Ruined Kebab in -20 ℃!

I and The Chef had been discussing to have a hike for a long time. It probably started 6 weeks ago! I know every time he says that he forgets it the next day or two but I came up with this hike in Drumheller area and he agreed to go this past Sat. I had found this short hike in that area over to this old bridge called Star Mine Suspension Bridge. He originally welcomed the idea but the day we were supposed to go he said that we would not enjoy the hike and we would definitely have a problem with Kabob due to the distance and temperature. We then decided to go to North Glenmore Park beside the reservoir where picnic benches and fire-pits are available. 

So we got everything, Chicken, Charcoal, you name it and he had some cut Beef in his freezer and marinated them all. We headed to the park when it was almost -20℃ but fortunately there was no wind. There was barely anyone in the park but a few cars and a few ones on the foot. We got the stuff out and set up our camp. After numerous efforts the damn charcoal would not ignite. The Chef put the Beef cubes on the skewers and the marinated Chicken pieces directly on the grill of the fire pit. He believed that was a bad brand and low quality charcoal because after hours of blowing and adding branches and paper to the damn pit, it didn't get ignited properly but I also believed that he temperature played a major role in the scenario. Everything is freezing cold including the damn Charcoal and you need to warm them up and then increase the temperature for a long time in order to stay ignited but the extreme cold prevents that. All we got was a heavy smoke which got both of us and of course our damn cloths as well as dust which covered the meat! 

This is when we put the meat on a piece of Aluminium foil covering Charcoal pieces. That helped a lot and I guess if we had done in in the first place, we would not have wasted so much time blowing and burning. However the frigid temperature would have prevented the Charcoal pieces to be hot and fiery! 

The Chef then presented another idea: Why don't we covered Charcoal with Aluminium Foil and put the meat on the top of it. He believed the distance between the hot Charcoal and meat prevented them from being fully cocked. We did that but after a minute he said that he didn't think that was very helpful either because the juice from the meat would extinguish the fire!! 

Anyways it was total disaster but the good thing was there was not anybody around to watch two mindless and careless guys trying to cock meat in -20℃ temperature! We tried a few piece of Chicken and they were not very bad but the Beef had been dried, carbonized(!) and distasteful! I looked at my watch and it was almost 14:30 meaning that we had been fighting with cold and fire almost 2 hours and a half! I suggested to take the rest of the meat home and cock them in the oven. We collect everything and got the hell of there. The Chef was very tired from the week work and had a nap in the car until we got home. All the meat and everything else including the fruit, Ale, bread and water had been frozen solid. I guess I was lucky that I didn't lose any foot finger because although I had worn two layers of gloves, I only had a pair of sock on. I guess the only thing that prevented those to be frozen was moving around. Anyway that was the story and we learnt our lesson that not to try to have Kabob in extreme cold of Alberta!

(Photo, top: A sign in the park warns about the coyotes. Unfortunately we didn't see any)