Not speaking from experience here (fortunately!) but someone posted this and I thought it was funny. Certainly seems to be how it works in my sister's family.

When a man volunteers to do the 'BBQ', the following chain of events are put into motion:

The woman goes to the store.
The woman fixes the salad, vegetables and dessert.
The woman prepares the meat for cooking, places it in a tray along with the necessary cooking utensils, and takes it to the man,
who is lounging beside the grill, 3rd beer in hand.
The man places the meat on the grill.
The woman goes inside to set the table and check the vegetables.
The woman comes outside to tell the man that the meat is burning.
The man takes the meat off the grill and hands it to the woman.
The woman prepares the plates and brings them to the table.
After eating, the woman clears the table and does the dishes.
Everyone praises the man and thanks him for his cooking efforts.
The man asks the woman how she enjoyed "her night off" and, upon seeing her annoyed reaction, concludes that there is just no pleasing some women!

I like your sig! Reminds me of Episode 3 :)

(/derail)

Bah! If left solely to men, BBQ would involve grilling at least three different kinds of meat (like, say, a tenderloin, a spenser, and a New York) , a complete absence of vegetables, and eating right off the grill.

I like your sig! Reminds me of Episode 3

Coincidence? ... perhaps...

That's because people in CA don't know how to do real BBQs. :P

When I would go to BBQ's in Texas, they weren't these crappy outdoor grilling events that they have out here in the NE - they were <b>real BBQ</b> events. That means someone spent a <i>minimum</i> of 10hrs putting meat in a smoker rig, spicing it, making sure it was cooking properly, etc. And this was truly a guy's domain, and most women were happy to let them do it. Even if there was potato salad, coleslaw, roasted corn on the side, 98% of what was eaten was the meat anyway - the only thing the woman was in charge of was good (and varied) deserts - <b>but</b>, it was considered polite custom to have the invitees supply both the deserts and sides since the cost of roasting most of a cow was usually pretty high - even in Texas.

Damn I miss brisket.

Geez... posted in the wrong thread again.

You just always gotta do things bigger there in Texas, dontcha.

I'm thinking of buying a Smoker this weekend. I have spent 2 summers without a Grill because the last one I had burnt up. Come to think of it. It happened when there was no woman around...

No self-respecting man lets a woman anywhere near the meat he's going to grill up =P

The rest of it is true though =D Of course that's because men wouldn't bother with vegetables if he had his way. Just more meat.

I think you missed the step where all the guys stand around and discuss the best way to light the fire.

I have it on good authority that beer can be substituted for grains, fruits, and vegetables in any meal without compromising good nutrition.

I think you missed the step where all the guys stand around and discuss the best way to light the fire.
I lived in a group house for a while and we would have weekly competitive BBQ lighting exhibitions. They were great fun but they escalated to the point where we were no longer able to use the BBQs for cooking due to residue from the accelerants we were using. Our neighbors didn't care much for the competitions. Fortunately for us their complaints probably saved us from Darwinizing ourselves.

Hmmm when I bbq, hamburgers or brawts especially, I prepare everything cuz women usually don't do it to my liking.

That's because people in CA don't know how to do real BBQs. :P

When I would go to BBQ's in Texas, they weren't these crappy outdoor grilling events that they have out here in the NE - they were <b>real BBQ</b> events. That means someone spent a <i>minimum</i> of 10hrs putting meat in a smoker rig, spicing it, making sure it was cooking properly, etc. And this was truly a guy's domain, and most women were happy to let them do it. Even if there was potato salad, coleslaw, roasted corn on the side, 98% of what was eaten was the meat anyway - the only thing the woman was in charge of was good (and varied) deserts - <b>but</b>, it was considered polite custom to have the invitees supply both the deserts and sides since the cost of roasting most of a cow was usually pretty high - even in Texas.

Damn I miss brisket.Did a NICE brisket Monday. Started a dry rubbed brisket on the smoker at 7:30 am and finished at 6:15 pm. Added a few pork ribs for the last few hours and basted once an hour while it cooked at 175 degrees. Potato salad (for the "purists"), tabouli, fruit salad, a special recipe corned bread, and a pot full of corn on the cob! Yummmm! 14 people and we didn't have a lot of left overs. :)

The reason Californians don't know how to do REAL barbeque is because they don't differentiate between meats marinated or basted with a barbeque sauce and just plain grilling. In California you are invited to a barbeque and are handed a hamburger! I grill almost every night in the summer on the gas grill... main course meat and vegetables usually, but when it comes to barbeque I have a huge rolltop smoker with a firebox to the right side and a smokestack to the left. Anything barbequed for less than 12 hours isn't done. BTW... you don't need a man to make wonderful barbequed brisket and ribs. In fact, I find it usually comes out better if I do it myself. ;P

How real men light BBQ grills (http://ep.llnl.gov/msds/Chem120/lox-oxidation.html)


More pics and a movie (http://www.doeblitz.net/ghg/) (scroll down)

Yeah, I got really confused at first when all my friends up here in New York kept saying that they BBQ'd every weekend, in my mind I was like, "Hell, that's a lot of time and money."

Turns out they meant "grilling"... they "grill" every weekend.

Such a let down :(

And no offense to you, Arienne - I'm sure you make a fine brisket, but of the 99% majority of the Texas BBQ's I've been too, the good ones were always done by men, but they were usually semi-to-retired men who considered this their new "calling." Making sure they have the correctly aged and dried mesquite or cedar (or apple/peach for adventurous types!), seeing that the brisket has been dry aged for at least a week, marinating in the rub for at least four hours - and all that before the meat even gets hot!

However, best apple pie I ever had nearly blew the entire memory of the amazing brisket out of the water. An old HS friend's grandmother made and old fashion apple pie in a Dutch Oven with five different apples grown in her own orchard (which was weird, because apples don't grow real well in Texas). "Organic" butter (ie: her neighbor made it), and the oven lined with good ol' fashion lard (none of that "vegetable oil" crap!).

Damn... that was good pie.

My ex-sister-in-law built herself a brick oven in the backyard, wood-fired, and used to bake bread, pizza and stuff in it. Was an awesome cook! But I don't define baking by her extreme way of doing it.

BBQ might mean something different in TX, in CA it means you fire up the grill and slap down something... meat usually, although I've grilled bananas, veggies and pineapple.

I can't cook for crapola but my dad was better cook than mom.

Dad could make all kinds of different breads without one of those machines and better. Mom was better on lasagna and sweets but other than those areas dad won hands down.

Also I'd say pretty much the entire south, includeing Texas BBQ means a sauce is put on the meat at some point. I'm not sure about further west. If its hamburgers they will invite you to a "hamburger grill" or "cookout"

Some do the meat first and then put the sauce on later, others cook it right in. Even in Tennessee there is a difference in BBQ from one side of the state to the other. Western Tennessee is more like Mississippi BBQ than East Tennessee. Also there's lots of BBQ shops/stands in the small towns from West Tn and south. The ones to go to are usually some ran down looking greasy looking joint with smoke coming out the back. Those places are much better than the chain BBQs that are also popular in the south. Just make sure theres lots of cars there. If the lot is empty its probably not worth eating. .

Throwing a party and inviteing everyone to it as a "BBQ" and grilling burgers would get comments in Tennessee and in Mississippi you'd probably be thought of as crazy.

We do Burgers to, but when you say BBQ you have kicked it up a notch, to borrow from emril.

I have been looking into getting a new grill to replace my burnt up one. The old one that I had used to have a built in Rotisserie. The only problem now is I can't find a grill with built in rotisserie for under $600 now. I don't really want to spend that much on a grill. I just need a small grill because usually I am only cooking for 2 people. My favorite is to roast up a Tri-Tip on the rotisserie. I also think it would be nice to have a smoker.

BBQ might mean something different in TX, in CA it means you fire up the grill and slap down something... meat usually, although I've grilled bananas, veggies and pineapple.

When I lived in California I thought grilling to them meant filling the grill with a couple of tins of lighter fluid and lighting that off. Maybe that is why they are grilling fruit. I can't imagine lighter fluid would stay lit long and it shouldn't take long to grill fruit.

Hmmm... I've got a gas grill, so I can't speak to that. But lighter fluid gives things a nasty flavor. Man, I wouldn't want to just use that!

In San Fransico grilling fruit means something else entirely.