A man's grill

Ok - I see that the "Mommy" blogs get to post recipes and decorating tips and stuff like that. So if I'm writing a "Daddy" blog, do I get to do something similar? Maybe I could showcase my favorite wheel cleaning supplies or do a review of an XBox 360 game. But I want to deal with food-related things too. After all, I like to eat. So here it is—I'm going to tell you about my backyard grill.

I told my wife that I needed a new outdoor grill. I told her that I didn't want a gas grill—I wanted a manly grill, so that would have to involve real flames. So my wife headed out to the store and returned with the Big Daddy of all grills. It's a real wood, open flame grill. That's real wood, not charcoal—wood, like the kind you would put in your fireplace. It's awesome.

My son and I get to go pyro and stack up big chunks of wood, stuff leaves under the pieces of wood, and set fire to the pile. It makes a tremendous amount of smoke and fire and the flames last for a good long time, so you could cook a couple of meals on it if you happened to need to do two or more courses on the outdoor grill.

It also handles the special wood chips like mesquite better than any other grill I have ever used. Because of the serious amount of smoke this grill can produce, you can do a fantastic job smoking burgers and steaks and introducing flavors that just aren't possible on a gas grill, and aren't very easy to produce from charcoal grills. But on this grill its simple.

It may be a bit of overkill for the typical outdoor grilling adventure. But it sure is fun. And it also cooks a great steak! Really. It cooks better than any grill I've ever head. We cooked red snapper on it today—and that was incredible too.

So husbands, let your wives know that you need a MAN'S grill. Tell her it needs to take fireplace wood. Remind her that it's now springtime and you need this visceral connection with the land. Okay, that might be overdoing it. Maybe you should just head down to Lowes on your own and pick up one of these grills. Even if you're an accountant, you're going to look manly flipping burgers on this thing.