From Charcoal Chad to Propane Proponent. Or, a lesson in making pragmatic choices.
This summer I went on a week-long trip with my family. It was one of those “relaxing” vacations where you stay in a beach town and enjoy being by the shore, eating, playing board games and such. I’d say one of the benefits of a trip like this—which I’m starting to appreciate more—is having time to think clear thoughts that aren’t inundated with the worries of work or the doldrums of my domicile. New scenery and experiences have a way of inspiring change.
One day, as I massaged shampoo into my hair and bits of seaweed from that day’s swim fell to the shower floor, I had the mother-of-all shower thoughts. For it to make sense, I need to tee it up: recently I’ve been experiencing some discomfort with my cooking and eating habits, but I hadn’t made much room to dig further. I acknowledged that I was tired of a cooking routine that took up precious weekday after-work hours and I didn’t feel like I’ve been eating well (e.g., lots of pasta, lots of frozen foods), but otherwise hadn’t made effort to solve the problem. In comes the shower-thought: I need to take ownership of that problem instead of letting it worry me. Therefore, I will make an effort to cook more in bulk so that I have food ready-to-eat during the week and I can ensure it’s meeting some standard of quality and dietary variety. This felt so obvious and so clear to me, and I had such conviction as I realized I can solve this problem.
So what’s this about charcoal and propane? Well, the home my family stayed in during our vacation has a patio that served as a great spot for: 1) intimate early-morning coffee chats that could only happen in such an environment... and 2) grilling! I’ve never owned a grill and I was not experienced in cooking with one, but one evening I decided to make burgers and hot dogs for the family. It turns out grilling is a great way to make a bunch of food at once and have a tolerable clean up routine. The horror of previous attempts at making burgers on the stove and the resulting greasy mess still haunts me. This experience, combined with my determination to cook more in bulk, convinced me that grilling was something that would help me solve the problem that I was determined to tackle. I love those moments in life where you are inspired to act.
My initial goal was to get into grilling with as little investment as possible, which felt doable because I knew I had an old charcoal grill waiting for me in my basement. It is a Weber Smokey Joe that my friends and I picked up and used years ago—nearly a decade at this point.
This grill belonged to my best friend and he gave it to me when I moved into my current place because he had upgraded his grilling gear. This Smokey Joe had been dormant in my basement for years, waiting to be useful once more. I picked up a couple tools to help me get started and invited my friend to help me out with my first foray into charcoal grilling. I learned a lot in that first afternoon, picked up a few more tools, and proceeded to grill the next three weekends. I was met with minor frustration with the attention and care required to do it right. I had inconsistent results. I realized I was spending a lot of what I would call my “hobby” time on something which I did not intend to become another hobby. I remembered my initial reasons for grilling: I wanted to cook more food in bulk and have an easier time cleaning up. Grilling was intended to be a solution to a problem and not another tangent in my life filled with YouTube-binge “research”, unnecessary purchases, rabbit holes, and potential regrets. I know myself!
While I was diving into grilling, I had been chatting with my mom about my experience. Despite the seeming negativity, I was still actually pretty excited. I had made some amazing marinated chicken and a few other meals that made me happy I had put in the work. I wanted to share that positive experience and also some of the complaints I had. Essentially I told her that the major drawback for me was the time investment that was compounded by my inexperience with charcoal. Had I stuck with this and decided to find the joy in it, I’m sure I would have found the best process and honestly would have had fun iterating on it until it was perfect. I can revisit charcoal in the future if I want to introduce the joy of perfecting that craft as an intentional hobby. My mom suggested that I would benefit from a propane grill and mentioned that my birthday was coming up soon. I half-hoped that I would be gifted one (wouldn’t that be nice?) and half-hoped I wouldn’t because I already have this grill, it was free, I want to stick with it, I don’t need an expensive gift!. Despite my (silent) protest, I was gifted a propane grill by my mother and my sister!
Honestly, this has been one of the best gifts I’ve ever received. It was thoughtful, timely, and helped me solve a real problem. I was gifted the Weber Traveler, a portable travel grill. It is great for me. The Weber Traveler can be folded up and put away when not in use. I have limited space and level ground outside so it makes sense to only take this out when I need to use it. Thankfully it’s not a hassle to set it up, preheat it, scrub the grates clean of last time’s gunk, get cookin’, give it a cursory wipe down, and put it back. I barely need to think about the cooking process. There are no coals for me to babysit and attempt to reignite with a hairdryer, which, while successful, leaves me covered in ash and a bit frustrated (true story). There’s a thermometer directly on the hood, so I know when it’s up to temperature. I think if I had more specialized tools I could have made my Smokey Joe experience better, but I was hesitant to invest into additional tools when I was so uncertain of the charcoal experience. Also, I’ve recently been critical of my hobby-related purchasing habits and decided to make changes—that’s a story for another time—so I didn’t want to make more purchases I didn’t absolutely need to.
So, ultimately, the pragmatic option won. That’s not to say that this a framework for life, though. These choices ought to be considered on a case-by-case basis. In cases like this, the “inferior” option—that is, propane being inferior if you value the benefits of charcoal—makes more sense given your specific constraints and priorities. What problem are you trying to solve? What do you want to invest your time in? What choice do you make? It depends.