Grilling season?  What is this grill of which you speak?

This, I think, is one of the fundamental disconnects between life in a really big city like New York, and life in the rest of the country.  The back yard barbecue?  Well, when you don’t have a back yard, there’s no point to worrying about whether to buy citronella candles or those new OFF! clip-ons.  You may have room for the people, but there is no place for a grill.  I read an article in the New York Times food section last week about grilling food over an open wood fire.  I don’t know who that article was aimed at, but it certainly wasn’t people living in Manhattan.  I know that in much of the country, grilling in the back yard is a quintessential summer activity.  Honestly, though, to me it seems like something that happens in some kind of alternative universe.  You know, the universe where I look up at the kitchen counters and get gold stars when I turn in a paper.  It seems to go with a suburban, married-with-kids lifestyle that also seems unbelievably remote to me in my current life.

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