I would like to make a short Public Safety Announcement to all my fellow Sports Fans (including Boston Fans). The NBA Playoffs are on and Summer is here, hence BBQ time. So while you are dishing up some delicious meat product, make sure there is plenty of safety served as a sidedish
. This occurred to me when I had B-Slim, the editor and Beastie, the QA doctor over for Game 5 of the NBA finals between Phoenix and LA. We decided to juggle watching the game, brewing a batch of beer, drinking a batch of beer and bbqing BACON wrapped hotdogs. And yes, I am now aware that this is a bad combination. While watching Ron Artest make the horrible decision of hoisting a three with 23 seconds left on the shot clock, then completely redeem himself with a hideous last second bank shot rebound and then make Craig Sager say “Queensbridge”: say it! I nearly burned my beautiful new backyard down. So here is your safety tip, Bacon cooks off a ton of Grease. And leaving the lid down on your gas grill, on high is a recipe for disaster. With billowing smoke coming from my Weber Gas Grill, I opened it to see flames hotter than the desert surrounding Phoenix. Running to get water was my next move and I doused the grill down and quenched the flames thirst. BUT, this is NOT the correct move in a Grease Fire.
About.com states in there tips “DO NOT PUT WATER ON A GREASE FIRE! This can not be stressed enough. 
Pouring water on burning grease or oil will not extinguish the fire. It will only cause the burning oil to splash, spreading the grease fire around.” Putting the lid down and cutting the supply of oxygen to the flames would have been best along with dumping baking soda on the flames. I have a fire extinguisher but didn’t run to use it because my eyes saw flames and my brains said water. So I got lucky.
I don’t suggest trying to grill bacon wrapped hot dogs. Although scrumptious, you can’t crisp the bacon with out upping the temperature. Earlier in the month, Over at the Editors house, we put the dogs on a broiler pan in the oven that allowed the grease to drip down and collect in the bottom of the pan. This allowed the bacon to crisp and was delicious and safe.
JUST BE AWARE, my fellow sport and bbq lovers. That is step one.
Last night, only one night later, I saw my neighbors bushes going up in flames behind our fence. I can only assume that Boston beat Orlando, and they were bbqing bacon wrapped hotdogs to celebrate.
This post is hot … but not as hot as Ryantific was after toasting those pork-wrapped pieces of pork. Luckily we had plenty of pork-wrapped pale ale to drown away those sorrows.
Dude, I think I saw something that looked like that hot dog in a porno recently. Get that thing out of my face!
On another note, not only is Ryantific a master of the grill, the dude’s got harmonica chops!