THE BBQ CHRONICLES
Written: Aug 13 '03 (Updated Aug 13 '03)
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Pros: SPIFFY GRAY PLASTIC CARRYING CASE CASE
Cons: WHAT'S IN THE SPIFFY GRAY PLASTIC CARRYING CASE
The Bottom Line: For sale by owner, one slight used (except for corn cob holders) BBQ accessories set. No reasonable offer refused.
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| JAMES23's Full Review: Cooking.com Barbecue Set in Carrying Case Grilling... |
So a couple of weeks ago the wife and I invited another couple we know over for a little BBQ dinner (we’re getting so damn domesticated it scares me). While the ladies were inside discussing whatever it is they discuss while in groups of two or more, My buddy Chris and I retired to the balcony to napalm the steaks I’d bought for the occasion.
After draining his first beer Chris began to make smartassed comments regarding my rather small BBQ. The gist of it was that the accessories were bigger than the BBQ. My natural inclination was to toss him over the balcony and see if mister master mountain climber could survive a thirteen story descent sans rope. Chris is a close friend though and was best man at my wedding, so I resisted the natural urge to pitch. Besides knowing my building management they’d have sent me the bill for the clean up on the sidewalk.
Instead I confirmed the bleeding obvious to Chris that yes indeed my utensils were bigger than the BBQ, and offered an explanation. I’ll now share that with you dear reader presuming you’re still there and haven’t already NH’d this and gone on to the latest scintillating cut and paste job, er excuse me review of kitty chow.
When the permafrost that perpetually covers Canada finally receded this past spring the wife and I decided to pick up a BBQ for the summer. Hey I hate shopping, but the chance to visit that bastion of male masculinity known as Canadian Tire, and an authorised visit at that, was too good a chance to pass up. Anyway I was starting to suffer from BBQ envy after the summer past with almost every weekend spent in one or another of my brother in laws backyards watching them char dead animal flesh of one type or another.
Having looked at the nice big gas models and then at their price tags I settled on a small table model portable type that should be enough for our modest needs. Hey I though if it can only hold two steaks then no annoying dinner company. I miscalculated, the damn thing is big enough, barely, to handle a foursome of grilled cow flesh.
Any ways I was back at Crappy Tire the next day to pick up the small propane tanks that would transform my previous purchase from a piece of decorative scrap metal to a bastion of suburban maleness. While there I decided to grab a few other odds and sods as well.
I ended up in the check out line with propane tanks, lava rocks, a stand so I could BBQ standing up instead of squatting like some demented urban camper, and of course some basic utensils, spatula, tongs and a paint brush from the dollar bin for splashing on BBQ sauce. I’d been paying attention during those visits to the in-laws the summer past. Either that or I had some dim childhood memories of standing beside my father in some distant summer backyard.
Flash forward a couple of weeks. By now I’d got the hang of this BBQ thing. The fire department were not visiting on a regular basis, and to be the honest the novelty was wearing off fast. To be honest I’d figured out that the wife had tricked me into preparing the bulk of our evening meals for one third of the year.
One nice Saturday morning, the wife once more interrupted God’s accepted plans for hard working husbands of sleeping in followed by lounging around the apartment in one’s underwear, and dragged me out shopping, again. This time we didn’t even get to go to a cool guys store, but went flower shopping. If you think that was emasculating in itself, it started off with me having to drag a winter’s worth of empty beer bottles to the beer store for the deposit.
There is nothing manly about having to drag one of those little old lady type shopping buggies full of empties a couple of blocks in public. Especially when you have to walk past all sorts of other guys sitting on bar patios drinking beer with nary a wife in site. Damn sometimes I both hate and envy the regulars in the neighbourhood Gay bar. To make matters worse she then confiscated the money to buy flower pots with.
The day was not a complete loss though. She did buy me lunch, and on a patio to boot. On the way home, me dragging the bundle buggy now loaded with plant stuff, I happened to notice a display in a store window.
It was, you guessed it, BBQ utensil sets in a spiffy gray plastic container. After much pleading, I was allowed into the store and after careful consideration became the proud owner of a
Cooking.com Barbecue Set in Carrying Case Grilling Tool Set 18-piece Tools.
I know, I already had a tried and true set of BBQ stuff but this was an actual set complete with case and everything. It was time for me to upscale my BBQ activities. The deal clincher was that it was on sale for only $19.99 (Cdn). Now had it been say $20.00 I might have reconsidered, but any fool knows that $19.99 is a real bargain.
Once home, the old utensils were carelessly tossed aside destined to be dropped off at brother in law number two’s house next time we were there. I’d noticed that his tools really were kind of ratty looking from extensive use. I like him so I even washed them before taking them over.
The dinner hour fell and for once I didn’t mind being conned into preparing the evening charred carrion. I had my new Cooking.com Barbecue Set in Carrying Case Grilling Tool Set 18-piece Tools to play with.
Now a couple of months later I find myself in a position to evaluate the Cooking.com Barbecue Set in Carrying Case Grilling Tool Set 18-piece Tools for BBQ consumers everywhere. In short they could be summed up in one word, but the censor program on here won’t allow me to type that combination of four letters.
The eighteen pieces include: 1x spatula, 1x pair of tongs, 1x 2 pronged fork, 1x knife, 1x sauce brush, 1 wire brush/grill scraper thingy, 4x metal skewers, and 8x corn on the cob holders.18 pieces plus the case, so in this case there is truth in advertising.
The spatula works, but then again how hard is it to screw up a spatula. The tongs on the other hand don’t. They’re too big and it appears that you need the grip of the Incredible Hulk (Lou Ferrigno, not the CGI one) to close them and get a decent grip. More than once I’ve thought I was going to lose the grip while turning something over and send a nice piece of prime (and hopefully disease free) Alberta beef hurtling into the sky over downtown Toronto.
The brush works, not as well as the paint brush from the dollar bin, but then again how hard is it to screw up a brush. The knife and fork are ok I guess, but again seem too big for the task at hand. I usually just raid the cutlery drawer for a spare steak knife and the silverware chest for a pie fork.
I’ll be honest we haven’t really tried the corn on the cob holders. It’s not that we don’t eat corn on the cob, but we already have some really good corn on the cob holders. I think they were a wedding gift. Any way they’re gathering dust in a kitchen drawer somewhere while we just blow on the cobs and use our fingers.
We did use the metal skewers. We like making kebabs and one night were out of our regular bamboo skewers. I guess they work, they were bigger than the bamboo ones so the kebabs were bigger. That was a good thing as there were only four of them. I guess if you’re expecting company you have to pick up another Cooking.com Barbecue Set in Carrying Case Grilling Tool Set 18-piece Tools.
The metal skewers really do draw the heat which I guess is a good thing. They’re too big though to fit on the grill of my scale model BBQ. I couldn’t get the lid down which meant that the kebabs took so long to cook that I could have flown to Greece and got take out.
About the only thing that seems to work really well is the wire brush/scraper/cleaning thingy. It has all sorts of little gadgets on it that allow me to scrape and brush off all the carbonized carrion. The novelty of actually cleaning the BBQ though wore off about a month or so ago, so once again it’s of limited value.
Another definite downer is the nice rosewood handles that all the tools come with. They looked real cool in the window which is probably why I grabbed it in the first place. However they fade when washed. As I really only use the spatula, the paint brush and sometimes the tongs, the handles on those have all faded. The handles on the other unused stuff hasn’t, so the set no longer looks that cool. I guess I could wash the unused stuff too, so that everything had the same faded look, but that’s too much work.
The carrying case as I said is spiffy. There are special clip in trays and indentations for each of the 18 parts. Naturally all the parts, the virgin corn cob holders aside, are piled carelessly on a tray beside the BBQ. The spiffy case is on the floor beside the stand.
I guess Chris was right, the accessories are bigger than the BBQ, and in fact too big. I guess if I had one of those real man full sized BBQs then maybe this stuff would work better. Chances of my getting one of those anytime soon though are slim to none. I have to wait until there’s another bundle buggy full of returnable beer bottles and hope I can sneak them out of the house without you know who finding out. The beer store is on the way to Crappy Tire.
In the meantime I’ll just have to make do with what I’ve got. I wonder if next time I’m at the brother in laws I can sneak back my old stuff? I know I can distract him with a spiffy gray plastic carrying case.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 19.99 Cdn
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Member: James Smith
Location: Toronto Ontario CANADA
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