Prayer After Eating
I have taken in the light
that quicken eye and leaf.
May my brain be bright with praise
of what I eat, in the brief blaze or motion and of thought.
May I be worthy of my meat.
– Wendell Berry
As we’ve been adjusting to living in the parks in our tiny home, the biggest (and best) change is how much of our life is spent outdoors. Not just hiking and exploring the parks, but even in living. The outdoors is an extension of our living room and kitchen, a place to read, nap, cook. And for the first time in our lives, grilling over a hot fire has become a regular part of our cooking repertoire, and it is awesome.
S is our appointed grillmaster, and we have both fallen in love with our grill, a hibachi-styled, pre-seasoned, cast-iron specimen called the Sportsman (by Lodge). (Nope, this is not a product placement, but it may as well be…we adore this grill and can’t say enough about it.)
Parks that allow fires may have grills on top of the pit – handy, but often crusted with rust and too far above the fire to be efficient in cookery. Parks that don’t allow fires (such as many in the dry Western parks), often provide a charcoal grill, but these wider open grills use a lot more charcoal than our little nugget and are of questionable cleanliness.
The Lodge has little legs so we can set it atop our picnic tables, a shallow pit for charcoal and a sliding “draft door” that allows ventilation and air to stir up the flames. The grill top can be flipped over to bring it closer to the flames, and there’s a cauldron handle that makes for easy carrying.
This little guy allows us to use fewer briquettes and get coals going in 10-15 mins, and we can grill ourselves a thick rib-eye or lamp chops and veg (in tin foil packets) for dinner in another 15-20. Delectable. Adorable. Efficient. Very worthy of the meat. May we likewise be as worthy.