Insurance companies in NC noticed that incompetent grillers were accidentally burning down apartment buildings a few years back, so they pressured the state legislature to pass a law banning grilling anywhere within 10 feet of an apartment. That made me an outlaw, but after a few warnings I shut down my Weber and bought an electric smoker (which is technically legal – the law says no gas or charcoal grills. Of course, the wood producing the smoke is burning, but it is ignited by electricity).
Nothing beats a charcoal grilled steak, so when I found a Brinkman grill that fit my fireplace I bought it. It worked okay, but there were a few problems. If you ignited the coals with the lid open, the chimney of the grill was not in position to vent the fumes out the fireplace chimney and that was smelly and dangerous. The lid could be opened completely outdoors, but the confines of the fireplace made that impossible. Eventually, I started igniting the coals with the lid closed, but that caused another problem – the fire couldn’t get sufficient air, even though the grill was well vented. So the fire started “breathing.” I hear firemen are familiar with this phenomenon. The fire gets insufficient oxygen and smolders instead of burning. That allows oxygen to rush in and it starts burning again until it uses it up. Repeat. Firemen say the danger is in the rapid combustion when the oxygen rushes in. Extremely rapid combustion is called an “explosion” and that’s what I got once. The lid of the grill nearly got blown off its hinges as it slammed into the roof of the fireplace and made a horrendous “clank.”
Dangerous as that was, it was all perfectly legal because it all happened in my fireplace where it is still legal to have a fire. I probably could have lived with an occasional frightening “clank,” but the lid of the grill was too unwieldy for my fireplace. I jury-rigged a latch to hold it open while I was working with food on the grill, but the space was too confining and more than once I burned myself. After a while, I gave up grilling completely.
Then, this week, Cuisine at Home arrived with a recipe I couldn’t resist: stuffed chicken leg quarters. You remove the thigh bone, stuff it with bacon, onion, mustard greens, corn, red bell pepper, jalapeno, and corn bread. Then you tie it up, grill it, and serve it a BBQ sauce made with apricot preserves and dark rum. In other words, I needed a grill again.
I checked three local stores and couldn’t find a grill that had adequate surface and still fit easily into my fireplace. The Weber Go Anywhere grill was close, but it was a little flimsy and no local stores had the charcoal model. The Toolbox Grill was perfect except for a fatal flaw which they represented as a feature: It has no vents below the charcoal. That makes it clean to carry home, but it is the natural inclination of fire to draw oxygen from below and a suffocated fire not only isn’t hot enough, it produces dangerous amounts of carbon monoxide. No problem outdoors, but not something I want to happen in the house.
I began the search in earnest yesterday, checking out Sears, Linens ‘n’ Things, and a couple of hardware stores but no luck. Then I remembered seeing a Balinese grill at World Market a months back. It wasn’t perfect, but it could have those chicken thighs sizzling if they still had it. World Market actually had three grills and I checked them all out. One was a stainless steel cylinder grill, which was properly vented and small enough, but there was only the display model, the price was not marked, and the grilling area was a bit small. They also had a cast iron grill for $20 that I would have bought if I hadn’t been troubled by the size of the charcoal receptacle. It was only about 6 inches in diameter while the business area of the grill was about 14”. Hot in the middle, cool out the edges – that’s no good.
The Balinese grill was the best compromise. It would be nice to have a lid, but maybe I can find an old wok cover at the thrift shop. A little more cooking area (a scant 12” in diameter) would be nice, but there’s room for a butterflied chicken if it’s a small one. The coals are about 4” below the grilling area and there are sufficient venting holes to feed the flame. It’s made from “rich, volcanic clay from the islands of Java in Indonesia,” so it’s seen fire at least twice before (the volcano and the pottery oven). I broke it in last evening with a nice thick porterhouse and Liz and I will have the grilled leg quarters today.
5:52:50 AM 
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