As some or all of you may know by now, the wife and I are avid Big Green Egg enthusiasts. Not only do we enjoy cooking on our Big Green Egg, we try to find reasons to cook things on it. For example, a year ago I would never have considered making smoked almonds, but I can do them on the Egg and they are kick ass. I would consider us hobby cooks. Some folks play golf or take pictures or mountain bike. We cook on our Egg.

We also are very active on the Big Green Egg messageboard. If you participate in one or more messageboards, you'll understand (maybe). If you don't, then you probably already think I'm a freak, so you can either stop reading or continue to re-enforce your opinion of my sickness.

Anyway, Molly and I found a source for great deals on Big Green Egg stuff, so we had decided to add to our Large and chiminea by getting a small Big Green Egg. I won't do all of the math for you, but it has about half the cooking area of the Large, but is even better for steaks and other meats, and also will allow us the flexibility of doing some side dishes and second items while we're using the Large.

Anyway, fast forward to yesterday on the Egg site when a fellow Egger WessB posted that he'd found a deal on mini Big Green Eggs on E-Bay. At the BGE headquarters, the mini runs about 199. On ebay, with shipping, the guy was asking $145.

Without my knowing, Molly decided to order one last night as a surprise. Right before we went to bed, she asked if I was done checking my email, and I decided to check it one more time.

There, in my inbox, was a paypal reciept for something I didn't recognize. I opened it and it was a reciept for a mini BGE. I knew there was no way to keep this from her, because the PayPal account was set to my email, and trying to forward or anything else would be detected, but I also didn't want to hurt her feelings. I decided to tell her, and she was crushed. We had decided to not get each other anything of note, so this really would have been a great surprise.

I feel terrible that I found out, but I am ecstatic that in just a few weeks, our collection of green ceramic will grown from just the Large BGE and the chiminea to a total of four. Are we cultists? Maybe. But we eat better than any of you non-believers. If you don't believe, come on over and I'll make you a steak that will change your mind about ordering it in a restaurant forever.

Plus now, we can take the mini to games or to the races for pure tailgating perfection, or even to someone else's house just to show off a little. The funny thing is, our numbers are growing. You may only know one or two people with Eggs, but that will change in the near future. More and more folks are discovering the magic of the Big Green Egg.

Thanks baby, and I love you more than you'll ever know.

(Now I have to go, because I have to go find something special that's a surprise for the wife).