Not All the Heat at Barbecue Comes From the Sauce

Usually the first thing I consign to the coals when I have a barbecue is a little dish I call Monterey chicken. That’s Monterey as in “that place near Carmel,” as in “the Monterey International Pop Festival, 1967,” as in “Jimi Hendrix burned his Stratocaster guitar to a cinder there.”

It’s a simple recipe that even the novice chef can attempt with expectation of success. What you do is get your coals (preferably mesquite) glowing red-hot, place chicken pieces slathered in sauce (it hardly matters what brand) on a grill close to the coals, and then watch them catch fire.

Two things result: You get chicken so crispy it looks like a Pompeii dog; and you invariably get some guy with a dominant barbecue gene who will come up, berate your abilities and take over the tongs, leaving you free to kick back and enjoy the afternoon. As well you should; I find there are few things quite so life-affirming as a good barbecue.

They say that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Me, I just have a hot link.

The times when I’ve lost a job or experienced other of life’s little snakebites, I’ve always found that a day in the sun with friends, spicy food and music puts it in perspective. It may be a drain on the pocket, but it isn’t until you share what you’ve got that you find out how much you really have.

I like a good trendy frou-frou meal as much as the next guy, but if I wanted to show a space alien the best the American spirit has to offer, I’d take him to a barbecue. I’d like him to see how loose, unpretentious and free we can be. And if the alien happened to look at all like a chicken, so much for interplanetary good will. I’ve had the barbecue bug since I had my first hot link at 7:30 one Sunday morning long ago when a friend and I were at a swap meet in Santa Ana. The fellow there cooking the links--his business card also read “Kung Fu bodyguard and financial adviser”--announced it was to be his last day at the swap meet, as the health department was closing him down.

“They said I have dirt and twigs in my food,” he griped. “Hell, you cook barbecue in your yard and you’ll have dirt and twigs in it too.” Hot links, by the way, are unconscionably evil that early in the morning. You’d do as well to wake up biting Satan’s tail.

Along with Monterey chicken, there are a few other dishes I like to prepare. One has come to be called Drug Island chicken, a reference to the fact that for the life of me I can never recall what the recipe is, though generally there is a chicken involved.

Things always get a bit hectic preparing for a barbecue, so I recommend cooking some things in advance. The biggest hit I’ve ever served is posole, a splendid hominy-chili pepper stew from the Southwest. Some friends and I were staying with a Mescalero Apache family in the White Mountains of New Mexico, and they served this to us. It was so incredibly spicy that after the first bite I was searching for a way to pour it discreetly into their couch. After the third bite, though, I was hooked, and three bowls later we were begging for the recipe. It goes something like this:

In a large cast iron pot, brown two chopped onions in 3/4 cup of oil (I use olive). Add 1 1/2 pounds of stew beef and a similar amount of pork (I substitute lamb, and throw in a half-pound of chorizo for good measure). Brown the meat a bit, then add 10 cloves crushed garlic, 3 tablespoons each of ground New Mexico chili powder, Pasilla chili powder, crushed oregano and chopped cumin seed, along with one tablespoon of ground cayenne pepper. You might also chuck in a beer or other hooch at this point. The alcohol serves to drive the heat into the meat.

Once it’s a real mess, add two 29-ounce cans of hominy, including liquid. (The original recipe calls for golden hominy, but the only kind I can find without nitrates is Juanita’s Mexican style.) Add water until it’s soupy but still thick. Let it simmer for at least an hour, adding lots more chili power, cumin, oregano and salt to taste. When you’re ready to serve it, add a few squirts of red wine vinegar. You can even throw in some dirt and twigs if you like.

There, now you know my biggest secret to having a great barbecue. In return, I request that all of you hold barbecues on Saturday, June 26. This will divert attention away from the one I’m having that day.

Whenever I have a big Q coming, I usually go around to my neighbors first to ask their forbearance. I find that things then remain on a far more cordial plane when difficulties do arise:

Me: “Hello, I believe that one of my guests threw a Cornish game hen into your pool. You may keep it if you like.”

Neighbor: “Thank you, but we’ve already supped.”

But, as sure as ants at a picnic, even with such precautions, it seems nigh on impossible these days to have a party without drawing some kind of heat.

I like live music. It strikes me as a basic human activity. The musicians and I who play at barbecues generally aren’t much louder than a power mower, and are nearly as good, even though we’ve consistently been shown up by my senior citizen pals Travis and Don, who strum ukuleles and sing.

We find a bit of amplification is nice, but no matter how well we try to play, the police always seem to turn up to shut us down. Ideally, one of these times we can work it so that we stop playing, the ukuleles start, and the cops haul Travis and Don off in handcuffs.

At least I live in Costa Mesa, where the police are polite. A couple of years back O.C. alternative music avatar Sam Lanni was having a dinner party at which the Swamp Zombies played a set of their juvenile acoustic folk. Some time after they stopped, people were sitting eating and chatting in a manner not unlike what was going on across the street at Denny’s. The Huntington Beach Police arrived and, true to their heavy-handed reputation, abruptly shut the party down.

Being an invited guest on private property and not violating any law, I failed to disperse. When I, with all due civility, asked an officer what law he thought he was enforcing, he stood nose-to-nose and responded, “If you want the (major expletive) law, you can spend the night in jail. Now move it!”

I did, though one fellow didn’t, quietly but insistently maintaining he was breaking no law. He indeed was jailed, charged with obstructing an officer, and tried at the taxpayers’ expense, giving me the rare opportunity to testify and say (major expletive) in a court of law. The prosecuting attorney, meanwhile, tarted up the innocent dinner party until it was a volatile “near riot” and seemed to suggest that anything less than a guilty verdict would mean the collapse of our civilization.

The defendant was found innocent, civilization teetered on, and I’m still wondering why some people are so intent on leeching all the life out of life.

Whether it’s a good class in school, a unique building or neighborhood, a distinctive radio station or nightclub, or any other thing that bothers to glow too bright in our society, there never seems to be a shortage of dull gray official types trying to shoot it down, citing the sort of dull gray reasons they always use, because it just doesn’t do for them to actually admit that they loathe and distrust freedom.

Years before his placid “near riot,” Lanni owned Safari Sam’s, a place with the foresight to book the sort of then-new music that now is filling amphitheaters. The club also presented Beckett plays, poetry and all manner of adventurous doings, so naturally it was shut down by the City of Huntington Beach in 1986. After months of appeals, protests and such, Sam admitted the battle was lost. So he had a barbecue of sorts, leading a New Orleans-style funeral procession to the beach and torching bits of Safari Sam’s history in a fire ring and signaling the band to strike up a celebratory theme.

What’s to celebrate on such an occasion? The same things that there always are to celebrate after a losing out to those who, to quote Mr. Frank Sinatra, “get their kicks stomping on a dream.” For starters, be glad that you’re not them.

If you live long enough and passionately enough, chances are that some day you’ll get rained on by grim men, be they attorneys, bean counters or corporate climbers.

They’ll put the screws on, and they’ll win the day, maybe the whole week. And ugly though the situation may be, chances are that at some point you’ll look at them and realize: “Jeez, as long as I don’t have to think the way you guys do, I’m the one who’s walking out of here the winner.”

I think this is what John Lennon meant by “Instant Karma.” What worse penalty can a narrow-minded, life-fearing prig have than to have to be that way his or her whole life , even if they do get rich and powerful in the bargain?

Pity them. Then have a hot link.