I Can't Seem To Find...

July 3, 2011

                                                               

No matter where I have looked - grocery stores, Wal-Mart, the Depot - I simply cannot find charcoal lighter fluid for the grill anywhere.  Oh, sure, there are bags of charcoal, but no lighter fluid.  When I have asked someone for help, I usually get the same confused response:  "I'm not sure if we carry that.  Did you look by the charcoal?"

And speaking of charcoal, wood-chip briquettes seem to be the preferred type of charcoal here.  Finding a good old bag of Kingsford is almost as hard as finding the accompanying lighter fluid.  And anyone who has tried the Match-Light version - the one where you supposedly don't need the lighter fluid - well, you know that's a bunch of hooey. 

So Lisa found this tiny bag of charcoal that you lay in the bottom of the grill and light the bag on fire, and the burning bag acts as the lighter fluid, igniting the small amount of charcoal within.  Problem with that is that you cannot regulate how much charcoal you use, so you may end up wasting half of the contents of the bag.  If it's just 2 people, it's way too much charcoal.  For a family of four making burgers, it's probably just aboot right.  But I want to be able to pour as much as I want/need into my Weber, douse those babies until my heart is content, and be able to squirt some more on when it looks like my fire may be dying, creating a massive Michael Bay-esque fireball on my patio.

I've tried researching online to see if there are regulations concerning the sale of charcoal lighter fluid in Canada, British Columbia, and/or Kelowna, but have come up with nothing (other than a million links to info aboot Zippo lighters).  I really don't want to use gasoline.  As much as I love the Michael Bay fire-plume, it's far too dangerous - and the gasoline makes the food taste terrible.

Unfortunately, when we were getting ready for the move, we found oot that there were certain things we couldn't put on the moving truck - lighter fluid being one of them.  If we had known that it would be this hard to find any up here, I'd have stashed the bottle in the trunk of my car and drove it up myself.  Who'd a thunk it would be impossible to get freakin' lighter fluid, of all things, up here? Do the rough and tumble frontiersmen here consider it cheating when lighting a fire?  I know there is a lot of camping here in the Great White North.  Lots of true-to-nature aborigines (Canadians do call their native populations 'aborigines' - if that is with or without malice, I cannot say for sure, but I personally consider it a non-offensive term) may be opposed to the notion of lighter fluid (though I also don't think they are big consumers of charcoal briquettes).  But there are also millions of urban peoples with Webers and tiny green Hibachis on their decks and patios - and my guess is that these millions of Canadians don't forage for kindling and firewood to put in their grills to be lit by a flint.  I certainly don't want to have to contact the local chapter of the Boy Scouts every time I want a brat, burger, or sirloin.

So if there are any of you oot there still playing "Mobsters" on Facebook, I would appreciate if your cartel of crime could start a lighter fluid bootlegging business and ship some of that wonderful flammable hooch our way.  Summer's just starting and I want to be able to play Firestarter as soon as possible.  I promise you, there's an ice cold Molson waiting for the first one who helps us oot...