Dinner at the Anchovy's

With our recent move, I've missed one or two installments of Dinner at the Anchovy's. Today's edition is inspired by my old friend East Texas Red. While helping us move, he noticed that the people who owned this house before us left behind a gas grill. Knowing that we use charcoal, he suggested that now we have a choice - to cook with gas or charcoal.

Today's topic: grilling and BBQ

I grill and BBQ using charcoal. I don't have anything against gas grills exactly. They're convenient, and, um, they're convenient. OK I admit it. I'm a charcoal snob. I cook with propane when I'm camping using a Coleman stove. I'm sure gas grills do an admirable job though, and I just haven't seen the light.

Most people I know use the words grill and bbq interchangeably. I guess up here in Toronto we don't have the same kind of slow-cooking bbq tradition we see all over the southern US. To me, bbq means hot-smoking meat at a low temperature for a long time. I use a Big Green Egg, which works well for both smoking and grilling. The egg is derived from an ancient Japanese clay cooker called a "kamado". It's made from ceramics and it looks like an egg. I like it because it has an excellent two damper system that enables me to maintain an even cooking temperature at any temperature. When I'm done, I shut off the dampers and the fire goes out, preserving the remaining charcoal for next time.

For BBQ, I like short ribs, brisket, pulled pork, and back ribs. This is an all day affair. I start in the morning, and slow-cook all day, occasionally mopping the food with a mixture of stuff that usually involves beer. There really are no short-cuts.

I grill more often then I bbq, mostly because it takes a lot less time. With the egg, I grill with the lid closed, and it does an excellent job on various meats, chicken, fish and veggies. The other day, we tossed a few cobs of sweet corn on the grill. Very nice. Sometimes I add a chunk of hickory or other hardwood to the charcoal for a smokier flavour. When we had our crab-apple trees trimmed in the backyard a few days ago, I saved quite a number of limbs to dry and use for the bbq. Apple is a very nice wood for this.

I have a container in the kitchen containing an ever-changing rub. This contains ancho chiles, smoked paprika, salt, pepper, ground garlic, a little cumin, a little sugar and anything else that strikes my fancy. As the container empties, I refill. Each batch is a little different from the last. I use the rub on meats prior to either grilling or bbq. Sometimes I mix some of the rub with apple juice or beer to make a mop, which I use during cooking.

From time to time, we'll bake bread or pizza outdoors on the grill. I use indirect heat and I lay the pizza or bread on a pizza stone, and bake at about 400f. I think you can do this on any grill, as long as you can create indirect heat. You don't want to burn the bottom of your bread while the rest of the loaf remains uncooked.

Do you do a lot of cooking outdoors? How do you go about it. Gas or charcoal? (I know a lot of people swear by gas, and I don't mind you setting me straight). What's your favourite food to cook outdoors? Do you have a rub or mop recipe you'd like to share?