There are some couples who dress the same, do everything together and work in harmony.
And then there is Team Corcoran.
Mary Beth and I have been married more than 35 years. We are two unique individuals. We don’t do the matching coats thing, and working together on projects can be a challenge.
For starters, both of us can lack patience at times. On top of that, I’m a horrible teacher and weak communicator. I know in my mind what I want and what I want to say, but it when I open my mouth, something gets lost in translation.
So, with all that in mind, on one of the hottest weekends of the year, I got the bright idea to go out into the backyard and start putting together the new table for our Big Green Egg ceramic cooker.
I’ve had the magical Egg for more than a decade. We’ve enjoyed countless meals on delicious items cooked off of it.
I wanted to upgrade the aging wooden table Sensei Jeff and I built when I first got the Egg. The top on that table has seen better days. And the new table is all steel, and on wheels, so I can tuck the unit right up close to the house when not in use.
Man, I knew there would be a lot of parts and a lot of assembly, but…there were A LOT of parts.
Mary Beth joined me soon and we set to putting it together.
The instructions for the table were limited in details, as per usual for these things. We both had difficulty interpreting them. Add in my poor communicating and the muggy weather, and there was a level of Corcoran frustration.
But we managed to get the pieces attached, and forged ahead.
With my “excellent” instruction-reading skills at play, we eventually got all four exterior legs attached. Mary Beth went inside for a break while I looked at the instructions a bit more.
It turns out, we had installed all four legs incorrectly.
I flipped one leg at a time.
To Mary’s credit, when she came back outside, she didn’t laugh at me.
We continued plugging away, contorting to get to hard-to-access screws, and finished the table.
Mary Beth and I survived another project together; we have a great new Egg table with prep space on either side of it and I still have to “plan” where to put the table on the patio, what to store in its cabinet and on its shelves, etc., etc.
Such “planning” usually involves a beer or two while sitting on the patio, pondering and hydrating.
The Egg got a great workout the following weekend, when friends popped by for some patio relaxation and dinner. Six huge Schinkels’ ribeye steaks took up the entire grill. It’s never been so full of meat before.
We also cooked corn on the cob on the Egg. I have a half-moon-style elevated grill that I used for the corn as the steaks cooked. It worked great.
Dinner was awesome, but I think a weak link (if there was one) was the seasoning on the steak. I did not use enough.
Corn on the Egg
Speaking of the corn on the cob, people often ask me about what we cook on the egg and such. I am no recipe expert. I just cook what I’m told. I do season much of it and have a great selection of barbecue-specific seasonings. But most of the time, Mary Beth and Brenna deliver the recipes and ideas.
Brenna found a recipe for corn on the cob coating. We’ve done corn in the husk on the Egg before, but now, that is out the window. It’s now cobs of corn individually wrapped in tinfoil on the Egg, and rather than smearing butter on the cooked corn, we used a cream-based sauce exploding with flavour. It has Cajun and Tajin seasoning, smoked paprika, parsley and parmesan cheese.
Try it; you’ll love it!
