Grill Maestro

Leslie Haywood, Founder and President of Charmed Life Products and maker of Grill Charms, recently emailed me to tell me about her Grill Charms products. Grill Charms are like wine charms but designed to be put into meats before you cook them, rather than existing products that merely mark meat after you cook them. It was featured on Donny Deutsch’s show The Big Idea and I have to admit, it’s a pretty cool idea. (Plus I’d disagree with the “experts” on the show, I personally think Grill Charms is a great and clever name)

Here’s her story about how she thought to make grill charms:

We had a dinner party here at the house (like we frequently do) and in Charleston we grill almost year round. My
husband is somewhat of a sauce, rub, marinade junkie so we always have at least 2-3 rubs on the grill at any given time. This particular evening we had Jamaican Jerk Chicken (His favorite Jerk is Walkerswood). So he make a bunch extra “jerky” with extra rub etc… for him and his friends, then for my friends and I who don’t like our mouths on fire, he made some a little less spicy.

Well…. 3 beers into it… he was so into cooking it just right, getting the char marks perfect, plating it up and making a wonderful presentation (which I appreciate) BUT he couldn’t remember which chicken is which! Of course, I get a super spicy piece, I get mad, he gets defensive and he says “Well someone just needs to come up with a way for me to tell who has what!!” And so I did.

That was April of 2006.

I have spent all this time and most of our savings on my little “invention” and just can’t believe it’s a real product. I’m patent pending, trademarked blah blah blah. In doing my research before filing for a patent, I found the only product out there similar were meat markers what you put in your food AFTER they are cooked that say “Rare etc…” My product is different as it identifies the food before, during and after, and also has other purposes besides just labeling beef temperature. (My LORD, I’m babbling
on… so sorry!!!) I just get all excited when I talk shop With regards to the cooking of the meat, when my machinist and I were making our 41 different prototypes to do our primary market research, we made sure that heat was conducted evenly around the head and down the stem so spots would be undercooked. It’s no where near as invasive as a kabob as the stem is fairly small.

So, I told Leslie that if she’d be willing to send me a set, I’d give it a try to see how they worked. Taking everything at face value, I figured the only concern I’d have about using these little charms is whether they affected the cooking of the meat. According to Leslie, it took 41 prototypes later to perfect it. Whenever I get them in the mail I’ll do a review as to how they worked.