Monthly Archives: April 2006

So a month or so ago I was reading the newsletter from our little co-op and I noticed that they were advertising a

The other evening Libby was doing a few dishes before dinner when she noticed that the hot water wasn’t as hot as it usually is. She told me about it and I said “huh” and went back to reading the paper. Problem solved.
Then she turned off the cold all the way. “It’s only like barely warm”.
“Well maybe we ran out of hot water or something,” I say, even though that never really happens in our house.
“How would that have happened?” she smartly replied. And she was right. The last hour had seen no baths or showers, no dishes, no nothing. The last hot water I had used was while washing my hands a few minutes earlier, but I was certain that I kept my usage under 30 gallons while doing so.
Fearing the worst, we head down to the basement and HOLY CRAP THERE’S WATER EVERYWHERE. Ok, it wasn’t that bad, but it wasn’t exactly something you want to see, especially 15 minutes before dinner on meatloaf night. A somewhat sizeable leak in the bottom of the heater, water draining all over the floor, pilot light off, etc, etc.
“Crap,” I say.
I shut off the water and sucked up a couple shop vac fulls of water. Libby got out the paper plates. After dinner I called and left a message for our amazing plumber guy. Then I shopped online and found the water heater I wanted to buy and called Sears to confirm they had it in stock. (Attention Sears Bigshots: your people are nice, but your phone and computer systems are an embarrassment. That is all.)
At 7:10 the next morning our phone rang. It was the plumber, and he started by apologizing for not calling earlier. He’s that kind of guy. I broke down our situation and he said he had a water heater he could sell me (duh) and I asked for a price and it was $200 more than the Sears one I was thinking about so I said “no thanks” and drove out to Sears and got the cheap one and just had him do the installation. I helped him. It took about 90 minutes. It was a lot of fun. I wish I had more plumbing problems just so I could call this guy to come over fix them. Except for the paying part. That part sucks.
In other news, in an emergency situation it is possible can fit a 30-gallon water heater in the back of a Jeep Wrangler. And by “fit” I mean “wedge”. And by “wedge” I mean “better bring some bungee cords”.
Hot water on.

Spring is here and the weather has turned and that means it’s time to cook outside again. Hells yeah.
To be fair, I’m sure that – like myself – many of you insisted on soldiering through the winter months, slipping on your boots and scampering back and forth from house to grill all in the name of cooking a steak or a burger over an open flame, but I’m not really sure that counts as “cooking out”. I know when I did it felt more like “work”, although not in the sense that “sitting in a beige box” is “work”, that’s more like “a job”. My simple definition is that it’s not a true cook out unless you can sit in a lawnchair next to the grill drinking a beer and reading the paper while your food cooks. Don’t agree? Get your own blog.
So anyway, I’ve been gradually easing into all the outdoor options over the last month or so. I naturally kicked off the season by increasing the usage frequency of gas unit, making some after-work burgers and chicken and fish and all the usual stuff. Then on the weekends I’ve been firing up the kettle for more of the same, but also for some kabobin’ and to test drive another take on the cantonese pork recipe I’ve been trying to perfect. (Pretty good, but not there yet.) Finally last weekend the stars aligned and I brought out the smoker and got down with some low-n-slow ribs. Trifecta.
So far my favorite part of grilling season has been the controversy surrounding the ‘new’ Kingsford charcoal. For those of you who haven’t been following the star-trek-nerd-quality arguments on BBQ forums like I have, Kingsford changed their little briquette things for the 2006 grilling season and it has been causing quite a stir. The new stuff supposedly lights faster, burns hotter, and lasts longer, all of which sounds great until you realize that the old stuff worked just fine and that if something has changed it means you’ve gotta re-learn all your little tricks for keeping your smoker at 225 for 18 hours because that’s how long it takes to make tender delicious smoke crusted pork butt. Curses.
I ripped into my first bag of the new stuff for the ribs I made and my nutshell verdict is this: it got a little hotter than I expected, but I’m thinking that was the result of my bad vent management. Otherwise I didn’t notice anything else different. All in all it was far from the chaos I expected – it is just charcoal, duh. I’m eager to try it on an over-nighter and see what happens. Either that or I’ll just start using lump in my smoker like I do in my kettle, who knows.
BBQ on.
Kingsford Briquettes: New versus Old [nakedwhiz]
New Kingsford Sucks [infopop] – this is where i first heard something had changed