Thing Not To Do Today: grill.

The fashion in cookery at the moment seems to be for recipes without nearly enough food in them. 

(Note to food journalists: lettuce, however ornamented, is not enough!)

Still, fashions come and go. A little while ago we were being asked to put chilli in absolutely everything, and before that (when fat was the enemy) we were supposed cook everything under the grill.

But grilling things is a nuisance. Half the time the flame on a grill is too far away from the food for it to be much more than a sun bed (even when the grill pan is propped up on two chopping boards) and apart from that you can't see what's going on, you can't get to your oven without doing contortions, and the washing up is horrendous.*

In any case, the fat's the best part.

A barbecue grill, I admit, is a slightly more convenient. It does at least incinerate the flies to something that can pass as charcoal.

There is another sort of grilling, one which involves asking searching, inescapable questions. It's occasionally permissible, and even charming, in a really curious three-year-old. 

Otherwise it's the realm of policemen, inquisitors, and tax collectors, and best avoided.

Thing Not To Do Today: grill. This word comes from the Old French gril, gridiron, from the Latin crātīcula, fine wickerwork.

*This may be just my cooker. 

I'm getting a new one.