By Cecil Poole

Barbecue is big in this part of America.  Big in most parts of America.  Barbecue is not what Australian’s would recognise.  Here Barbecue is slow cooking, highly flavoured, often ribs – beef or pork, or pork butt, cooked over ten or more hours then pulled.  No quickly seared steak or chops, no burnt snags, to do that you need a ‘grill’.

I’d been given instructions.  “The delivery will be this afternoon.  Make sure everything is there, that there is no damage, sign nothing until you are completely sure all is in order.  Be careful.  Don’t move it till I get home.”  I doubt he was this concerned with the delivery of his second son and third child just two weeks ago.  Nor, possibly, looked forward to it as much.

So I await delivery, periodically looking out the front window, then the back.  Checking nothing has disturbed the specially prepared place for it.  Months back, while I was still in my antipodean home I got the news – “Dad!, I’ve ordered the new smoker, specially built in Maine.  Look at the web site, check it out.  And, oh, Dad, we are having another baby.  The smoker is called a Half Pint.  And, Dad, I’ve ordered it in ‘cotton candy’* pink.”

I’m still waiting for the ‘special delivery’ when the Daughter in Law (DIL) gets back with the three children.  Would I take the elder boy (nearly 3) in the stroller down to look at the new bike tunnel and see the construction equipment, the diggers, graders, rollers and bobcats?  ‘Of course’ I say, and head off rugged up against the late winter chill.  The boy and I visit the roller, he climbs onto the seat and pretends to drive it.  He climbs all over it, looking for dirt and oily patches, much as a dog looks for vile things to roll in.  He has to sit in the bucket of the bobcat, climb the wheels of the grader, climb the nearby pile of aggregate in a manner designed to spread it out as quickly as possible.  An hour goes quickly by.   Then I remember – The Delivery!

Hurrying back I see a delivery truck with a hydraulic tailgate and a man with a large fork trolley returning from the alley.  Has the DIL accepted delivery without a proper inspection?  I rush to see, and to my relief my son is there with the biggest smile I’ve seen in some time, and a largish cardboard box on a smallish pallet.

We unwrap it fast and there it is.  In all its glory.  Built like a cross between a small bank safe and an old refrigerator, heavy hinges, solid door latches and industrial casters.  This thing looks like it is built for business.

Except that colour.  Shocking Pink.

“No, Dad, ‘Cotton Candy’ is the true colour.”

* Cotton Candy is known as ‘Fairy Floss’ in Australia, it is spun sugar.