Well, we met someone today who is not a blog writer and rarely a commenter, but he is certainly a blog reader. He and his partner reside in the lovely Perth suburb of Maylands and were on a semi regular visit to Melbourne for his partner's work. We met J for coffee near where he is staying and of course he was as pleasant and amusing as I expected he would be. You may not remember but we visited a very nice cafe in Maylands a couple of years ago with Grace of
Perth Daily Photo and her husband. The cafe is named
Chapels on Whatley and of course as a local resident, J was familiar with the cafe. Hmm, gays own the cafe. Who would have thought.
Anyway, the meeting yesterday was very nice, although only for coffee as we had something else to attend to and it is always best when meeting someone new to be a little cautious until you can ascertain they are not axe murderers or even that you just don't communicate well. Next time we will be more generous hosts.
This photo taken from our balcony is meaningless to anyone except to who we met yesterday.
So, from there it was shopping time and no not boring food shopping but for a new barbeque. While the direct replacement for our old one is available everywhere and discounted, not the model with the temperature gauge. It is only available from a few specialist Weber dealers and is never discounted.
I gave the old barbeque a major strip down and clean about 18 months ago and with only half the gas jets clear, which I fixed, and a serious build up gunk removed, it was working well enough, although the ignition switch no longer worked and I had removed it. There were a couple of things that steered us strongly into buying a new one. Firstly our friend T in Launceston cooked us a lovely roast pork and vegetables in her larger Weber with a temperature gauge. While it not essential to know the temperature, it helps. Also you have to cook the roast sitting on a trivet which then sits on a special disposable foil tray and the trivet would not be available to fit our old model, plus the lid is a little higher on the new one to give more clearance for a large piece of meat, and who doesn't like a large piece of meat. Also, I checked on the net and barbeque gas hoses and regulator are supposed to be changed every five years, although I suggest that should be longer, but our hose came with the barbeque and was fifteen years old. Just to replace the hose and regulator was going to cost $50.
I did my research online and so we bought it from a small local company, BBQS Plus. We also bought the trivet, the foil roasting trays, a wire cleaning brush and a new cover. Steak tonight!
This is our second barbeque cover. The first lasted eleven years, the second only a couple of years before it started to break down.
After fifteen years, we both felt we had our money's worth from the old one. The new one weighs about half the weight as the old one, so I don't if the new one will last as long. The question at our age is will it last for the rest of our life. I think we paid about the same in dollar terms for the old one as the new one, so that is a decent price reduction.
God help you if you touch anywhere else than the lid opening handle and the control dial. You will get black grease on your hands.
About half an hour to remove the old one and set up the new one and get rid of the packaging.
The grill bars are enamel whereas the old one had cast iron grill bars. These with be easier to clean.
All ready to go for tonight.
Later: The steaks were brilliant, just like the steaks on the old barbeque......ah, did we really need a new one? Yes, because hopefully we can roast with the new one and not stink out the place with the smell of roasting meat that can last for two days, never mind the subsequent oven cleaning. But there is no reason really that we could not have roasted on the old one. Bah, we stimulated the economy with our spending. It is the duty of the older to provide for the younger.