So the time is drawing nigh... for the First BBQ of Summer! If there's maybe one thing I love more than Home Depot, its a good BBQ, and only because I have to make at least 3 trips to the HD to be adequately prepared. I'd seriously have a BBQ every weekend if my bank account could stand it. Its the one time I don't really mind cooking. Lately, I've found the whole cooking thing largely un-fulfilling. I've been a good girl the past three months, sticking to this Paleo lifestyle and consistent with my CrossFit training, but most of attempts have left me with feelings of inadequacy and self-loathing. Paleo recipes taste pretty good but they're not the most appetizing to look at it...plus there's something weird and sad about slaving away for three hours just to sit and pick at your chicken-stuffed sweet potatoes at half past midnight on a Wednesday. Isn't cooking supposed to be sexy? Shouldn't there be some hulking dude bent over the stove in a wifebeater, dishrag slung over his shoulder, letting you lick the vodka sauce from his outstretched finger? Well? Shouldn't there be?? That's the kind of cooking I'm talking about. Most nights, you'll find me hunched over the kitchen sink, stuffing my face with some combination of ingredients just trying not to die.
But cooking for guests is a different thing altogether. I love entertaining! Everything about it. The cleaning, the prep-work, the endless lists and countless shopping trips. I love arranging hors d'oeuvres on vintage trays and mixing gallon bags of macaroni salad the night before. I love the little things. Like paper straws in red and turquoise stripes, and crisp, white napkins stacked in neat little rows along the bar. I love the way those colorful little sodapops sweat inside their glass bottles; I love the strings of twinkle lights and steel buckets overflowing with ice. I love the recipes and the cut flowers and the final mad-dash hours getting it all ready just as the first guests begin to arrive. Best of all, I love having no less than fifty of my favorite people drinking and laughing and making a total fucking mess of it all. Its the best.
So yeah. BBQs. Its about time. And because I'm the most impatient person on this green earth, I decided May 31st was as good a day as any to get one going. I put things in motion before I really had a chance to think about it, sent out the invite to no less than 80 people, which means now I have 22 days to grow a lawn, fix up the koi pond and get the vegetable garden planted. Not to mention plan a vintage 50s menu of epic proportions. No BBQ is complete without burgers and dogs, pulled pork and garlic shrimp and all kinds of grilled veggies. Then there's the pasta salads and fruit salads and the Mexican bean salad and the guacamole and 7 layer dip and chips and baby carrots and pickles and what have you. I also recently had the good fortune to try fresh pressed watermelon juice which is out of this world amazing. Some kind of watermelon vodka infusion is definitely in order. My biggest hurdle, of course, is finding some dude to be my resident grill man. Its pretty much a travesty that I don't know how to grill the perfect burger at this stage of my life, but I'm too busy running around like a crazyface refilling bowls of chips and handing people drinks. Plus I need someone strong enough to get the propane tank filled at the corner hardware and schlep it back in one piece. We all know what happened the last time I tried to drag a Christmas tree back here.
If I can get the lawn/pond/garden thing in order this weekend, I should have a jungle paradise ready by the 31st. And then I can tackle the rest. BBQ PREP TO-DO LIST IS BELOW:
- GROW LAWN ALREADY!
- ASSEMBLE PUMP AND ATTACH TO FOUNTAIN
- REFILL KOI POND AND CONDITION WATER
- GET SOME FANCY FISH
- PLANT STRAWBALE GARDEN, BUY MORE FLOWERS
- PLAN MENU
- CREATE BBQ PLAYLIST
- LOCATE HARDBODIED GRILL MASTER
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