family

I’m still not used to being an adult. I expect others to step in and stop me from doing dumb things, like getting really drunk while trying to grill at a party, an activity that is a challenge for me at my most serious and sober.

My roommates and I held a BBQ on the 4th. The first few hours are clear. Then I started drinking Red Stuff and my friends and family, deciding for some odd reason that was the moment to give me more trust than all past experience warranted, left me at the grill alone. In charge of all the food.

“Where’s Jason?”
“I don’t know. Hey, what happened to all the Red Stuff?

I remember waking up the next day and revisiting the grill area. The floor is littered with squished vegetables, meat juice stains, and empty packages of hot dogs. I study it like a crime scene, and pick up the bag of charcoal. “How is this empty? It was a new bag.”

Flash of memory: I’m pouring the whole bag of charcoal onto the grill while laughing manically, like a super-villain fueling the rockets of his mobile volcano base. Vague images of hamburgers charred on the outside, raw on the inside. Something…very bad happening with chicken wings.

Another flash of memory: I walk into the kitchen, and my Mom is hitting a pan and yelling at people. They like that she is yelling at them, and listen to what she says.

I asked my my roommate, Roo Roo (not his real name), what that was about, and he related this story.

It’s late Saturday evening. R.R. was trying to get everyone to leave the house and head down to Roo Roo’s Secret Spot in D.C. to watch the fireworks. He got some of our friends to leave and stand outside, but there were a lot of stragglers he couldn’t get out of the house. So he asks the stragglers’ Queen, my friend Kate, to round everyone else up and get them out the door.

Kate decides to employ a better strategy, which is to walk straight to my Mom and ask her to get everyone to leave.

The reason this is a better strategy is because my Mom likes being in charge. She’s 4’11”, but when she makes an announcement, people listen to her. So my Mom grabs a pan and begins whacking it while yelling, “OKAY, EVERYBODY OUT OF THE HOUSE, TIME FOR FIREWORKS.”

And it works. Mom said we’re leaving, and that meant all of her temporary kids were leaving too. A few minutes later, the house was empty. We never made it to R.R.’s Secret Firework Spot (which I’m not even sure ever existed) but we had a good view standing on the National Mall.

Then there was the Chicken Wing Incident of 2009. I got a Cooks’ Illustrated book on grilling for Christmas and was trying their recipe for grilled chicken wings for the first time.

It had lots of illustrations and easy-to-follow instructions on preparing the wings, brining them, making a two-level fire, and so on. I had never brined something before, and I was particularly proud of doing that. I hung around the kitchen holding the bag of brining chicken for a few minutes, hoping someone would ask “What are you doing?” so I could casually respond, “Oh, you know, just brining” while then running away before anyone could ask me what brining does.

After the brining finished, I roped a few people into helping me put the chicken on the grill, and then turned away for a few minutes to chat.

Unfortunately, the Cooks Illustrated book, detailed as it is, does not have a section of what to do when the entire bed of chicken wings gets engulfed in a mountain of flame and catches on fire. As my roommate told me later while laughing, “Man, you were freaking out!”

I grab the tongs and start flinging burnt chicken wings into the general direction of the platter as fast as I could. One of my roommate’s friends, K-Ro (everyone gets a fake name today) is moving the platter back and forth to catch them flying in the air. I’m yelling: “This is horrible! It’s ruined. This is the worst grilling job ever.” All of which were probably true, but a little hysterical.

Major plot point: as I’m flinging the burnt chicken on the platter, one of the wings falls to the ground, which K-Ro picks up.

I take the chicken to the kitchen to peel off the burnt parts. For years, my Mom (who works for the FDA) has grilled into me that charred food is cancerous. And I don’t want to give any of our friends cancer, so I start peeling the burnt parts off as best as I could.

As I’m doing this, I notice that K-Ro has rinsed off the burnt chicken wing that fell on the salmonella-infested ground and was now eating it.

I had many reasons for doing what I did next. Drunkenness. Irritation at the wings being ruined. But most of all, a personal commitment to looking after the health and safety of our guests. So judge me not when I tell you I whacked the chicken wing out of her hand while yelling in my most righteous voice, “No! Poisonous!”

Bad move. She was pissed. Perhaps that’s something I could have done to a friend I’ve known for a year, but I barely knew her.  Her face hardened, and she said, “Don’t you ever do something like that again.” Then she turned around and walked across the room, as far away from me as possible.

In my drunken haze, I realized I did something bad, but couldn’t quite piece together what it was. “Me want chicken go bye-bye, and it did. What wrong?”

Which is a good sign that if we have a BBQ next year, I’m drinking less, if at all. Also, I’m buying more food. R.R. and I didn’t have a chance to eat any of it, which I guess means it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was. Although I clearly remember the first batch of burgers being burned on both sides, with the cheese completely bubbled off in the heat, yet somehow still raw in the inside.

I also heard some stories secondhand from other guests, but I don’t quite remember the details. There was something about a romantic date with a dog, and who knows what else. If you have something to correct or share, leave a comment.