It was a day that marks a life passage in a boy's adolescence. Robins mined for worms, Dizzy Dean or some other drawling baseball once-great honked from a radio, power lawnmowers chorused. Oh, I already know all of that, Dad. Are you sure, he replied.
Barbecue is really an art.
I confess that I have always been more of a food voyeur than a chef, barbecue being the exception. As a child, while other kids stuffed Playboys under their mattress, I pored over Good Housekeeping, leering at juicy cuts of tender meat that looked decidedly different from the gray slabs of roast beef my mother scorched as if she were performing exorcisms. I am on a flight, returning from New York and a luncheon in the private dining room of Gourmet Magazine, which I have faithfully read for years. I doubt that I have attempted more than a half-dozen of its recipes, but reading about Garlic Mashed Red Bliss Potatoes is quite satisfying in itself. And shook off the wine and laid them in a great, beautiful whorl, from the outside to the center, as perfect as a snail shell.