We’re in the heart of summer, and it’s time again for our annual family barbecue. Every year it’s the same. Your cousin Joey ends up passed out in the bathroom, Grandpa finds someone to rant about millennials to, and your uncle Steve tries—yet again—to hit on your girlfriend. Why go back? Because your family don’t fuck around when it comes to food. Here’s our best interpretation of what we’re pretty sure the most delectable summer barbecue recipes from our own family’s summer gathering are:
Now, chuck ’em into the fryer that you use only on this one single occasion every year and otherwise just sits in your garage gathering dust. Last year, a small family of mice had babies in it. You can still taste the Hantavirus, and that’s the secret ingredient.
Grandpa brings this, and he won’t tell us what he adds to it to give it that certain something. We’re torn between that something being either PTSD, poorly veiled racism, sharp cheddar, or some combination of the three.
She may be in serious financial trouble after investing in that essential oils pyramid scheme, but Julia still insists on buying the best. We’re reasonably sure she’s putting cannabis in these somehow, as well.
Sautee the shallots in the "special butter" and lower the temperature when you add the collard greens. As you stir them, cry bitter tears of regret for the life choices that brought you to the point where you have to ask your mom to borrow money. She said yes, but gave you that look. The despair gives a good, steady stirring pace, and the tears add all the salt you need.
God, Ben is weird. He’s been dating Julia for a while, and this year he brought these baked beans. We’re on the fence about whether he made them or just glopped them out of a can and said he made them. Better than the beans was when he got drunk enough to propose we all start a big family commune. Everyone laughed, and he looked crushed. That was a good time.
Cook apples down, say you made a crust but use a store-bought one because it’s five hundred times easier, and no one can tell anyway. Bake. Serve with vanilla ice cream and a simmering sense of resentment.
Dad’s Nachos are just normal nachos, but all have a modest quantity of normal-grade hot sauce on top. On one helping of them—you’ll never know which—is the "world’s spiciest hot sauce." One year Pearl got them and almost had an actual heart attack. There was an ambulance and everything. Dad’s got a great sense of humor, even if he insists on Hawaiian shirts and socks with sandals.
Joey’s unpredictable, and the ingredients of his boozy slushies are always changing, much like his rotating stable of slag-heap girlfriends. These drinks truly make these events bearable, though, so we must include them. He doesn’t really have a lot of extra money to throw around, what with his ex-wife and kids, but he really goes all out on these, and it shows. There’s nothing else in the whole world that can turn a conversation about the weather into a fistfight on the lawn like these bad boys.
Joey does like his own medicine a bit much, though, so make sure to take his keys from him before he starts serving them, or he’ll end up putting his car through the fence again. If there’s only one takeaway from this, let it be that no matter what dish you end up bringing to a family barbecue, you’ll always be the most popular if you bring the booze.
Esmeralda Rupp-Spangle is a writer, artist, and founding member of the Anti-Llama League. She canbe found on Facebook as Esmeralda Marina or Instagram as @EsmeraldaSilentCitadelif you feel the need to hurl fan letters at her.
