How to Barbecue

How to Barbecue – Thoughts from California



As the first hints of autumn sneak into the air this second week of August, I savor the thought that the barbecuing season here in California is far from over. Being a refugee from Pennsylvania and New York, as the new school year approached at the end of each summer, I always experienced a mild depression knowing that all of my favorite barbecued delicacies would follow the path of the grill off into the bowels of our home’s garage. Not until 7 or 8 months from then would I experience my dad’s special barbecue sauce, or sit lazily on the picnic bench in the backyard smelling the evening’s meal sizzling over the coals.


True, there are delights on the East Coast that aren’t part of life on the West Coast: there are just enough oak and maple trees here to remind me of the stunning beauty of “leaf season” on a crisp fall day back east; we go to Tahoe to experience “winter” for a few days at a time and then leave it in the rearview mirror of our car on the way back home; and it is very difficult to compete with the breathtaking sight of colorful blossoms exploding out of nowhere after a long, cold, grey winter. But…no barbecuing for over half a year? No thank you!


I learned many tricks about how to barbecue ribs and how to barbecue chicken over my last 20 years in suburban San Francisco. I learned how to work the grill to my advantage, to time the length of cooking by intuition as much as by the clock, and how to use our friends’ secret barbecue sauce recipes to make true grilled masterpieces. But one of the things I learned early and well was that I could cook on the grill virtually all year long! How incredible this still seems to me.


Sundays are often barbecue night. Our family is so busy in so many different directions that this is often the only evening we can all commit to sitting down and breaking bread together. As I start up the coals I can’t resist calling family or friends back home to check in and ultimately inform them that I can smell the ribs cooking, especially if there is a blizzard going on as we speak. It has become a ritual of sorts; I imagine some of them thinking as the first flakes fall that they are likely to hear from me sooner than later. It’s all in good fun, but it really is an expression of how grateful I feel to be able to indulge in this delicious preoccupation nearly any day that I like.


So, I’ll give up the leaves, and the snow, and the blossoms to have this hedonistic blessing be a daily part of my life. And I’ll keep on learning new tricks, and trying new methods of cooking, and be glad that I have such a perfect situation to keep learning how to barbecue. Happy grilling!