Martin Rickman: This week, I want to talk about something near and dear to my heart, Brian, and that’s grilled meats. I know that grilled meats is sports because there are cooking competitions on television and those people sweat a lot and, if you sweat a lot while you are competing in something, that makes it an athletic endeavor. Plus, it’s fun to eat grilled meats while you watch sports, so we have ourselves a double whammy type of situation.
But I don’t want to just discuss how much I love them because that wouldn’t be all that fun and it’d get weird really quickly, I want to try and rank grilled meats. It’s a holiday weekend, one of the first of the official summer season (and you will know that based on the number of commercials with dudes in aprons acting like fools near a pool, most likely), so we need this list. Okay, we don’t need it, but it is something you can scan really quickly while you are pretending to listen to your coworker Tom (Tom is fine, but if he tells that story about Tuscany one more time, I swear to God…).
Okay, so let’s begin. What’s your number one, best grilled meat?
Brian Grubb: Round 1, Pick 1 — Steak
Ugh. UGH. This is too much pressure. How am I supposed to pick any one thing here? It’s stressful. So stressful, in fact, that I offered to trade down and swap this number one for, say, Martin’s two and six, because grilled meats is a deep draft and picking 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9 would have been getting great value. Unfortunately, Martin replied “lol no” to this offer, so…
Yeah, steak. Gotta go steak. A big fat fatty ribeye, preferably, that gets taken off the grill before the flames dry it all out. There’s something that just feels right about that, cooking a largely unprocessed cut of meat like that over an open flame. Almost makes you want to eat it with your dang hands like a caveman, fellow guests at your cookout — family, friends, coworkers — be damned. I say try it. Best case, people will respect you for it. Worst case, they’ll be terrified of you. Either way, no one will interrupt your dinner.
MR: Round 1, Pick 2 — Burgers
Seeing as I wanted to trade down also, we really had a conundrum. Especially considering you took the entire category of steak away from me. So screw it, I’m taking burgers. I don’t care if it’s not fancy. I don’t care if people get mad at me and wish I’d taken something more exotic and exciting. I’m taking my pro bowl offensive tackle, and he’s going to play 15 years for this franchise, and he’s going to be in the Hall of Fame someday. Burgers are the cornerstone of my grilled meat organizations.
BG: Round 2, Pick 1 — Bratwurst
Bratwurst! The king of the wursts! Pull one of those suckers off the flame and hit it with some spicy mustard and grilled onions. Put it on a roll. Eat it. Wash it down with a bottle or can of beer of your choosing. That’s livin’, bud.
MR: Round 2, Pick 2 — Pork
You got STEAK, so I’m coming for you with PORK, my man. Chops, tenderloin, ribs (if you like grilling them), whatever. I know we’re not technically keeping smoker items on the table, but I just got my top player on the board with my second pick because he slid down to me. This is just smart drafting. Even if LeBron won’t eat it at my cookout.
BG: Round 3, Pick 1 — Chicken
YOU CHEATER. I JUST TOOK STEAK, NOT ALL BEEF. THIS IS MADNESS.
FINE.
I pick chicken. All of it. All of the chicken. Breasts, wings, thighs, drumsticks, drowned in enough BBQ sauce to drown… well, a chicken, I guess. No need to use more barbecue sauce than we need.
MR: Round 3, Pick 2 – Salmon
I DIDN’T WANT CHICKEN ANYWAY
[Quickly scrambles to look at notes, shuffles a bunch of papers, drops a pen on the ground]
Uhh, umm, yes, exactly, right where I want you.
Salmon is pretty good. You can grill it in a bunch of different ways, and it holds up well in case you had too many Tom Collinses and aren’t monitoring the grill super militantly.
BG: Round 4, Pick 1 — Other Fish
I am only selecting this because I want fish tacos. Like, in general, but also now. This draft is killing me. Never write about food on an empty stomach. That’s the main thing I’ve learned here.
MR: Round 4, Pick 2 – Shrimp
LOL YOU TOOK EVERY OTHER FISH WHAT IN THE HECK YOU JUST SECURED THE ENTIRE OCEAN OTHER THAN SALMON I AM COMPLETING THE REST OF THIS DRAFT UNDER PROTEST
You didn’t claim crustaceans, though! Boom. Grilled shrimp. Got ‘eeeeeemmmmm.
BG: Round 5, Pick 1 — Hot Dogs!
Technically, I already picked one tubed meat, and technically you already selected all pig-based products, but I do not care. I’m picking hot dogs. You gotta have hot dogs! And everyone can put whatever they want on them, even if it’s ketchup. I don’t even like ketchup on hot dogs (mustard and relish plz), I’m just so tired of people yelling about it even though most of them just found out it was bad like two years ago because a loudmouth TV host said so. Let me repeat this to be perfectly clear: Put whatever you want on your hot dog. It’s YOUR hot dog. Dip it in strawberry jam for all I care. This is America. Our forefathers fought for these kinds of freedom.
MR: Round 5, Pick 2 – Italian Sausage
Fine, I need a tubed meat, too. I just do. It feels right.
