Happy New Year!   I hope you, your friends and your families had a great Christmas and are bringing in the new year by grilling! Oh, and maybe a few resolutions like “grill more veggies and fish”, “spend more time with family…grilling”, “grill instead of frying”.  

I missed a couple weeks of blogging, but it certainly wasn’t without grilling.  We had a lot going on so I thought I would share in a 3 part post.  I feel stupid since I actually got a cool new Sony Cybershot camera, and only have a couple pictures to share this time around, but had a ton of grill activity.

For More about my New Grill Addition, click “Read More” below:

New Grill Addition

Everyone keeps asking me if I really need 2 grills.  Well, I have made it this far without 2 grills, so I guess it isn’t an absolute need, but I am sure I will find enough family and friends to come over to create the need.  When my wife and I started planning for the New Year’s Day brunch, I was going to need 2 grills since our menu was mostly grilled stuff.  Eventually, we backed off and ended up grilling fewer items.  But the idea of 2 grills was now stuck in my head. 

I hit Craigslist, AZ republic, and other web sites hoping that I could find a good used grill just like my existing one.  I ended up calling Barbeques Galore Outlet store on Camelback Road and found that they had an Elite Turbo STS used (one step up from my existing Turbo).  Even though they don’t match, it was a great price and you can’t even tell it had been returned and it certainly didn’t look used.

Since my island is built from cinder block and has a 4 inch concrete top, this took me a few days to get the side burner whole cut bigger.  I rented a concrete saw from Home Depot for the big cuts, bought a concrete blade for my skil saw for medium cuts and a small angle grinder for the finer cuts.  I also had to pour a new concrete shelf above the door, repair tile, patch the stucco and paint.  But, I love doing this stuff even though I am a novice.

So, now I am prepared to feed a busload!

- GrillDude