I receive a lot joy from grilling with charcoal on one of my Weber kettle grills. Using charcoal is more trouble than using a gas grill, I won’t argue with you there. For whatever reason, though, it’s my thing and I do it year around. As much as I love it, I still find myself having trouble buying expensive cuts of meat. As in, “Those ribeye steaks sure would be great on the grill but they’re really expensive. I’d better not.”
For the sake of perspective, and for myself as much as you, let’s think this through. If instead of spending a money on a nice piece of meat, I take my family of four out to somewhere like McDonalds and we all get a combo meal — with CJ still having a Happy Meal — we could easily spend upwards of $30. If we go to a place like Applebee’s or one of our favorite Mexican or Chinese places we could be looking at $40 or even way more. Eating out is expensive, there are very few cheap options, at least not ones with decent whole foods.
Now, on the other hand, if I spend $20 on some nicely marbled ribeyes or t-bone steaks, throw on some baked potatoes, some fresh or frozen green beans in a foil packet, a two-dollar baguette loaf and a romaine lettuce salad — now that’s a meal! I can buy all that at the grocery store and spend less than $30. When it comes to red meat, really, an eight or ten-ounce steak is more than enough for even a big guy like me, and except for the salad, I can do that whole meal on the grill. Here’s what you get at the restaurant: Enough sodium to choke a mule, questionable meat quality, a frustrating wait, atmosphere that might be too loud for visiting, and a cost versus satisfaction ratio that leaves a lot to be desired.
Eating at home and grilling the entire meal can give you: meat quality that you control, controllable sodium levels, controllable “doneness” levels, time to visit while the food is cooking, the thrill of playing with fire, the health benefits of eating whole foods, you can keep from heating up your kitchen, and receive the satisfaction of doing all that yourself.
When you add all that up it just makes sense to stay home and fire up the grill. You can do all this on a gas grill or a charcoal one. I’m speaking of buying more expensive cuts of meat here but when you grill cheaper cuts like burgers, or whole chickens, pork tenderloin and things like that you can save even more money. It just makes sense, so here’s my message to you: Just spend the money and buy the meat! You’ll be glad you did. Happy grilling!
