Award-winning barbecue guru Steve Raichlen on summer grilling: "Less meat, more vegetables"

When it comes to the Fourth of July weekend and barbecuing, many of us try to conjure the skills of grillmasters like Steven Raichlen. Before writing the book, Raichlen admitted, his own vegetable grilling game was pretty straightforward, but now, he's come to appreciate the vast vegetable options available to try on the grill. And now there's another vegetable you talk about in the book that doesn't seem like one that most people would think of grilling, and those are avocados. I think it's beautiful to hear how you have you integrated the Japanese culture and the food of your upbringing with a sort of Americanized take on grilling fruit, vegetables, and meat. You don't need an instant meat thermometer because you don't cook vegetables to temperature the way you do meat, a slender metal skewer is helpful because that's how you test the doneness of a large vegetable like let's say a acorn squash or a potato.