Saturday, March 15, 2008

Lexington Outdoors of Maine

I first found this site linked on The Naked Whiz’s Ceramic Charcoal Cooker site. Of course I was instantly intrigued. They had me at “Hello,” hook, line and woodsaw.

“Artisan” wood chips, chunks, etc., are nothing new but I have yet to use planks, or in Lexington Outdoors’ case, ovals for cooking fish, or anything else for that matter. I have been hoping to grill more fish this year as I have been hoping to eat more fish this year. We eat absolutely NO fish in this house with the exception of occasional dinners of frozen fish sticks and tater tots. When the boys were younger, we/they had this meal two or more times a week.

I resolved that we would start eating more fish and proper fish, not “stix and tots!” I recently purchased a box of Mrs. Paul’s breaded fish fillets as a kind of warmup for the boys so as not to shock their systems. They went over ok, but only after SpEd Boy #2 was granted permission to use ketchup. He was much happier once the dreaded fish fillet was “swimming” again.

Anyway the point of this post isn’t to say how wonderful cooking with wood chips, chunks and planks from Lexington Outdoors is (I haven’t cooked anything yet) but rather to say what a wonderful company LO is! When I received my order (within a couple days of ordering) one of the items I ordered was left out of the package. I called their CS number and after several rings, I got a message saying they were busy, so please leave a message. Uh-oh, that’s not a good sign!

BUT, about 20 minutes later, I received a call-back from CSR, Dorie, who as it turns out, is a family member/owner of the company. She was very pleasant and most helpful, not only with the missing item but we discussed the various woods, recipes, regional accents, the state of Maine and even marriage! (Sadly, she is spoken for). For my troubles, Dorie sent me an extra sampler pack of oval planks and directed me back to the website for more recipes. The second shipment came two days later via Fed-Ex. Thank you Dorie!

In contrast, my wife and I purchased a new washer/dryer unit two weeks ago from Sears and had many problems with the installation. I was on the phone everyday for a week, until it was settled. Most calls landed me in India where it took awhile to get re-directed back to the States and the correct department or representative to handle the problem.

Dorie went above and beyond, gave me more time than I probably deserved, to replace one missing item, and has secured a customer for life. Even if I don’t cook with their wood, I can use the wood chips, chunks and planks to balance a wobbly table or as chocks for the wheels on my chair!

I’ll post my cooking results soon.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I can vouch for Dorrie's helpfulness. She was very eager to help me when I was playing around with their products, and I really enjoyed dealing with their company. I think you can deal with this company with confidence.

The Naked Whiz

SteamyKitchen said...

I have grill envy.

not allowed to touch the one at my home...

ejs said...

Naked Whiz, I just discovered your comment today (over a month later!) Sorry I somehow missed it but thanks (better late then never right?)

The Naked Whiz' site on Ceramic cooking is where I first leared how to cook on my GrillDome. Great site!