Get Ready for Grilling

New York Times

16-05-2025

Good morning. We're a week out from Memorial Day weekend, the unofficial start of summer grill season. For those who take part in the festivities, first with a holiday cookout and then with regular meals cooked outside over flames and coal, as many as they can manage for the next few months, the next two days are important.
Because how's that grill looking, after half a year spent alone and untouched in the yard, on the deck, in the garage, under the stoop? Did you clean it the last time you used it? Do you have charcoal? Do you have propane? Wood chips? Pellets? (Do you even grill, bro?)
This is the weekend to get everything sorted, cleaned and prepped, so that you can head into the holiday with confidence, with equipment that's ready to serve you as you desire to serve others, in memory of those who gave their lives in service to us all.
I can help because I'm bossy. I can say with confidence (and experience) that if you spend a few hours tomorrow outside and at the hardware store, if you scrub and scrape and test and look around for that great spatula you haven't used since late September, you can make grilled hamburgers (above) for dinner and count yourself prepared for the season ahead.
My colleagues at Wirecutter, The Times's product recommendation site, can help because they do more than shout from a bully pulpit. They test, and test again, and test once more, to deliver ideas not just for what equipment you should use to cook, but how to use it, and to what end.
They did this for weeks this year, in advance of this very moment. And they've emerged with new recommendations for gas grills, for gas griddles, for barbecue sauce. They can tell you about the best charcoal grill (that's me in the photograph at the top of the page!), the best pellet smoker and the best tools for grilling, all alongside great advice for how to grill safely, how to detect gas leaks, how to maintain your equipment and much, much more.
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