Dad's House

Grilling With Grandpa

My parents were in town last night and planned to meet me and my kids for dinner. Usually when they visit we eat in a nice restaurant. (My parents always offer to treat, and somehow that never gets old.) But I enjoy cooking, and with with Bay Area weather as warm as it was last night, I offered to BBQ.

Perfect. While Grandma and Grandpa took my son swimming at their hotel pool, and my daughter coached a soccer practice, I ran to the grocery store. (For some reason, I once again had an empty fridge. I swear a teenager eats for ten.)

I grabbed some vegetables and a pre-marinated tri-tip steak. Tri-tip comes as one big hunk of meat, and usually takes 45 minutes to cook (the grilling instructions on the label back me up on that point.) I fired up the barbecue and got the meat cooking, pronto.

Back in the kitchen, I mixed a perfect gin martini. I would have waited for my parents to arrive before shaking cocktails, but my dad was dead-set on getting himself a beer from the hotel’s complimentary Happy Hour. (Crappy beer, he admits, but hey, free is free.)

Then I got to work – chopping tomatoes and garlic for bruschetta, marinating asparagus in olive oil and balsamic vinegar, peeling potatoes and setting them to boil for mashing. Half an hour into the cooking, everyone showed up.

“Want me to check on the meat?” Grandpa asked.
“If you want,” I said. “Everything’s timed to be done in fifteen minutes.”
I was sipping my martini when he came in from the backyard.

“It’s medium rare,” he said.
“Already?” I asked. The potatoes weren’t even boiling yet.
“I cut into it. It’s pink inside”
“Well then, we better get it off the grill,” I said.
“Even if you take it off, it will keep cooking,” he said.
“All the more reason to get it off now. We aren’t eating for fifteen minutes.”

My dad got the meat off the grill and brought it inside.

“It’s medium now,” he announced. “It’ll be well-done by dinner time.”
Sigh. All of us like our steaks medium to medium-rare.

“You could slice it and let the heat out,” Grandma offered.
Great idea! I sliced while Grandpa watched.

“Look at that – it’s already well-done,” Grandpa said. “It’ll be black char by the time we eat.”

Why my martini didn’t kick in and put me in a more relaxed mood, I’ll never know. But at this point, I sort of lost it. “There’s not a whole lot I can do about it,” I said. “And having you say dinner’s going to be terrible doesn’t help!”

Grandpa smiled, not missing a beat. “I didn’t say it would be terrible. I grew up in the Midwest. We overcooked everything! Why, I remember as a boy eating meat so overcooked it could have been an old shoe!”

How is it that parents know just what to say? Somehow, that actually made me feel better.

Please pass the salt. It’s over there, next to the shoelace…

If you liked this post, you might also enjoy:

• Senior Moment
• Favorite Pumpkin Pie Recipes
• Grilled Asparagus Recipe
• Grilled Salmon
• Worlds Best Hamburger Recipe
• Italian-style Carrots Recipe
• Easy Banana Bread Recipe
• Neosporin Moms at the Playground
• Priceless Humor from Dad’s House

  |   Subscribe  |  © 2008-2010 David Mott, DadsHouseBlog.com. All rights reserved.

April 18th, 2008 Posted in family | Tags: barbecue steak, BBQ, grandparents visit, grilling steaks, humor, parenting, single dads | 4 comments