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rhyme to help you remember: Case or two? Smoke or ’cue. Six-pack to kill? Go for the grill. “You grill steaks, chicken, sausage and burgers,” says Tim Acosta, advertising and marketing director of Rouses Markets, and the best backyard chef you’ll ever meet. “Grilling is an active process. You get your grill up and running, and cook over direct heat with a medium-to-hot fire, and you’re not walking away. From start to finish, you’re turning things around pretty quickly. You’re tending to the things on the grill.” Smoking, though, is a different animal entirely, and you’re going to have to make some time for it. “It’s low heat, and it could be anywhere from several hours to 10, 12, 16, even 18 hours, depending on what you’re smoking,” he says. Some of the best meats for smoking include ribs, pork butt, beef brisket and beef short ribs. CHARCOAL GRILLING 101 Propane grills are a pretty straightforward affair: They’re clean-burning and fuel efficient, and you can get the grill ready at a moment’s notice. It’s the most stove-like of the backyard cooking arsenal. Charcoal grills, on the other hand, need a bit of TLC to cook at their best. First, you have to pick your fuel source. Usually, it comes down to natural lump charcoal or charcoal briquettes. Practically speaking, the primary difference between the two is temperature: The natural lump charcoal burns hotter, and will burn longer as well, if you are diligent with the air intake for your grill or smoker. A good burn that lasts longer is essential when used in a controlled environment such as a Big Green Egg, an American-designed “kamado” grill (which is, in turn, a stove typically fueled with wood or charcoal, first developed by the Japanese and in use for centuries). Lump charcoal is made from 100% hardwood, with no additives. Charcoal briquettes, on the other hand, are not natural, but were developed with the environment in mind. They were invented in the early 1900s as a way to recycle all the scrap wood from the manufacture of Model T cars in Henry Ford’s assembly lines. The idea for such a product was concocted on a camping trip taken by Ford, Thomas Edison and Ford’s relative, Edward Kingsford (for whom the famous Kingsford Charcoal is

F irst, we need to define some terms, and then talk options. When it comes to cooking with fire outdoors, you have three main options. You can grill. You can barbecue. You can smoke. They aren’t the same thing! Grilling usually means cooking something hot and fast. Think hot dogs. Smoking involves cooking low and slow over indirect heat. We’ll talk more about that in a moment. Barbecuing — or “barbequing,” when you are feeling fancy — usually means cooking low and slow over an open flame, usually directly, though sometimes indirectly. For that, think about Memphis-style ribs, which spend around five hours on the grill with the sauce-slathered meat practically falling from the bone. The choice of technique depends mostly on how much time you have and how much beer you plan to drink. Here is a little

By David W. Brown Summer is here and with it comes yard work, (more) mosquitoes, baseball and — best of all — cooking over an open flame. And though I have no solution for mosquitoes, haven’t been to a baseball game since an altar boy field trip over 30 years ago, and have hated yard work for at least that long, if you want information on cooking outdoors, you have come to the right place. By which I mean, I have asked the experts at Rouses Markets, and am sharing their responses here. (I don’t even have a backyard.)

12 ROUSES SUMMER 2022