A couple of days ago, the big Start of Summer day was officially inaugurated. I cleaned the detritus off the balcony -- old cigarette butts from the boors that still insist on smoking that were blown from their makeshift ashtrays (if I hadn't been a former smoker myself, they and their cigarettes could take the elevator all the way to the ground floor and smoke in front of the building, but I'm a nice guy and I let them indulge on the balcony. One thing's for sure -- most smokers are total slobs. I know I was. But I digress.)
I installed the nice little fake-rattan patio set and hauled out the Weber nano-grill and got all the BBQ paraphernalia out from last year. the project was Meditteranean-style chicken thighs, bone in, skin on -- a LOT of them. (I figure if I'm going to go to all the trouble, I might as well grill a huge batch to be stored away and eaten later.) I also ground some stewing beef for Brigitte and seasoned them to be kuftas (keftas, koftas, whatever you prefer).
And it was off to the races! I pre-baked the coals in a chimney starter and dumped them into the grill and started the chicken. The only trouble was, the hardwood charcoal had been sitting in a plastic box (sealed tight) on the balcony all winter, and despite the seal, had become damp. Thus, there was a lot of smoke. Then, the kicker -- no wind. So all the smoke just hung around the building.
I'm still on my first batch when Brigitte notifies me that my next-door neighbour, who happens to be the head of the building administration, has been getting calls from some tenant/condo owners about the smoke. Would it perhaps be we who were barbecuing? Well, we couldn't lie.
He reminded us that in the rules, no one was allowed to have a barbecue grill.
So I was shut down. Not just for that night, but forever. If they ever got a whiff of barbecue smoke from now on, bad things would happen. So . . . a summer without grilling.
That makes me fucking PISSED OFF.
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| The delightful new setup. Many a beer will meet its end here. |
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| Farewell, Mr. Barbecue |
Time to move? Bo BBQ in the summer is a major bummer. :O( Nice seet up though.
ReplyDeleteUmm . . . from the Ukraine, are you, sir? I hear up there they have the occasional camel-roast, though I could be wrong.
ReplyDeleteYup. Municipal bylaws. Same thing happened to me when I lived on the corner of Sherbrooke and Cavendish. I had just assembled my hibachi. Fun fact: Did you know you need a third hand to assemble a hibachi solo? Anyhoo, fire up the thing which resulted in muchos neighbours complaining Result: my mother in the suburbs is now the proud owner of a hibachi.
ReplyDeleteI suppose in the wrong hands a barbecue grill could become a Death Star. Maybe we should have to pass a Fire Dept.-authorized "Grill Handling Ability" test to earn a little pink star that meant we would start with a hibachi. Further tests would lead all the way up to a humongous eight-station gas grill.
ReplyDeleteJust imagine that: a "License to Grill!"
Total, utter SUCKAGE!
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ReplyDeleteThanks, Knattie! Jeez, I could hold 300 double flattop grills all at the SAME TIME if I had your spread. Sheesh.
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