BRAGGING ABOUT COOKING SKILLS? NEVER, BUT IT STARTS WITH A DRUMBEAT

Bragging about cooking skills is worse than listening to someone else bragging when you know you’re better.

The only thing worth bragging about is keeping people out of the emergency room after eating something you cooked.

I don’t brag about my cooking skills for a reason, and it’s not because I’m serving raw or burned entrees.

Truth is, it’s not much of a brag to avoid poisoning people.

No, I don’t brag, but if I did it would start with yesterday.

After a run through Costco last week I came home with ten pounds of ribs, two whole chickens, a load of skinless boneless chicken thighs, and a couple trays of bratwurst.

I had the whole barnyard in my fridge, but why? Then I remembered: Labor Day. Labor Day and I’m working? Hell, yeah.

Could I cook loads of food on one grill without something going wrong?

That was the challenge worth bragging about

If you decide to make a dinner for ten, the first thing you need is my wife. She found a pork rub recipe and bbq sauce recipe. She’s a recipe queen and knows enough about food to add the ‘missing’ ingredients.

I got up early and stripped the white film coating the underside of the ribs. I found the instructions on the packaging. The weird thing starting with the ribs was the size. They were two baking trays huge

Wife poured the rub and I did the rubbing. After that I started the chicken, then brats, vegetable shish-kabobs, tofu and vegan dogs on the grill. (Would I run out of propane after my flame thrower flameout?)

The ribs went into the oven to bake for an hour and a half while the other stuff cooked. In the meantime I washed and dried as many pots and pans as I could before starting the next thing.

Cooking some of the meat early and wrapping it under foil cleared the stage for the big event.

After an hour and a half baking I took the ribs out for the final on the grill: Fifteen minutes each side with bbq sauce going on for the last ten. Why the last ten? Because the sugar in the regular sauces leaves a burned rib.

More people came, more drinks poured, and more cooking.

Then we ate. And ate a little more before the real big event.

Labor Day concert worth bragging about, if I were a bragger

I arranged my garage to look less like a hoarder’s paradise and more like a music studio. Amps? Mics? PA? Check, check, and check.

Accordion, ukulele, Fender Tele, bass, congas? All check.

My accordion player knew the big hits from Lawrence Welk forward, my ukulele player knew folk standards, and the Tele had the chops to follow.

I was the drummer, a very serious part. It’s the counting and finding new sounds on the drum face. If you don’t know, the middle of the drum sounds different from the edge. One sets up the other and only one person gets blamed for screwing that up.

Hey O. What was the song list?

Hotel California worked better than expected especially when I didn’t expect Hotel California on a ukulele. We nailed it. Then Roll Out The Barrel, Little Brown Jug, and jams tighter than they had any right being. (The drummer made the difference?)

We played long enough to break out the files, song books, and memories. We could have played longer, but since it was a work night, and desert called, we packed up.

I didn’t end the night early by shooing them all away, but we did agree something good happened. And it happened by 8:30 in the evening. The beauty of a perfect day and night is letting it happen. Instead of making plans to play music and getting all stage frightened, we made plans to cook and the music followed.

Instead of feeling sad the night had to end, I thought of our band time as the opening act.

See, some of the same group went to an outside venue called Edgefield Friday night to see The National, a band we all saw at Sasquatch.

I needed my girl.

I spent the next hour in the garage alone with my big guitar, practicing my Matt Berninger voice on sad songs. The winner of the night was Someday Soon.

She was the girl The National needed. Taking a request?