John Deere grill, you just might want to roll it back into the garage.
John Deere Gas Barbecue Grills with model numbers HR-BG6203 and HR-BG5202 have been recalled because "operating the grill in windy conditions can blow the flame under the control panel, causing the grill to overheat or cause flashbacks. Flames could damage the hose that supplies gas to the burner, causing an uncontrolled flame. Also, the grill's control knobs could overheat, resulting in burns to hands."
Check out your CSA approval sticker on the back of the grill for the model number. The full press release is here.
Grilling 
I'll be honest, I have no idea if this is actually something that they do regularly in Chicago, or if it is just the name for the style of cooking, but either way it is still one of my favorites. Whenever I go to a steakhouse I order mine Chicago-style, which essentially is cooked to order in the center, but charred on the outside. 
It's a stereotype that foreign diners in the US are bad tippers. Whether this is true or not varies from restaurant to restaurant, but it isn't difficult to see why waiters and waitresses might expect people who aren't used to tipping their servers 
Do you have a specialty pan at home? It could be something as simple as a specialized 
Kalamazoo Outdoor Gourmet, which is known for their grills and outdoor kitchens, has just introduced a new product that will have pizza lovers pining: 
We're not putting our grills away just yet with football season now in full gear. However, if you happen to have a John Deere grill, you just might want to roll it back into the garage. 
10 More Dirty Restaurant Tricks
5 Things You Didn't Know About Turducken
10 Catchiest Food Jingles We Love to Hate
