My Grill.
I have a wood-burning grill here in Italy that’s not exactly what you could call a looker, but it’s a fine piece of cooking equipment and last night I finally realized how to use it properly. It only took six years.The idea of the grill is that it has a continuous feed of coals, so that you can grill all night and never have to worry about moving the cooking surface or suffering a loss of the proper intensity of heat. Here’s a photo to get you oriented: Yeah, I know; it’s all rusty and crappy-looking but don’t let its looks fool you.
There’s a large grilling area above the coal bed and behind it there’s a metal basket that holds the wood fire that’s continually dropping coals below. You just use a long metal rake to move them forward whenever you want livelier heat.
Mine is a smaller model of the classic sagra grill, which you see at every local food festival throughout the summer. At a sagra, there could be four or five cooks lined up in front of the grill, flipping sausages and pork ribs on into the night.
But I had never figured out the right way to get my grill going properly. I built my fire in the basket and waited forever for enough coals to drop through before I could get started. But last night – for what reason I don’t know – it hit me. Instead of loading up the wood basket I started with a big roaring wood fire in the bed — right under where the grill would be. When the wood turned to coals I moved the fire back under the basket, which was loaded up with fresh wood. The fire was so intense the new wood was raging in minutes. I was in business. I moved enough coals forward under the grill surface and started cooking.
cooking all night
My brother, Ed and his wife, Barb were visiting and our menu was our typical Tucker Family Bi-Polar Diet – grilled tofu, zucchini and eggplant for Jill; lamb chops and pork ribs for the rest of us. The grill did me proud.
Just about finishing reading “Living in a Foreign Language”……..I don’t want it to end, so I’m savoring the last 10 pages……when it ends, my days with you sort of end too. Sad.
So…… happy I found your Culinary Wasteland.
My roots go back to Milan (on my grandmother’s side) and Como (on my grandfather’s side), but being from the north, we had a different diet and none of that really great Italian cooking like you wrote about. My mother (born in USA) married a Dutch/German, so growing up it was really just meat and potatoes…..the extent of Italian dinners was spaghetti and meatballs.
Years ago, Silvana moved across the street from me (for 4 years). She’s from Foggia, and hubby is from Avelino. Now……. she can cook!! She’s moved an hour away, but we’ve now been friends for 25 years and I visit her often. I just gave her a copy of your book too (I bought 2 and sorry to say they were only a buck each at Dollar Tree) worth soooo much more!! So just now sent her your link for Culinary Wasteland. They have an oven in their back yard (of course!) and a grape vine…and her husband is going to get a kick out of your grill….I feel when I visit there, her back yard is like being in Italy..and I never want to come home.
I am ready to retire in a few months. It’s going to be “tight” for me, but Italy is on my bucket list and I sure hope I can make my dream a reality one day. In the meantime, I can dream and read your blogs, and sort of be there in spirit…….
Thanks for everything. Gloria
Thank you, Gloria, and welcome to the blog. I look forward to hgearing from you in the future.
Mike
Love the grill! Where did you get it, or did it come with the house? Do you also have a wood burning oven for bread and pizza?
How’s your weather been since you arrived in Italy. My wife and I got back last week from a stay at our apartment in Vasto in Abruzzo, and the heat was brutal! The Adriatic was the temperature of bath water, and so was less than refreshing. I hope the heat wave has broken by now.
Thanks for your blog.
Richard
I LOVE that grill. The way it operates make perfect sense. If (when) I move (or some facsimile thereof) to Italy, I would want a grill just like that. Enjoy!
@ Wynne and Richard C. — the grill can be fashioned by any local fabbro (metalworker) – relatively cheaply, too. And yes, it’s still very hot. The house stays nicely copol, though.
Gloria, your days with Mike can continue through reading “After Annie” – not so much about food, but as a novel, it really cooks!
if your brother Ed is still with you..regards from an old High School friend.
Thanks Cathie…….I love Mike’s style of writing, even on this blog. I find myself smiling….
And to Mike, thanks for your response….since I’m new to this, I didn’t even know my post was going to show up…….good thing I said all nice things about my friend, Silvana, huh? I look forward to reading more of your books, and your Italian adventures on this blog. (I still miss LA LAW too….it was so great, well written and acted by everyone!) Would you ever come back to TV…..maybe do a “show” from your home in Italy? Take me away……PLEASE………….
I agree, Gloria–I miss LA Law too. I’m not even too much of a TV watcher. (But we named our daughter Zoë pretty much because of that show and the character). (And we loved Mike and Jill too of course). (Okay, this is weird). Anyway, love the grill Mike, but I’m trying desperately to imitate your cooking with a gas grill in suburbia N.J. The food is generally good, but there’s something about just being in Italy that I can’t quite get. :) But for New Jersey, it’s pretty good. Thanks for the inspiration!
wow Mike…that grill is impressive and I must say Jill has the will power of a saint…those chops look amazing…I wouldn’t be able to resist them…wish we had smellovision….
So glad to hear that la vecchia casa/podere is all in good working order.
Reading that Gloria is finishing “Living in a …” (4th time for me and Marianne) just makes me think, again, that you and Jill should produce (and star in it) as a film. I believe that it would be more than well accepted. Ciao.
@ David — Thanks. But it sounds like you’re trying to get me back to work.
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