Super-sized barbecue

Have you noticed how barbecues are putting on some serious weight these days? We bought our current grill five years ago and it looked average then; it's always worked well for us and except on very rare occasions, we’ve only used half of its cooking capacity. Today, it's become tiny, dwarfed by all the giants, stainless steel cooking centers displayed at most home improvement stores. I guess, they simply make them bigger after realizing that just like the volume of the house, the height and length of the SUV, the amount of credit card debt and the size of the owner’s pants, a huge barbecue is what gives a fair measure of an individual’s status in life. So the bigger, the more powerful, the most features, the better! Soon, they’ll have to increase the size of hot dogs and hamburger patties so people still manage to see them on the expansive cooking surface, and what have now become tiny pieces of meat won’t risk falling through the giant grates. Better than the stimulus package checks we’ve all paid for and are supposed to receive in the mail any day now, fabricating bigger burgers, larger chicken and enlarged pigs to fit our giant barbecues could certainly boost the economy and along with it, the already bulging waistline of the nation. Well, I should know better; things always happen for a reason…