FIRST QUESTION: CHARCOAL OR GAS?

There's no doubt about it, old school charcoal does provide the true manly experience of setting something on fire and cooking over burning wood. It also adds amazing flavor to your food. But, if you're just an average weekend griller trying squeeze in a family barbecue after cutting the lawn, taking the kids to soccer, running to the grocery store, blah, blah, blah - then gas grilling is the way to go. It's just plain easier. You don't have to mess around with the charcoal, try to light it with jet fuel, and spend 45 minutes waiting for the sucker to heat up.

A good gas grill is easy to control, gives you a nice even heat and can go for about 16 to 18 hours non-stop on a tank of propane. It turns on instantly and is pre-heated and ready to go in about 15 minutes.

Instead of wood or charcoal providing the flames to cook by, modern gas grills have features that help you get the best flavor out of your food. Because gas is basically flavorless, the grilled taste you get comes from fat and juices dripping onto and burning on metal bars or lava stones.

Typical grills are lined with tube shaped propane burners. On many newer grills, like ours, on top of these burners is a heating surface made up of V-shaped metal plates rather than lava stones. Take it from us, lava stones are a pain in the ass to clean and the burned grease and fat build up on them and prevent the stones form distributing the heat evenly - they can also start to give your food a bit of a nasty flavor.

As the food cooks, the juices and fat sizzle on the metal plates and create that fabulous smoke that helps give your food more flavor. The best part is that the juices pretty much evaporate on contact with the hot metal and the flavor plates are easy to remove and clean.

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