A Man and His BBQ

With the onset of winter on the Canadian Prairies, I often find myself sitting at my dining room table, ogling my snow covered BBQ. Not that I would have much choice as the BBQ sits directly in front of the dining room window. I have to stand up to see over it. Nonetheless, I find myself feeling kind of sorry for the old fellow, sitting there all by himself, nothing to do, waiting for Miss Spring to once again break the bonds of Old Man Winter, bringing back the birds that so lovingly sit on the lid and, on occasion, leave a deposit, and waiting, of course, for the warm sunshine to melt the cold blanket of crystallized water. And my BBQ, of course, waits for me.

I have often wondered why men can be so inept in the kitchen but, yet, insist on being the Chief BBQer Guy. Truth be told, most men have no clue there is a difference between baking soda and baking powder. We have figured out, though, that baking soda is not something to drink, and that, my friend, is flagrant mis-advertising. Baking Soda is not some kind of wonder drink that gives you magical powers to suddenly cook like the “wham bam” guy, Emeril. We men also don’t know the difference between chiffon and a camisole. Men do know what flambé is because it involves fire.

That brings me back to the BBQ. I think the reason most men love to BBQ is because it involves fire. We go out on the patio where we keep a tank of highly explosive gas and set the gas on fire. Most of the time it is controlled, but sometimes we “forget” to open the lid when turning on the gas and a cool little explosion is the result. If we did this every time, though, our loving wives would get suspicious and probably sell the BBQ on eBay. Plus, our eyebrows may eventually go the way of the hair on our head and stop growing back. But, again, I digress.

The real reason we men like to BBQ is it takes us back to our roots. In the old days, and I’m talking really old here, men used to have to hunt for their food. They would leave the home cave first thing in the morning, go to the office cave and make hieroglyphs all day, stop by the dinosaur mall on the way home and club something for supper, then take it home and roast it o’er an open fire (that reminds me of a song – “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer”). In the modern era, not much has changed except that our wives email us the shopping list instead of sending it by messenger pterodactyl.

When we step up to the BBQ, it is like we become alive. We are heroes! We have attacked and killed a mighty beast. We have provided for our families. Surely, our wives (my wife’s name isn’t Shirley -- I don’t know about yours) must hold us in high esteem for the daring and necessary work we have done. We are revered as the bravest of the brave.

To be completely fair here, I must admit something. Men are not necessarily as brave as we make ourselves out to be. Take a look at BBQ tools. Ever notice how big they are? Now, of course, men will wield these monstrous utensils as if we had attacked and killed a T-Rex with them. We look at ourselves as being skilled hunters, able to handle any ferocious beast that comes our way. But, the real reason the tools are so big is because we are wimps. One important lesson every young man must learn is that fire is hot. We usually learn this by burning the skin off our hands or the hairs off some part of our bodies. BBQs contain fire. It doesn’t feel good to burn yourself (I know most women don’t know this because they usually treat fire with the respect it deserves). So we need big, long handled tools to reach into the BBQ and flip those store bought burgers, which, by the way, we hunted down in Aisle 4. Plus, if that lid ever fell down, say for lack of maintenance, it could seriously damage our fresh manicures, should our fingers get pinched.

To summarize this article, here is what we have learned today:

1. Men love to BBQ because it is a brave thing to do and there is fire involved.
2. Men love long handled BBQ tools because we are wimps. I mean we have learned the lesson of “fire = hot” very well.
3. All this talk of food is making me hungry. Could someone please bake a lemon camisole for me?