Several years ago, a friend conned me into helping her out with her birthday barbecue. I arrived prepared with my birthday cake contribution, expecting to set out paper plates and fire up a grill. But in this case, “help” meant standing in the kitchen, preparing meat and cooking all of the other food while she bounced around socializing with the various guests. I obliged because, well, it was her birthday and I’m a sucker. But I learned something very important about throwing any social gathering: Doing food service completely sucks.
As I ran around the kitchen cutting up corn on the cob, seasoning ground beef and decorating a cake, the rest of the crew sat in the living room and on the deck sipping beer and having a good time. By the time I finished up in the kitchen, the party was more than half-over and several people had already left, all of the best beer residing happily in their bellies.
I love a good gathering of friends and relations as much as the next college student, and to fill ourselves with food and drink in the process is a given, but if I’m going to be at a social event, I want to socialize.
Instead, the host of any party remains in the kitchen or bound to the grill, only able to interact with those who come by to fill and refill their plates and cups with food and drink. As much as I love entertaining, there’s a selfish part of me that wants to get in on the fun I’m organizing. But as I stand over the hot grill I can barely get in enough interaction to even ask someone to bring me a cold one.
Added to all of this are the troubles of providing edibles to a modern (read: hippie) group of college students. In today’s world, and more specifically here in Eugene, tastes and food preferences vary widely. There are vegetarians, vegans and did you know there is such a thing as a pesco-vegetarian? Not to mention allergies to various ingredients, intolerance to lactose and other such inconveniences. Some don’t drink, some won’t come without drink, and some, despite their preferences, aren’t legally allowed drink. Then you’ve got your wine drinkers, your cocktail drinkers and your beer drinkers.
Arranging and accommodating all of these preferences creates a much more pleasant environment for those invited, but to the host this is just another aspect of planning and preparation, not to mention money.
Meat is expensive. Vegetarian “meat”? Insanely expensive. Beer is expensive, or more to the point, good beer is expensive. As a student racking up thousands upon thousands in debt, I’d rather sit at home alone watching television than hosting a party that’s going to drop more money into the loan bucket.
Again I find that everything I ever needed to know I learned on PBS children’s programming. When getting together with friends, let’s all pitch in and cooperate! Offer to host your barbecue, but make sure those coming are paying their own way. This is not to say that you should charge at the door (nice work, if you can get it). I’m just suggesting a little elaboration on the standard BYOB mentality.
BYOE. Bring your own everything. I wouldn’t necessarily make that the subject of your invitation e-mail, or even state it in such explicit terms, but the fact is we students are all in the same boat. We want to get together and party, we just don’t have the funds to pull that all together. But as a united front of 10 or more people down for a Friday night hootenanny, a little teamwork gets the job done.
As the host, you provide the buns, condiments, a few beverages, a big salad and, of course, a hot grill. Everyone else brings a grillable of his or her choice and some sort of beverage. They want hot dogs? They bring hot dogs. They want prime rib? They bring prime rib. They want indescribable meat-like product created from tofu and fungus? Well, you get the idea.
Leave the options to them. The vegetarians aren’t going to bring steak, and anyone that does not wish to drink will bring sodas or something else. This leaves the host time to pick out good music, polish the silver and throw a party.
If you want to host something a little more elaborate, pull in a few close friends to pitch in an extra salad or dessert.
After that, just open up your grill and let them slap their animal parts (or vegetable parts, as the case may be) on the fire, freeing you up to roam around and socialize.
The best barbecue leaves everyone happy. That includes the host. To throw the best party, you should be in on the action. Moral of this story: There’s no “I” in barbecue.