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Backyard Fireball Follies

Source of Recipe

>^..^<


The road to self-immolation, patio-style, was never a pretty sight. More alarming, though, is just how predictable these backyard fireball follies were, and how often they occurred. We can remember them as if they had happened yesterday. First, our dads would direct parsimonious squirts of lighter fluid onto the coals, light a match, then silently pray for ignition. When this failed, as it almost always did, they would douse the dark nuggets with a steady waterfall of lighter fluid, desperately goosing the can to produce long, arched streams. Then a second match. As the coals caught, our fathers were suddenly transformed into fire dancers from Samoa. In their Born to Grill aprons -- they should have read, "Born to BE Grilled" -- patio daddy-o's would perform strange hops, skips and jumps as they tried to dodge tongues of fire that leapt wildly out of the grill in search of the black, white and red Charcoal Wizard cans they still clutched precariously in their hands. "Hot potato, two potato, three potato, four..."

-- Gideon Bosker, from "Patio Daddy-O"