The hot season is the best for practicing high-risk activities. And that includes organizing outdoor parties. Among all of them, the most popular is the barbecue, with the necessary permits from the authorities, the law, and the firefighters. An anonymous wiseman wrote:
Nothing more relaxing
Nothing more fun
Than a good barbecue
At a friend’s house.
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Today I am going to propose that you organize not just any old barbecue but the best barbecue of your life. You will thank me forever. You will have a blast. You will melt with joy. Friends will rain down on you. Happiness will cling to you all summer long. Guaranteed.
There are two things you should carefully select before starting a barbecue: the sausages and the guests. Keep in mind that not all friends can be grilled, and not all chorizos are good conversationalists. Do not entrust any of the guests with this delicate task. Take personal care of chorizos and assistants, and you will ensure, at least, good food and good conversation.
If you want to get great chorizos, my advice is to go to the butcher’s dressed as a butcher — or, at least, dressed for the countryside. Not the way that you usually go to the countryside, with those fashionable Bermuda shorts and that polo shirt from the catalog, but the way people who live in the countryside usually go to the countryside. But, believe me, if you wear a butcher’s outfit, success is guaranteed. Complete your attire with a ham knife, place it against the owner’s throat as soon as you enter the butcher’s shop, and I guarantee you the best chorizo sausages of your life. You will be able to eat them in the police car.
A barbecue cannot be held just anywhere. Selecting the right location is essential for success. I once organized a barbecue on a coral table, on a luxurious reef, 50 meters underwater. All the guests with oxygen tanks, lights, and wetsuits. We had a great time, but instead of grilled meat we had to eat sushi, because our lighters broke just as we got the firewood and the grill with live prawns arranged on it, tied to the seabed.
Later we opened a few bottles of wine, and that didn’t go well either. Gulping down red wine underwater is almost as complicated as trying to fish one of those modern mini croquettes inside a spaceship, with your hands tied behind your back. It was a nightmare. An expanse of red wine stained the water around us, but it was undrinkable. We did, however, see several octopuses break through the wine cloud and then dance the conga. It was scientifically very interesting. I think they were celebrating a wedding. All very dressed up and cheerful around the happy couple. The octopus bride looked very pretty. The octopus groom, on the other hand, looked like he was tinned.
Shortly thereafter we ran out of oxygen and had to surface and cancel the barbecue.
Have no doubts — your barbecue should avoid subways or flying venues. I tell you this because on another occasion I held a barbecue on a helicopter, and we wolfed down charred meat at full speed, in the time it takes the parachute to travel from a flaming flying mass of metal to the surface of the sea. Besides, it’s not pleasant to eat and fall at the same time. If you want to check it out, try eating a live mouse in a descending elevator. See? It’s not nice to eat and fall at the same time.
Without a doubt, the best place to hold a barbecue is at a friend’s house. Your own house has some advantages (for example, you know where the hose is and can use it to clear out the guests when the party gets out of hand) and many disadvantages (no one will take care of anything the next morning when the forensic police arrive asking boring questions).
On the other hand, a friend’s house allows a wide range of possibilities: There are friends with a swimming pool, with enviable bar furniture, with service and cooks, with extraordinary music equipment, and even with a 50-meter yacht. These last ones are the ones that should never be allowed to miss your barbecues.
Once the friend is convinced and his house is selected as the perfect location for the party, tell the host to bring out the drinks and other dead things that can be cooked on a barbecue: Fish, pork ribs, some vegetables, and an enemy’s face will be enough for a balanced menu. Remember that you are in charge of the sausages. And that the vegetables aren’t for eating; they are just so that the girls on a diet do not go home before the dancing starts.
Every barbecue needs a barbecue expert. And that’s you. Show up an hour ahead of schedule at the venue, dressed as a guerrilla soldier from the 1980s, and unload from the trunk all the packs of lighter fluid and charcoal you’ve managed to scavenge at the gas station. As the first guests arrive, announce loudly that you will be in charge of the fire. Look like you mean what you say, and no one will object.
Now light the barbecue with the help of some newspapers (make sure they are not digital), some matches, the lighter fluid and charcoal, and some bundles of straw that you will grasp firmly and use to stoke the fire. When the wads of straw have caught fire and the first ashes from the sleeves of your sweater begin to fade into the blue mid-afternoon sky, it’s time to consolidate the fire. If you remove the arm that has caught fire, the fire will be extinguished and all your efforts will have been for nothing. If you hold it in place, your hands will be roasted, but the embers will be secured. My advice is to resist firmly. There is no pain. Pain is just a stupid sensory convention. You can see for yourself: Stick your finger in the eye of whoever is closest to you. Does your finger hurt? It doesn’t, does it? Then pain does not exist. So resist.
The fire, once unleashed, goes through three phases of consolidation. The first, which is usually accompanied by applause and dancing, is called: “Well well, have a little fire going.” The second, in which the attendees approach and admire the quality of the bonfire but no longer dance, is known as: “What a great big fire!” And the third and final one, in which the attendees turn away from the epicenter of the fire and run in all directions with pale faces and sunken eyes, is called: “Help, how the hell do you put this fire out?” Calm down. After the third phase, if the firemen don’t come to spoil the party, the fire will begin to decline, and the desired embers will gradually appear.
This way of making embers is not allowed by authorities in all latitudes. In the case of conflict with law enforcement officials, omit the real name of the author of this manual, and say that you learned it from the Friends of Islamic State Pyrotechnics website.
It’s time to play music and bring out the wine. It is best to hire a DJ from outside your circle of friends because if the party is boring and the music is bad, the guests can dress up as cavemen, paint their faces with dirt, and chase him with sharp spears through the forest until they hunt him down. The moment of the vote to decide whether he should be thrown into the fire or into the river is amusing. The logical option to throw him into the river will almost certainly come out with an absolute majority. But it all depends on how the wine is being managed in the cellar. In any case, when the time comes, nobody will want to go down to the river, and the DJ will be provisionally released due to the boredom of the players. For the rest of the barbecue, he will play much better and avoid torturing those present with those chill out versions of the Beatles.
Around 3 in the morning, after the wine, games, dances, and mojitos, some guest will realize that dinner has not yet been served and will announce it loudly to everyone else. Then everyone will run to the barbecue, waiting for their ration. The funniest moment of the night arrives.
An old mountaineering tradition points out that the man who runs the barbecue is also responsible for carefully introducing the sausages and chunks of meat on the grill. But you are a showman, and your guests should know that. Set up 10 meters away from the barbecue and improvise a meat-throwing contest. Force the attendees to stand in single file and respect the order of tossing.
The rules are simple. Whoever fails to land his sausage on the barbecue will lose their dinner. And if they miss twice, they will be forced to walk over the coals. If they fail three times, they will have to roast all the remaining sausages with a lighter. And if they get desperate and fail the test, as a party finale, they will be thrown into the pool with a large stone around their neck and a sausage on his back. You have no idea how uncomfortable it is to swim with a sausage on your back.
When everything is on fire, the sun is lazily peeking over the horizon, the guests are sleeping at the bottom of the pool, and the host is unable to pronounce the word “host” correctly, steal some records, wash up a bit, and get the hell out of there. The barbecue is over.
Post the photos on Facebook and try to correctly tag the survivors.
Translated by Joel Dalmau.
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