Barbecue season is officially open, and the question on the table is whether convenience has taken the soul out of lighting one up.

The team is at a crossroads on this. One host has switched from natural gas to a wood pellet grill and discovered that a Wi-Fi attachment can control temperature from the couch without stepping outside. The food comes out basically perfect every time. That, it turns out, is exactly the part that bothers everyone at the table.

The counterargument is the lighter fluid can, the briquettes, the smell, the sound of the squeeze bottle. A generation of people grew up with that ritual. The charcoal barbecue taught you something about patience and the cost of not paying attention. The Wi-Fi version does not have that lesson built in.

Topics: barbecue, wood pellet grill, long weekend BBQ, charcoal briquettes, cabin season

Originally aired on 2026-05-14

Pellet smoker season is here, and whether you're new to the grill or years in, there are fundamentals most people skip. Ted Reader has been cooking over live fire his whole life. He's got the tips that change everything.

The smoke mistake almost everyone makes: too much wood, too long. Reader says all your flavour penetration happens in the first 45 minutes. After that, you're just making it bitter. One good piece of wood to start is enough. Fruit woods, hardwoods, and nutwoods work. Birch does not.

The other two tips land on health and accuracy. A clean grill is a hotter grill, Reader says, and cleaning it right after cooking while it's still warm is the move. A thermometer is non-negotiable: 160 for burgers, 195 to 203 for brisket.

Topics: pellet smoker tips, BBQ grilling tips, barbecue wood selection, grill thermometer, Ted Reader

GUEST: Ted Reader | http://tedreader.com | @‌godfatherofthegrill

Originally aired on 2026-05-14

Dunkin' Donuts expanding into Canada is not just a brand story. It is a bet that Tim Hortons is more vulnerable than it looks.

Tim Hortons has been slowing financially and leaning on celebrity marketing at exactly the moment consumers are walking away from the $20 fast food burger in favour of fast casual dining and proper sit-down meals. That is the opening Dunkin' is walking through, and the analyst who tracks this space says the Tim Hortons empire is under real threat from this new arrival.

Shake Shack launched a GLP-1 menu about six months ago as customers were already drifting from the brand. Whole chicken is up 39 percent year over year. Beef is climbing too. Any restaurant whose identity is built around meat has very few places to hide right now.

Topics: Dunkin' Donuts Tim Hortons, fast food Canada, Shake Shack, GLP-1 restaurant trends, chicken prices Canada

GUEST: Dr. Sylvain Charlebois | @‌foodprofessor

Originally aired on 2026-05-14

Mount St. Helens erupted 46 years ago this weekend, and the mountain did not blow its top. It blew its side, and people as far away as Lethbridge, Alberta felt what that meant.

Harry R. Truman was 83 years old and refused to leave Spirit Lake Lodge. He believed the volcano would blow straight up, not sideways. He had said they couldn't pull him out with a mule team. He and his 16 cats were buried under 150 feet of volcanic debris. His body is believed to still be on the ridge that now bears his name.

USGS scientist David Johnston was observing from the mountain when it went. His last four words, broadcast on ham radios around the world: Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it. A pyroclastic flow swept him away. His body was never found. His trailer turned up among highway wreckage in 1993. Researchers believe the volcano is already inside the 30 to 100 year window for another eruption.

Topics: Mount St. Helens 1980, Harry Truman Spirit Lake, David Johnston, pyroclastic flow, Canada volcano impact

Originally aired on 2026-05-14

Alberta pipeline talks are coming to a head, with a major announcement expected that will test whether what has been promised has anything behind it.

The Prime Minister is arriving in Alberta to stand alongside Premier Danielle Smith and announce the next phase of their energy agreement, including a pipeline proposal the federal government has committed to fast tracking as a project in the national interest. The pipeline is still months from formal federal approval. Canadians, as the argument goes here, are at the point of wanting to see results, not more promises.

A First Nations coalition challenged the separation referendum petition in court this week on treaty rights grounds, and a judge agreed. The petition is dead for now. Both the Alberta government and the separatist group behind it plan to appeal. Some within the movement are pushing Smith to put the question on the ballot herself.

Topics: Alberta pipeline, Alberta separation referendum, Danielle Smith, Mark Carney, First Nations treaty rights Alberta

GUEST: Rob Breakenridge | robbreakenridge.ca

Originally aired on 2026-05-14

Volcanoes in Canada last erupted 150 years ago. That fact should not be as reassuring as it sounds. George Kourounis makes his living inside craters and has thoughts on the difference between dormant and quiet.

He has been on ropes 400 meters down inside active craters, dodging lava in the air, working with scientists in Congo, Vanuatu, Ethiopia, Hawaii. The question he keeps being asked about Canada: are we safe? His answer is that the Ring of Fire does not have a safe section. It has a quiet section. We are in the quiet one.

Mount St. Helens went sideways. That is the part nobody expected. A 5.1 earthquake, the world's largest ever documented landslide, and a lateral blast that killed 57 and flattened millions of trees. The eruption itself was predicted. The direction was not.

Topics: volcanoes Canada, Ring of Fire Canada, Mount St Helens 1980, Wells Gray volcano, Mount Garibaldi BC

GUEST: George Kourounis | http://furiousearth.com

Originally aired on 2026-05-14

Montreal Grand Prix weekend is coming, and one particular group of workers is planning not to show up for it.

According to the Montreal Gazette, exotic dancers in the city are planning to walk off the job on one of their busiest weekends of the year, demanding to be recognized as employees with the same protections as other workers. Most dancers are not paid a salary. One dancer, Celeste Ivy, said she pays anywhere from $40 to $100 a night for the opportunity to work.

Elsewhere in the news: Crowsnest Pass RCMP received a call about stolen barbecue goods and located a suspect described as red-haired, shortened in stature, and wearing a thick coat. The suspect was a fox. The victims declined to press charges. Also: muzzle-loading cannons manufactured before 1898 are legal to own in the United States without a background check or federal registration.

Topics: Montreal Grand Prix, Montreal dancers strike, Crowsnest Pass RCMP, US cannon laws, Montreal Gazette

Originally aired on 2026-05-14

Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980, and it did not blow its top. It blew its side, and the wall of water and debris that followed changed everything for everyone below it.

In Canada, ash fell on cars in Kamloops and the cloud reached Lethbridge. Victoria and Vancouver felt a shockwave through their homes. Harry R. Truman, 83 years old, had refused to leave his lodge on Spirit Lake. In March, he said you couldn't pull him out with a mule team. He and his 16 cats were buried under 150 feet of volcanic debris.

USGS scientist David Johnston was on the mountain that morning. His last four words, heard on ham radios around the world: Vancouver, Vancouver, this is it. His body was never found. His trailer turned up in 1993. Researchers believe the mountain is already inside the 30 to 100 year window for another eruption.

Topics: Mount St. Helens, Harry R. Truman, David Johnston, Mount St. Helens 1980, Canadian ash fall

GUEST: Ed Conroy | retroontario.com | @retrontario

Originally aired on 2026-05-14