Asado exit poll shows man who had never used his own grill outbarbequed Resident Griller the Life Artist Bubba Ray Robison.
One Sorry Blog News Service
Buenos Aires - Serious doubts were quashed Saturday night in Almagro when inexperienced griller Paul Rivas turned out a barbeque to rival the effort by the Life Artist Bubba Ray Robison on the same grill two months prior.
On the occasion of Sarah Howell turning 27, Rivas was called on to barbeque for potentially 20 people. Ordinarily, the Texan Robison would perform such a job, but on account of Robison having gone to Bolivia, Rivas was forced into Resident Griller duty for the first time in the three months he’s lived at the house with the ground floor rooftop grill.
“The Life Artist Bubba Ray Robison and I have a lot of history,” Rivas said. “And he knows that when he’s around, I’d rather he barbeque. But he’s seen every episode of Top Chef, and if you call him in Bolivia and ask him, he’ll tell you he knew he knew I could barbeque if I had to.”
Robison could only be reached for comment via email, responding: “He’s barbequed. I just don’t think he’s ever barbequed red meat. He’s kind of a sissy about eating red meat. He’ll only eat it if it’s real thin and not chewy, or tri-tip.”
Clare Nisbet, with whom the hero griller is meant to spend the rest of his days, had shown little to no confidence in the meat to be served in the run-up to the big night. However, she was far from alone in that regard.
“You’re barbequing?” Ana Paula Bonifacino, the Argentine woman who sits next to Rivas at work and translates for the Houston Rockets, had asked him, agape and unblinkingly.
“Hahahaha, ni en pedo,” Bonifacino added when Rivas had gone to the bathroom. “Paul’s too skinny to be good barbequer. Bubba was a good barbequer. I think I’m going to be too tired to go on Saturday.”
Even the kids eight floors up in the apartment overlooking the small grill area, who heckle Rivas from their cage-fenced balcony whenever they catch him outside, had reason to doubt.
Within ten minutes of having begun trying to get a fire going, Rivas, who has not barbequed in over a year, had spilled some 40 matches on the ground and picked them up again, let the full force of the grill handle spinning in free fall crash into his hand while attempting to hang a plastic bag full of canned food on the handle to keep it in place, and yelled for Nisbet to bring something heavy to break up the crate with.
“Bubba usually just stomps on it,” Nisbet offered, handing Rivas a typical black low-top Converse for the right foot, which he assumed was hers.
The griller would not swear to having thought twice before doing so, but after Nisbet told him the shoe was in fact Sarah Howell’s, he put the birthday girl’s Converse on anyway and in short order he had stomped the crate to smithereens.
Rivas had a good fire going minutes later. Shortly thereafter, he was sitting and drinking Duvel, laughing. It was then that Nisbet claimed she had only asked Rivas about the barbeque five times in two and a half days and woke him up at 8:30 on Saturday morning to go to the Jumbo to buy food and supplies because she wanted to make sure he wouldn’t forget.
“Are you kidding?” said Nisbet. “I made fruit salad, broccoli salad, tortilla chips, salsa, mashed potatoes, two kinds of cookies and a cake. Do you think I would have gone to all that trouble if I thought Paul was going to fuck up the asado?
“He’s doesn’t know. I knew he would get sick of me asking him, pout, and make jokes about how I didn’t have any confidence in him. I knew he was going to do all that. And I knew his barbeque was going to be better than Bubba’s. And he’s so much neater than Bubba it’s not even funny.
“No necesitamos al gordo,” a neighbor named Margarita said to a pollster.
“I’m not surprised,” said Sarah Howell. “All guys know how to barbeque. But that chorizo was unreal.”
As for being the landslide favorite in the asado exit poll, Rivas shrugged and had this to say: “All that proves is that people are dumb. For example, I know my matambre blew his matambre’s doors, but I voted for Bubba Ray in that poll anyway.”
Rivas would not say for certain whether or not he thought Nisbet had used mind games, a la Ben from the Others in Lost, to coax his best grilling out of him. He conceded only that, “It’s possible, though I’d prefer not to think about the implications if it’s true.”
