summer party cooking: rules to live by
a short list of ways to host a killer summer BBQ
I know the masses were absolutely clamoring for my usual Sunday dispatch. But I was having, frankly, far too much fun.
Only tonight am I finally coming down from the high of sticky summer heat and water balloon fights and dinners with my family and the hangover of IPAs mixed with peach mezcal margaritas and a slight sunburn. Had I written on Sunday, I would have waxed poetic about the delights of a fourth of July BBQ darty. I absolutely adore a holiday that gives everyone an excuse to be outside together in the middle of the work week, letting the hours drift by, awaiting sunset with laughter and games and booze. Here in Washington, D.C., the neighborhoods know how to do this holiday right. Every other block has a darty. Every block sets off mortar shells of fireworks for hours into the night.
But we’re past the fourth, and it’s a Thursday, and I’m only here writing because I have a short list of things I strongly believe about cooking for other people in the summer. I am controlling and anxious and Type A when it comes to making sure other people are not only fed but eating way too much and happy about it. I am usually messy and disorganized and “whatever” about most things, but feeding people — that should never be a “whatever” activity. Food is the goddamn sacrament of my life.
So the summer is the best time for someone like me. It’s when I can be obsessive about feeding people and also very “whatever,” because summer food is just so easy. Everyone wants to eat the same things when they’re hot and sticky and outside, and no one is fussing about looking nice or fancy plates.
Rules for summer party cooking
Buy big pieces of fruit and make someone else cut them up. A couple of watermelons and a couple of pineapple will always hit on a hot day.
Spend money on good beer and a sparkling Pellegrino lemonade, and then hide them from the masses and keep them just for you and your favorite people. Don’t drink beer? Spend money on something else you love to drink and then learn to like beer. Don’t drink booze? I massively respect it, and you should still spend money on something you like to drink.
If you are cooking for more than ten people, don’t bother with hamburgers when you can do hot dogs. You can even buy the veggie kind for your vegetarian friends, if you’re feeling especially warm and fuzzy. But no matter the weiner type, you should always splurge for the potato bun. All other buns are tasteless squishy pillows.
If you absolutely must be more sophisticated than hot dogs for large groups, go with Italian sausages. But for the love of god, invest in a digital thermometer. Too many people I know seem to lose their minds in front of a grill and either desiccate their sausages or nearly poison me with undercooked ground pork. (Sausages should be at least 160 degrees Fahrenheit and UNDER 190 degrees).
a thermometer! would you look at that! and a loyal friend of the newsletter! Make as many cherry pies as the sour cherry season will allow. (Here’s more from me on pie crust and seizing the pie moment).
Ribs are for small groups of people only, ideally only people you love. Nobody else will appreciate you enough for the effort to be worth it. St. Louis style pork ribs (this is a fattier, meatier cut) should be your choice for party scenarios because they are so fatty and succulent, you really can’t mess them up. You might even get called a genius.
Make three pounds of pasta salad for any group over 15 people. There is only one pasta salad recipe, and it is the “penne salad with feta and olives” on page 226 of the 1997 edition of the Joy of Cooking.1 (I’m sure it exists in other editions, I just don’t know what page).
If you don’t make a dessert, find somebody else who wants to. If nobody else will, buy freeze pops or a more sophisticated popsicle.2 Other premade desserts will go uneaten until people get really drunk, and then everyone who got drunk and stuffed their face on Giant-brand cookies will feel sort of shitty when they leave.
If there’s enough good food, no one will eat any of the potato chips or tortilla chips or other chips. If the chips are untouched, you know you fed the people right.
If people ask you if they can bring anything, don’t say no. Let them bring their favorite drink, or temporary tattoos, or party games, or a cake. A party can be even more fun if people bring what they love.
Buy water balloons. Water-balloon-filling technology today is so cool, guys!
That’s all until this weekend, when hopefully I’ll return to a more regular cadence. And if you’re just absolutely dying to read more from me until then, here are the last few dispatches on summer cooking activities.
If you want a picture of this recipe and still refuse to buy the Joy of Cooking, I will consider sending it to you if you read this footnote and respond to this email asking me for it. I will also DEF be writing a future newsletter on this pasta salad.
Lime Outshine bars are the most sophisticated and most delicious of all popsicles. I am sucking on one as I write this and life is therefore good.