BBQ'09 -- a Flaming Hot Start

Welcome to BBQ season! We just did our second round of BBQ and have two things to report:

First, despite their pleasing shape, Hardwood Briquettes just aren't that great. They disintegrate and lose their pleasing shape, making a mess in the process. They might do better if it weren't so damp, but I think I'm going back to more-natural unformed Hardwood Charcoal after I've cooked through this bag of Briquettes. So learn from my mistake and just go for the awkwardly un-uniform (would that just be "iform"?) lump stuff.

Second -- and I need to post my own photo of the bottle -- I did some really nice hot ginger-basil steaks to kick things off using freshly grated ginger and shredded basil in olive oil with some paprika and such (following the salt trick, of course). Where things got interesting was mixing that solution with Secret Aardvark Drunken Garlic Black Bean Sauce to form a scrape-off 5-minute marinade. Some New Seasons locations have it; read other Portland folks talking about it here, here and here. Then the steaks go on the grill and there's a last drizzle of olive oil, pepper and paprika (also provoking the fire to get a better searing effect) and voila, we had shred-it-with-a-fork tender buffalo steaks with a eye-popping tang, perfect for knocking the chill off on a February day. That said, I'm not sure what kind of wine I'd pair those steaks with -- but it was a 3pm dinner, so it's probably just as well that we weren't getting into the wine there. (Besides, I'd be surprised if the stuff I put on the steaks didn't kill all of the bacteria just for fun.)

We followed it up with some of the mistress' dark chocolate brownies, modified to contain more fresh-grated ginger (plus a bit of the powdered stuff for better dispersion). Yeah. I say "some" but I mean "the whole pan." I guess this is where I admit that I'm one of those metabolisms where I can get away with that sort of thing even at my age. Is this the part where I innocently go "tee hee hee?"