Today’s Thoughts on Barbecue Egomaniacs
January 4th, 2006
They think they are the masters of the marinade.
They believe they are the most famous of the flamers, flippers and fryers. They have no pause in telling you that they are the reaper of the roast or the giant of the grill. They have their own gold-plated spatula that doesn’t scratch teflon and doesn’t make excuses.
They are the barbecue egomaniacs…and I hate them with a passion.
Primarily, if you don’t have to go to school in order to become an expert in any given field (TV/VCR programming, jumping rope, lighting crap on fire, picking fruit, opening jars, building a shelter out of drift-wood and/or getting the mail from the mailbox) then I don’t think you should be able to act like an idiego-head (idiot meets egotistical stupidhead) while standing in front of the barbecue.
Yet you do.
There you stand with your clever-logo apron, your cooking hat, your golden tools gleaming in the hot sun, your marinades, your stack of buns…and that look in your eye. That look that goes really well with the one phrase you will repeat over and over again throughout the day as you stand in front of the community barbecue:
“No worries. I’ve got it covered. I was born to do this.”
Well, unless the minute you came out of the womb the doctors realized that instead of being covered in the typical “just born” coverings, you were instead covered in a really pungent jerk chicken marinade or a sweet and sour drizzle, or you actually had a mini baby pair of barbecue tongs actually already attached to your left hand… Well, you weren’t born to do crap.
Yet there you stand, with your toe tapping and your body weight concentrated on your left arm which is perched on the handle of the closed barbecue, ready to open and close the barbecue doors every thirty seconds as you flip and turn and reposition and rotate and pat down and guide and squish every single piece of flaying beef, fish and chicken known to man sitting on the grill…or what you call my workspace.
Everyone around you, waiting for their food wishes they could tell you what they really think about you except for the fact that they’re starving. For god’s sake, can’t you do this any quicker?
“The true art of barbecuing takes time,” you’ll say. “You can’t rush greatness,” you’ll say after your first saying. “You don’t want salmonella poisoning, do you?” you’ll ask…
No, I just want my food from someone who doesn’t talk as much about your barbecue skills as you do.
Nevertheless, it seems as though the barbecue egomaniacs of the world don’t care too much about what others think about them. They don’t care if you’re hungry or annoyed at their mannerisms or their flaming styles. All they care about is talk talk talking about how great they are, how awesome the meat tastes and how goldeny-brown those buns are going to be when they take them off the goldenizer (their words, not mine).
And all you do is encourage them.
With your hunger doing the talking, you swallow your true honest feelings and replace them with the Mms and the “very tender” comments that build the ego of the barbecue egomaniac to the point of no return. Before long, Monday mornings at the office are no longer centered around the complaints of having to be there after a 3-Day weekend… No, now the barbecue egomaniac, armed with a thousand positive produce plugs, will burn your ear off for the rest of the week as he will outline his process, his successes and the one failure he hopes to never have to repeat again: losing one of his men or “when a burger falls below the grill, never to return.”
For the barbecue egomaniac, moments like that can chill them to the core.
For me, it just makes me realize how shallow the life of a barbecue egomaniac can become — not worrying about family or friends or work or success or goal-setting…but always about that next fish fix, or tomorrow’s meat marinade. For only when they are standing in front of a burning grill can they truly be the person they believe they were born to be.
It’s sad, really.
So, do you like your ribs wet or dry?
Comment by monkeyinabox — January 4, 2006 @ 8:54 am
This sounds like an extended version of one of those Bud Light “Here’s to you, Mr. So and So” commercials.
Here’s to you, Mr. Barbecue Egomaniac…
Comment by Kevin — January 4, 2006 @ 9:20 am
I hear what you’re saying, but… Hell, give me some really great barbecue and in the end all is forgiven.
Comment by the swede — January 4, 2006 @ 9:22 am
The BQ-Egomanics typically also suck at preparing a decent veggie-burger. They’ll never admit this, of course…
Comment by Flower Girl — January 4, 2006 @ 9:37 am
The worst part are the aprons with the dumb sayings on them, like “Barbequers are saucy” or “kiss the chef” or something moronic like that. And I can say that because I don’t own an apron.
Comment by Keith — January 4, 2006 @ 10:32 am
Flower Girl - Well, true all-star barbecuers are as against veggie burgers as they are non-stick PAM (cause if you can’t figure out how to not make your meat stick to the grill without a cheat like PAM, forget it).
Keith - This is like the fourth place on the web today you’ve said that you don’t own aprons. I sense something altogether different.
Comment by Pauly D — January 4, 2006 @ 10:43 am
An apron killed my cousin when I was a wee lad, and ever since then, I’ve been deathly afraid of them, okay?
Comment by Keith — January 4, 2006 @ 11:00 am
I allow the BBQ-egomaniac to go on and on until I get my food. At which point, if he’s still talking, I’ll feign choking and run to the restroom. With my food firmly in hand. Conveniently on my way back, I’ll get waylaid by another conversation. Depending on the level of obnoxiousness, though, I might just tell him off and then attribute it to the fact that I “was really drunk.”
Comment by Amber — January 4, 2006 @ 11:02 am
Acting like a veggie burger is offensive is a handy way for the all star barbequer to avoid a challenge. After all, vegetarians dig on a good cook-out, too! Just less bloody, please. You can even cook our vittles on the same grill, so long as you keep your juices to yourself.
That didn’t come out right…
Comment by Flower Girl — January 4, 2006 @ 11:06 am
I miss bbq’ing… the management frowns on lighting fires on the fire escapes.
Comment by anonymous city girl — January 4, 2006 @ 11:55 am
don’t be messin with the bbq masters pauly
Comment by Wendi — January 4, 2006 @ 12:49 pm
Thanks for the enlightenment, Pauly. Until now I was idolizing my college roommate for knowing how to work a grill. This is something I’ll have to bring up in therapy.
Comment by Hope — January 4, 2006 @ 1:51 pm
First he makes me sniff the meat. “You smell that? That beef has been marinading for forty-eight hours.” Then the timer goes off (which he responds to like a four-alarm fire) every time he needs to flip, pat, or check on the steak. All this so he can stare at me while I eat and tell me that he is “The Grillmaster.”
Comment by Rabbit — January 4, 2006 @ 4:32 pm
ACG - No fires in the fire escapes? That’s like Communism if you ask me.
Wendi - Do you know a bbq master? Is it you?
Hope - I have nothing in particular to say to you but I didn’t want to skip your comment here.
Rabbit - The Grillmaster, eh? Someone is a lucky boy.
Comment by Pauly D — January 4, 2006 @ 4:35 pm
my husband is obsessed with his bbq, the thing cost more than my car, well, almost!!!
isn’t bbqing a man obsession, i find ours to be intimidating, i prefer not to use it at all.
Comment by better safe than sorry — January 4, 2006 @ 6:56 pm
Damn, lost my original comment. Here I go again…
My brother-in-law is probably the biggest barbecue egomaniac. A few years ago, we packed up our kids, he and his wife packed up their kids and we went to a beachfront for the afternoon. We’d brought the hot dogs and buns as planned. We thought they were bringing the Hibachi grill and burgers. Sure, they brought burgers, but also steaks, Moroccan merguez sausages, South African boorswars (sp?) sausages. Not only that, he approaches the picnic table after all was unpacked, with a case in hand. I had no clue what was in that case; he opened it to reveal the snazziest barbecue utensils I’d ever seen. With that case and its gadgets, my brother-in-law was like the James Bond of barbecue land! Definitely on a mission…!
Comment by Pearl — January 4, 2006 @ 8:26 pm
Pearl - Moroccan Merguez sausages? Do they even still make those after the revolution and sabotage that took place in the 1987 Moroccan Mergeuz sausage incident? I didn’t think so.
Comment by Pauly D — January 4, 2006 @ 8:34 pm
You want some awesome marination? Come to Guam and let the local teach you. Every American that has been station on our soil knows what Im talking about.
Comment by trench — January 5, 2006 @ 12:28 am
Now here’s something you don’t get to see everyday, Pauly. I posted pictures of my big pregnant belly today, if you want to see it.
Comment by Amy — January 5, 2006 @ 5:08 am
I want to comment before I read the article that those look like heart-shaped pieces of steak. That is all.
Comment by Brian J. Hong — January 5, 2006 @ 3:52 pm
Hi PAUL! Great topic, congratulations for the blog too…
We represent the 1st italian bbq fans community and we agree with U for any iymes of your topic.. but… not at ALL!
Many many greetings from the 1st italian barbecue fans community and happy New Year to all BBQ lovers!
carnealfuoco.it - tutto per il barbecue ricette foto community
PS: see u soon!
Comment by carne al fuoco - il piacere del barbecue — January 17, 2007 @ 6:51 am