Cookout!!!

Recently, for the first time ever, I hosted a family cookout in my backyard. Because I lack some of the prerequisites for cookout-hosting (namely, seating) it was BYOC. The "C" stands for "chairs." This was not a highly premeditated event. Until the last minute, it was unclear how many of my family members were going to show, and the cloudy weather eventually gave way to intermittent rain. Despite these factors, the cookout was a raging success, due in no small part to the grill-masterly contributions of my sister Anna's boyfriend, Phil.

The grill is a bit of a blind spot for me. I don 't have a whole lot of experience grilling meat, although grilled meats number among my favorite foods under the sun. Grilling involves mastery not just of cooking technique (marinating, direct vs. indirect heat, lid up vs. lid down) but also of a whole new apparatus, one that lacks the ease of use and technological gee-whizzitude of my fancy gas stove. I know vaguely of things like chimney starters and smokers but haven't the first notion how they are put to use.

Phil is a Marine and Ultimate Fighting enthusiast (not just as a fan - AS A PARTICIPANT) who lives with my sister and her numerous lizards and her pit bull. No flies on him, as they say. He showed up at my house on the day with coolers full of spice-rubbed and marinated meats as well as three grills to add to my one. You can see the array of grills pictured above. The low quality of the photos reflects the poor light - cloudy day, remember? Phil manned all four grills for at least six hours, cranking out two flavors of wings, two flavors of ribs, regular burgers and turkey burgers with feta and spices mixed into the meat. The magnitude of the grillmastery cannot be understated. You can see some of the glistening trays of pork above.

Besides the venue, I provided dessert (more on this in Cookout! Part 2) and my sister made a scrumptious salad featuring chives from her garden, and bottled drinks were procured from the Carniceria Guanajuato. SIDEBAR (if I were David Foster Wallace, this would be a footnote): In case you didn't know, Mexican Coca-Cola is made with cane sugar rather than corn syrup, it comes in glass bottles that say "Refresco", and it tastes better. The new "Pepsi Throwback" is just a Mexican Coke wannabe, although I admire the sentiment behind it. That and a bunch of Jarritos in an ice-filled cooler are my new Essential Cookout! Ingredient.

My grilling learning curve is steep. Midway through the Cookout! I had to replace the gas tank on my grill, which I had never done before and figured out how to do under the proverbial gun without anything exploding. Emboldened by the success of the Cookout!, I am hatching still more grilling adventures for the summer, all the while trying to eat healthy per husbandly request. How will these two seemingly-dissonant desires collide? Stay tuned, intrepid CWTD reader(s).