Guerrilla Grilling: The Weber Shoot

Most people probably consider my idea of a vacation a little warped.  More often than not, I use my time off from work…to work.  Crazy, I know.  With that in mind, what do I call a week of sticky weather, long days, and hot grills?  Simple, a work-cation.

Last week I had the wonderful opportunity to work with my friends at Weber on a photo shoot.  My job was the same as it was in LA this past March: grill and food styling, while standing in as the occasional hand and foot “model.”  It’s work, but it’s not.

Grilling eighteen meals across four ten hour days is not a solo endeavor, which is why I was thrilled to work with Jennie, who runs the Weber test kitchen and her own blog, appropriately titled, “Jennie’s Test Kitchen.”

While we had the food cornered, Chicago-based award winning photography Paul Elledge was tasked with capturing it all.

Not only was it a privilege to work with Paul, it was fun to just watch him work.  

In fact, after watching his workflow, I feel obligated to add the word “hack” in front of the photography title on APP!  It is really something else to watch a seasoned professional go through the motions.  I learned a lot just as an observer.  

We hammered out our “menu” ahead of time, which left day one for shopping.  I can’t guess how much a hand basket of groceries will cost.  Now spread out a four-digit grocery bill across two carts and I can nail it within $75.  As we told the girl checking us out, we were hosting a small hors d'oeuvre party.

Our “grill-camp,” as we referred to it, was our home away from home minus, of course, an actual kitchen.

While we predominately used the Summit 670 and a Performer, additional kettles came and went depending on our grill schedule.

All of our locations were incredible.  While sure, the homeowners were compensated for their time and use of their property, it still takes the right person to open up their home to an army of strangers and their driveway to a brigade of grills.

How do you get the talent to act like a family?  

You hire a real family.  This was all about realism.

The Menu

Our goal from day one was all of the food be authentic and all of the food be edible.  No movie magic.  No special effects.  Just  real food.

We had ribs...

and more ribs.

In fact, Paul was in literal hog heaven as we sent a rack home with him 3 of the 4 shoot days.

We grilled satay.

Planked pork chops and salmon.

Grilled Lobster.

Of course, we made “the bananas."

Those were a given.

Don’t forget the spatchcock chickens.

And pizzas.  

Lots of pizzas.

Jennie is the grilled pizza queen.  On the last day, we had extra ingredients, so she cranked out two more.  The crew devoured them in record time.  They are seriously out of this world.

I told Jennie my biggest challenge was keeping my dough round.  “Fear not,” she told me, “The non-round pizzas are my rustic style.”  Apparently it’s all in the name.

When I titled this post Guerrilla Grilling, I wasn’t kidding.

It’s not every day a chicken is moved to the ground due to a lack of space on the “kitchen counter top."

While the lack of a sink and running water might seem daunting, it really isn’t.  A good plan, good organization, and alternating time at the “clean up tub” made the process run fairly smooth.

While we used the pop-up tent, it was thankfully less for rain cover than it was for sun shade.  By the last day, it was hot-hot.  I know I had a cloud of smelly funk around me that would hit you from at least 4 feet away.

Probably one of our biggest kicks was watching the talent eat.  At several different points, even though the scene was over, the talent stuck around “on set” to eat.  Several, often with food still in hand, swung by our grill station to thank us.  THAT was a treat.  

One family needed food to eat that was not part of the shot, as the loaded grill was the focus of the scene and the family and their meal was blurred out in the background.  While we were pleased they loved their grilled salmon, it was actually the lunch supplied by craft services, not something we grilled.  I believe someone gently let them in on “the secret.”  The money shot was grilled filets and uh, we, of course, saved those for ourselves.

As I mentioned before, this is work, but it was not work.  Everyone clicked so well, there was a palpable sense of disappointment that our time together was coming to an end.  For me most certainly.  It is not every day you get to grill, laugh, and learn.  

Speaking of learning, we watched a lot of Paul’s shots back on the monitor when Jennie jokingly, unbeknownst to Paul, told him his entire screen had gone “blank!” He loved that…or at least I think that was the initial look on his face.

Paul's pictures were sensational.  I can’t wait to see them later this year in their final form.

Thanks again to Brooke, Lexy, Deanna, Paul, Joyce, Elaine, Flynn, Travas, Jack, Ryan, Sam, Hannah, Joanne, Karina, Joanna, Clarissa and my Grill-panion, Jennie.  I hope I mentioned everyone.  It was an awesome week.  I look forward to our next adventure.

Want to see this in “live action?”   Here’s 4 days in 60 seconds.