Forked Again

MY VERSION:
Last night I almost ended up eating rubber. Not what you'd expect from a simple BBQ right? Right.

The culprit was a BBQ fork. This fork is supposed to tell you if your food is cooked the way you want it to be cooked. The fork was black. Hubby went to start up the BBQ and get the steaks going. Then he began deciphering the instructions on the package. Pretty simple instructions. Nothing unusual to note.

Part way through the BBQ process, hubby stuck the fork in my steak, and walked back in the house, noting that one of the prong tips was black but the other was silver. You see there were little black rubber point protectors (which the packaging did not say anything about), and now one of them was missing.

It either fell on the floor, or the ground outside.........or was in my steak!

Yes, one of the little rubber tips lodged itself in my steak and had to be dug out.

Now imagine this happening to someone with poor eyesight, or someone who doesn't pay attention to such things.

They would have had an extra bit of chewiness with their meat.

HIS VERSION:
It all started out when a close relative decided she didn’t need a “heat-sensing” BBQ fork, because she had moved into a condo and couldn’t use a grill on the balcony – so she gave it to us.

This dandy little device tells you the temperature of the meat you’re cooking (rare, medium, well-done) just by sticking it the meat and pressing a button on the handle. The read-out tells you how your cooking is progressing. Since I usually overcook on the BBQ, this item seemed like a no-brainer. I took it out of its original wrapper and proceeded to use it last night on the steaks. The sensors in the prongs were self-evident – somewhat overlarge black parts at the ends of the fork.

I threw the steaks on, confident that THIS time there would be no overcooking. Stuck the fork in as the cooking progressed – watched as the readout finally registered that they were cooked exactly the way we both like them – hers done to medium, mine to medium rare! It was about then that I noticed the fork looked different – one prong was suddenly chrome metal! I turned over her steak and there it was – the rubber tip sticking in her steak. As Homer would say “DOH!”. The rubber tips were actually protective covers for each fork tip. Chagrined, I quickly removed the steaks from the grill. The rubber tips had insulated the fork’s temperature sensors. Her steak ended up REALLY well done (ugh!), mine just ordinary well done. I checked the packaging that the fork came in – no mention of removing the protective rubber covers anywhere. Plus she almost got to eat one.

So much for modern technology – garbage in, overcooked steaks out. Hummph.