FirstGrill 2010
This weekend’s FirstGrill event was a lot of fun. The weather was perfect, the food was fantastic, and the guests all appeared to have enjoyed themselves. In honor of the 136th Kentucky Derby, Kathy and Dave arrived early and started making mint juleps for everybody. It was amazing we didn’t all fall down before things came off the grill!
We had four grills going this year (3 outside, 1 inside). The two gas grills were used for the pork, chicken, and burgers. The charcoal grill had the hottest fire so it was reserved for grilling the steaks from Morgan Ranch. the The new Cuisinart Electric grill was dedicated for grilling the vegetarian burgers and other none-meat items. Having all the different grills going at once made it a lot easier to get everything ready at the same time.
Grilled food and new kitchen gadgets were not the only things entertaining our guests. The Apple iPad also made the rounds for those who have not had first hand experience with the device. When was the last time anyone made a computer with an interface that was understandable by both an 80-year old grandmother and a 4-yr old pre-schooler?
One of our guests Eric was explaining the benefits of the iPad’s oleophic touchscreento his son Raj while our intern Sarah demonstrated. This was Sarah’s first time with the iPad. Apparently she got sucked in by the shiny gadget and completely forgot that she was at a social function. Fortunately, Sarah’s friend Chase took her aside and snapped her out of her trance.
There was a wide mix of folks at the event this year. Some were intrigued by the new above-ground vegetable garden, others were more interested in the Soda Stream and Cuisinart equipment. A few of the younger ones (Raj and Ray) just want a quiet spot to relax after they had their fill.
When Ray got his second wind, he decided to break out his new puzzle. We thought it would keep him occupied for a while, but apparently he is some kind of a puzzle-solving genius and the thing was solved in short order. We really should not have been all that surprised since it was rumored, although never indpendently verified, that Ray had cracked the BluRay DVD DRM encryption because he felt strongly about making copies for “personal use.” Of course, we came in at the tail end of the conversation and it may actually be that Ray had just cracked the DVD…
The one cooking-related problems we ran into was with the new Cuisinart ice cream makers. The lemon basil sherbet we tried to make never got frozen. We are still analysizing what went wrong. It is starting to look like user error as the ingredients may have been added too quickly into the bowl. The mint juleps may have had something to do with that. In any case, we are going to repeat the FirstUse test for the ice cream maker at a later date and under more “controlled” conditions.
Leave a comment