This being summer, it’s the season for being rained on at barbecues. Since I like my meat actually cooked, rather than ‘rare’, I have to spend a lot of time watching whatever is being made on my behalf. Food in preparation always gets shuffled about on a grill a fair bit, making tracking one’s forthcoming steak much more difficult.
Today’s invention is a dogtag for barbecue items which helps ensure they are cooked to your taste.
On arrival at the cookfest, you would be handed several tags made of a heavier than usual aluminium foil. Each tag has an alphabet pressed into it which allows you to punch holes where your initial letters appear (using eg a wooden skewer, or at a pinch, a pencil).
Having done this, the selected pieces can have a normal bulldog clip attached to their edges and a tag twisted around the ring on each bulldog clip, gripping it securely and allowing it to be identified irrespective of orientation.
Similar punched holes in the tags can be made to express your sauce preferences and to allow the chef to easily determine whether bleu or bien cuit (cindered) is required. The clips can be dishwashed clean afterwards and the tags discarded.
