Outdoor Summer Fun: Cooking Outdoors

Electric grills have neither problem mentioned above.  If cooking in a backyard it is likely you will have access to electricity.  Just check the weather, and if there is any danger of rain insure your grill is located where it will remain dry.

An electric grill can also be used for a picnic, provided electricity is available.  Usually parks have shelters with at least one outlet.  For picnics it is necessary to allow a grill to cool before loading it in a vehicle, but the cooling time is much shorter than waiting for coals to cool. 

However, a balance between capacity of the grill and weight of the grill must be considered.  You do not want to cook all day, but you must be able to handle the grill in transport.

Grills require long handle utensils.  Standard tools include a brush for adding sauce, a fork, and a spatula.  The handles are long to keep your hands away from the high temperatures a grill can produce.

Grilling baskets remove the need for the fork and spatula.  Baskets usually come with long handles and allow for flipping multiple pieces in a single motion.  The exception is the vegetable grilling basket, which must be grabbed and shaken.  Use protective oven mittens for vegetable baskets and all will be well.

Keep a source of water, or water based drinks, cold and available during an outdoor event.  Now, decorative inflatable coolers can add to your event.  Simply inflate a cooler, fill with ice, and add drinks.  Your party will take on a new meaning.

In summer months thunderstorms can occur with little warning, and after the passage of such a storm people naturally want to get back to whatever they were doing before the storm came.  Lightning can strike even before a thunderstorm is over you.  I recall one such event where a student at the university where I was teaching  was killed by lightning as a storm approached.  I heard the thunder, the first of the day, and went to the faculty break room to look out because it was extremely loud.  Three students were struck, one did not survive.

Fortunately, lightning can give warning.  To receive such a warning it is necessary to detect electric fields, which can be accomplished with a lightning detector.  This is a must for people who are often outdoors during all weather conditions.  And, personal lightning detectors are not that expensive.

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