Delayed Gratification

When you start dating someone at sixteen, you don't realize how much you have to learn about them.  Their likes and dislikes, talents and struggles, pet peaves and those cute little quirks that eventually aren't so cute anymore.  It was a fun season of our relationship that seems very long ago some days.  What is really fascinating is how many of those things I learned about Brent in the early 1990s are still the same, this many years later.  

 

I can't remember exactly when during that fall Brent first cooked for me.  It may have been on New Year's Eve.  Anyway, he made the best steaks I had ever had, and his burgers were out of this world!  Not the average sixteen year old talent.  When we got married, his grandparents gave him a gas grill that we used until it wore slap out.  I think it made it through med school, but by Winston Salem, we were on our second grill.  It held up pretty well, but we ended up leaving it as a house-warming gift for the couple who bought our little house on Briar Glen Road.  

When we got to Gainesville, a grill was not in the budget.  At least, not the grill he wanted.  So we decided to wait and save for a nice, forever kind of grill.  We eventually bought a little charcoal Weber grill that he used on the driveway.  It worked great, and we all fell in love with that charcoal flavor again.  

So this summer, he got the bug to get an egg shaped grill.  Right after the 4th of July, he went and picked it up.  Here he is with his new favorite toy.  Also known as the fourth child.

 And here are two yahoos posing with Daddy's new "greel" as Jon Jon calls it.

We have decided that he will cook on Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday nights from now on.  I am thrilled with this new development.  If you know Brent at all, you will not be surprised to learn that he is continually scouring the internet for new ideas to try.  We've had awesome burgers, turkey burgers, chicken breasts and this beauty so far.  In the background you can see the two best baked potatoes ever cooked by a human being.

Saturday night, he decided to make pizza.  He even made his own dough!

We had to buy a pizza peel.  Here is the first one before going on the grill.

And afterwards.  It was quite possibly the best pizza I have ever eaten.  And I only say quite possibly so that you who did not get to sample it don't feel too badly.

          

We are looking forward to many more years of great cooking with this grill, and of course our favorite grill master.  Brent, we are so proud of all you have accomplished and how hard you work at everything you do.  We are thrilled for you to finally have time for a fun hobby.