Hmm, a blog. Not sure what to do….. So my best friend, my brother, and sometimes an old pain in the tush says Ray, why don’t you write a little something about your grillin’ expertise and put down some recipes or something and write a little something maybe once a week for me. So I got a few anecdotes and maybe even some recipes. I thought about it a lot this afternoon, wondered what do I know that might make somebody’s time worth spending reading what I might have to say. So having never looked at Tom’s web site, I went on, listened and read and it came to me. I’m going to tell you a story, that has nothing to do with cooking but everything to do with filling your appetite, your hunger for having a nice life, your thirst for goodness. It was about 15 years ago, I was a younger, energetic man that had a passion for getting ahead, working harder than everyone else and didn’t always care about those around me, just believed in working hard. I was sent to Lake Mary, Florida to open a store and was told to meet a guy down there and he was going to help me get a store open. I think to myself as I head down there he better have his working shoes on, and stay out of my way and let me do my job. As I pull into the parking lot, I see an old beat up blue car, it’s early in the afternoon and I think to myself, this is the store manager that I’m suppose to be meeting. The door opens up, the guy reaches through put’s his hand on the roof and pulls himself out. Out comes one of the biggest dudes I have ever seen, he introduces himself as Tom Madison. I think to myself, that my workload has just doubled because there is no way this guy can get around and do what needs to be done. We go in together and survey the store and I do my little punch list. It’s only about 10 pages long. I give it to him and off we go. Unbeknownst to me, my life would be changed forever, for the better. Tom has a knack you see, for getting people to do things, including me, ha ha. His love for just being good, makes you want to do good. I later in a shallow way told him that I had sold him short and I also apologized in a shallow way. It didn’t matter to him. He taught me that it isn’t how you look and what you do, but that it’s truly the individual that makes the difference. That ended my days of forming an opinion about somebody before I know them. Yeah, you still have the gut instinct that you form when you are meeting somebody, but you now have the patience to let them prove your instinct right or wrong. So this is my first recipe, and it truly comes from the heart…Start your day, appreciating it, setting a goal and do your best to make a new friend, or at least putting a smile on someone else’s face. If you do that, an old bologna and cheese will taste like steak and pot of beans will be your favorite gumbo. I hope to make a difference in someone’s life like Tom has made in mine.

The Grilling Man