Labor Day is our family’s last summer gathering outside, a chance to savor summer as fall approaches. We usually grill something, eat Uncle Dave’s potato salad and have apple crisp for dessert. 

Thankfully, we can still gather and eat outside despite the pandemic. 

It got me thinking about grilling outside a little longer in the season since outdoor dining with visitors will be the norm for us through the fall, too. As a luck would have it, a recent New York Times article was devoted to grilled pizza. With step-by-step directions by a professional and pizza dough perfected by my son-in-law, how could we go wrong? 

Well for starters, reaching into the super hot grill to turn the pizza over before adding toppings got my attention. Which led to remembering my old oven mitts. Which led to my wondering… why do those cute cloth oven mitts look so awful the very first time I use them and go downhill from there? Why do they retain their mysterious stains after washing? I shudder at the number of oven mitts I‘ve recycled over the years.  

No more! This fall I will have silicone oven mitts for a safe Labor Day barbecue and later to protect myself as I conduct my grilling experiments and move into the holiday baking season.