The Cookout...

A couple of weeks ago we got the chance to grill-out. Beth returned from her secret excursion to Wuhan with a beautiful grill that now resides on the balcony of mine and Brad's apartment. Brad put this thing together and it was beautiful. On our previous trip to Wuhan, we purchased charcoal. We thought we had everything in order but someone realized we didn't have lighter fluid. Ok. We will pick some up. Nope. None here. (Though, we might be able to use Zippo lighter fluid. Who knows?) The bag of charcoal was opened only to reveal what is strangely reminiscent of pieces of coal straight from the earth. Yeah, nothing close to the charcoal briquettes we are used to in America. I am sure they use the same stuff in steam engine locomotives.

After doing some research on the internet about starting grills without lighter fluid, we decided we should come up with a better solution than a chimney starter. (It was too complicated.) Many ideas were passed around...paper? Nope. (Doesn't burn long enough.) Gasoline? Nope. (Too dangerous.) Who-dey? Nope. (We would rather have him in a soup.) What about Bai Jiu? Come on, it's alcohol...albeit terrible alcohol. What better use of this stuff? (Strong start but didn't finish strong.) So, how should we light these coals? Peach grabs a coal and brings it into our kitchen and proceeds to light it over our stove top burner. Not a bad idea actually. The coal is lit after several minutes of loudly vocalized fear from the foreignors. Hooray! Now let's go light the other coals. Didn't work. So we ended up boiling the hot dogs for dinner. (I prefer them that way anyhow.) Not a bad dinner and it was accompanied by a fabulous lightning show. Dinner was saved but we didn't grill because the coals wouldn't light. 4 hours after our attempt, the one coal that had actually started eventually started the other coals and burned them into ash. Well, half a bad of coal gone. We know now to start the grills 6 hours before cook time. Oh China...live and learn.