Smoke perfumes their lives, which they spend on decks and in backyards, hovering around their hot, ceramic ovens shaped like eggs. They wear not hooded robes, but aprons. They engage in sacrifice - chickens, cows and yes, sacrificial lambs.

Praise be unto thee, my Big Green Egg. I shall tend thy flame, I shall clean thy inner sanctums, I shall feed thee with racks of ribs and whole turkeys, legs of goat and blue crabs and brook trout lined up like neat rows of commas.

I'm an Egghead, beholden to the Big Green Egg, a combination grill-oven that can hold a low temperature for hours - important for smoking cuts of meat or fish - or fire up to the sort of high temperatures necessary for restaurant-quality steaks and brick-oven pizzas.

The Big Green Egg, first introduced in 1974 in Atlanta, is based on Japanese kamado cookers. (Prices range from $200 for the Mini to $700 for the large egg.) In metal grills, the fire quickly heats the metal and escapes into the air. Ceramic or clay cookers like kamados, East Indian tandoor ovens and Big Green Eggs trap both heat and moisture within the oven.

Various contraptions control the amount of air entering and escaping the Egg's shell, giving cultists the power of meticulous control over cooking temperatures.

Casseroles, breads, roasts, cobblers: Just about anything cooked in an oven works in a Big Green Egg.

Ask us, and we'll talk far too much about the magic of the potent godhead sitting in our yards. Pizza? Of course! Better than you've ever tasted! Clams? Can you say obviously? Bacon? Duh!

We are not a subterranean cult. We fill our backyards with smoldering chunks of hickory wood. We proselytize.

"I keep brochures in my pantry," says Andy Wann, 44, an Egghead sales representative for a Denver radio station. "I give them to people and tell them it will change their lives. I preach the gospel of the Big Green Egg."

Wann's 5-year-old Egg sits at nearly 8,000 feet on his Evergreen deck, with views of Mount Evans on one side and Bergen Mountain on the other - a properly sublime home for his stomach's spiritual leader.

He cooks on the Egg several times a week. During the 2003 blizzard, when he got walloped with more than 6 feet of snow (and lost his power - including his oven - for four days), the Egg emerged, heroic, like the second-string quarterback who replaces the star and wins the Super Bowl for the struggling team.

George Tocquigny, 54, places his Egg in the same company as his circular saw and hammer.

"It's like tool time," says the Castle Rock salesman. "There's something more masculine about it. It's the hunter instinct, go out and shoot the dinner and put it on the spit."

Big Green Egg founder, president and chief executive officer Ed Fisher insisted during a phone interview that the cult is co-ed, but I'm not so sure.

Tong-wielding men invite women into Eggdom's folds, but spend time at the cult's own Vatican City - the "Eggsperts forum" at biggreenegg.com - and bear witness to a priesthood, a patriarchal clergy. Men posting pictures of their just-cooked Cornish game hens. Men offering blueprints for Big Green Egg carts.

How should I best cook country ribs, asks someone calling himself Fishlessman during a recent exchange. It depends upon how thick they are, answers Nature Boy.

Colorado's commercial place of worship for the cult is Outdoor Kitchen in Denver, the Big Green Egg distributor for Colorado, Utah and New Mexico.

Most of the Big Green Egg customers are men, says Outdoor Kitchen manager Jennifer Miller, although the occasional woman will buy one, "based in part on how easy it is to start (the charcoal in) the Big Green Egg."

Miller herself has been an Egghead for five years. "I don't even bother cooking steaks on my gas grill," she says. On the Big Green Egg, "even if I happen to overcook it, it's still juicy and has a whole lot of flavor."

For those who embrace their Inner Egg, certain things that did not matter much before take on great significance.

Take charcoal. Identical blackened fuel pods in paper sacks. Stuff you fashion into loose pyramids, douse with fuel, and light.

No, no, nope. Charcoal must be lump, filler-free, the more varied and rough the chunks the better.

Chuck Logan, 53, a software consultant Egghead in Berthoud, bought an Egg, dived into the online forum, and soon had his own website,

clconsulting.mesanetworks.net/big_green_egg.htm. He posts recipes at his electronic devotional, photographs of cooked food, and even movies of techniques for preparing, for example, spare ribs.

Logan's commitment to the cause propelled him to organize an Eggfest at his house in June, which he trumpets in the online Egg forum. So far, about six Eggheads and their families - including one from Casper, Wyo., - are traveling to Berthoud to stand around and cook food in their Eggs.

A shopping trip for grills five years ago led Tom Lasonde, 39, a Dish Network salesman, to the Big Green Egg and now he's an idealistic cult member, sticking 12-pound briskets in his Egg at 8 p.m., waking up in the middle of the night to check on them, and yanking them off the grill 12 or 14 hours later. He posts pictures of food on the Egg forum, where he goes by the handle "ColoradoCook," and whenever the subject turns to barbecue during sales calls, he launches into missionary mode.

"I end up selling my clients information about it," he says. "Too bad they don't have a referral program."

As a "big, huge Egghead," construction manager Jim MacKinnon, 36, of Highlands Ranch, spends a healthy hunk of free time with his Egg.

Friends come to his house, eat his Egg-cooked meals, and profess quick conversions to the Way of the Egg, but MacKinnon cautions them first.

"I stop them," he says, "and say, 'Wait a minute, are you really into barbecue? Are you willing to babysit this thing in a snowstorm? Can you clean it out and take care of it?"'

How did he become the Yoda of Eggville?

"It's hard to put a label on it, but you become almost fanatical," he says. "It's so unusual, you take barbecuing to a whole different level."

Even zipping through the Big Green Egg forum gets his juices flowing.

"It's funny, because it excites me," he says. "Someone's picture of a pork butt. It's awesome."

Amen, brother.