26,000 BTU's at my fingertips.

Thanks to a little house warming gift from Mom and Dad Tell, Aubrey and I recently became the proud new owners of a Weber Spirit E-210 Grilling Machine! Under the hood this baby packs over 26,000 British Thermal Units of cooking might, spread evenly over 500+ square inches of a luxurious cooking domain. The lifeblood of the Grilling Machine is its Liquid Propane, which begins it life in a white cannister thoughtfully suspended by a spring loaded mechanism which is constantly weighing the cannister to give automatic readouts on how full your cannister is. From there, the blood (propane) travels through various valve mechanisms into two seperate burners, where it is transformed into heat which will then flow past five "Flavorizer Bars" and magically transform raw meat into delicious food fit for a king.

And yes, I will admit that I stood back for a few moments after assembling my grilling machine, just to admire it. To see how good looking it is. How suprisingly humble it is, and how gentle, considering it is basically a blow torch mounted under a thermometer. But therein lies the joy of shopping for a grill. Grills are pretty simple machines at heart. But walk into any hardware store and head to the grill department, and you will realize that they are marketed directly to men having mid-life crises, who would rather be shopping for a sports car, but had an easier time convincing the wife of the need for a new grill.

The most popular and well advertised grills at Lowe's contain roughly a half-acre of grilling space, and produce enough firepower to launch a missile. Some grills are equipped with electric lights that come on automatically when the lid is opened, so you can launch your grill in the dark. And there is the ubiquitous "side burner," for people who want, not only to grill, but to saute simultaneously. Every grill also comes with a stat sheet, which ranks the grill according to its "burger capacity." Many large grills feature a 28 burger capacity. Just like if you buy a sports car, you become irresistable to beautiful ladies, so if you buy a new grill, suddenly you have 27 friends who like to come eat hamburgers at your house.

Not that I managed to stay completely above the marketing fray. I mean, I do look pretty good next to my Weber Spirit E-210 with 26,000 BTU's and over 500 square inches of grilling freedom. Anyone want to come over for burgers?