Page 8 - Barbecue News Magazine

family bbq
Let’s Make
Summer
Hot
Vic Clevenger
Chimney Cartel
victor0568@gmail.com
As you sit there reading this, sum- mertime fun will be influencing your every turn. Like the bright summer sun, NASCAR is about halfway through their season with pristine hotrods burning up the tracks. Spring training is over, and baseball is hit- ting homeruns across the country as they make a run towards October. Not to be left out, football, both col- lege and professional, will be calling their teams into training camp soon to be ready for the fall season. They know, regardless of the bowl game they play, it all begins during sum- mer. So, grab some lotion along with your BBQ sauce and let’s get this 2021 Summer going.
Summertime Fun
Caspian and I making pancakes
family reunion where we had a family softball game. I don’t remember who won or what the score was, but we had a blast. It was here I held my first snake and set my love for the creepy crawlers.
All the cool holidays (besides Christ- mas) take place in the summer, Me- morial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day. You can always count on a crowd of people getting together and the best grilled hamburgers being eaten. Boats are being launched, fire- works are exploding and the food, well it’s simply the best. Who doesn’t love a grilled hotdog with all the works? What about having a watermelon eat- ing contest or even crowning a water- melon seed spitting champion? You can’t do any of this at Christmas.
When I was growing up, summer was
for one purpose and one purpose
only, to simply have fun. We had rhymes to commemorate our not being in school and on summer break. The Beach Boys made a whole career on
singing songs about summer liv-
ing. Even the hit Broadway play
and later a hit movie, Grease,
had the hit song, Summer
Lovin’. If you were to sum up
summer in one word, it would
be, FUN with a capital “F.”
Summertime Feast
Almost every childhood memory of mine took place during sum- mer. Pool parties, family re- unions, seeing my cousins and playing in the neighborhood till dark when Mom called us home. During the summer we played baseball, football, kickball and went off into the woods (I grew up in Kentucky). I remember one
Although Thanksgiving and Christmas seem to corner the market on having feasts, don’t
count out the feasts of summer. Rather than turkeys and hams as the center pieces, we have hot- dogs and hamburgers. We al- ready mentioned the family reunions above, but do you re- member the food served? Mamaw’s fried chicken, Aunt Nina’s potato salad, Mom’s homemade yeast rolls and so many desserts. Carrot cakes, apple pies and cobblers all made from scratch line the picnic ta- bles.
Dads across the country slip into their “Kiss the Cook” aprons and fire up grills to the point you
BarbecueNews.com - 8
JUNE 2021
Caspian and I