When I'm in Paris I eat croissants, baguettes and escargot. As soon as my plane lands I eat a Philly Cheesteak or a Cheeseburger. How much more American can you get? When in America do what the Americans do. In this same vein I'm tring to learn to BBQ. This may sound silly as anyone can light a fire and throw meat on it right? I know how good BBQ can be but I rarely get to experience it because what happens is I go to someones house and they throw some ribs on the grill and you spend the rest of the night trying to get the meat off them and finally give the job over to the dog who has no better luck.

This is NOT what I'm talking about. I'm trying to learn to do it right. Take one cut of meat and cook it until I've mastered it and then move on to the next. Once I have a cut of meat down I can then justify buying Prime or Choice but until then it's Select for me. I've found a couple of sites that seem to be pretty good in helping the helpless BBQ and I've added them to the Food links.

• Lump Charcoal Reviews
• Amazing Ribs
• HomeBBQ

People who use store bought Matchlite quicklite charcoal and douse it with lighter fluid are not quite who these sites are aimed at. Lump charcoal (with no added fuel) is about the best but not all is created equal. The first site reviews lump charcoal for temp, burn time and ash buildup. As soon as I find one of the reviewed brands locally I'll post a note. The other two sites are about all things BBQ. They have reviews of smokers and grills.

I will probably be buying the Weber Smokey Mountain smoker and the Char-Griller grill because of reviews on both sites. I'll have modifications to the Char-Griller to do which are also outlined. Because I plan on getting the WSM I may change my choice of the Char-Griller to something else without a smoker attachement if it means a better grill. I'm not sure, I'll let you know later.

Grant