I’m off to eat smoked ribs and all kinds of other homemade things at a cookout hosted by my good friend James.

Photos and a full report coming soon.

In the meantime, rock out to the best song ever.

When Glen belts out that “There is healing in your hands” at the end, that’s as good as it gets.

I hope your Saturday is awesome, too, so please get out there and make the most of it and come back here and tell me all about it.

---

Update

As always, James delivered another above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty dinner. The ribs were amazing — after spending about eight hours on the smoker, they were perfectly tender.

James also made grilled (and seasoned!) potato wedges, while his brother Dan pitched in with two awesome sides. First up was grilled corn on the cob, which Dan had let soak overnight in a sweet mixture of honey and coconut milk. Dan also prepared “zucchini boats,” which are what you get when you boil some zucchinis until they’re tender, slice them in half, cut out long canals from the center, and then refill those canals with a mixture of grated cheese, chopped-up bacon, bread crumbs, the leftover zucchini pulp and freshly diced olives, tomatoes and jalapeños. Put it in foil and grill it and you’ve really got something special.

The funniest part of the day happened when James and Dan and I were sitting around watching television while the ribs were smoking. A huge, deafening explosion (coming from outside) rocked the entire house. Hard. We all looked at each other immediately with the same look of shock that said, “Somehow, the smoker just blew up in the backyard.” Luckily it was only the neighbors doing some early-afternoon test shots of their pre-Fourth of July fireworks. (Those things had to be some military-grade party-poppers. No doubt about it.)

Thanks as always to James and his wife, Cathy, and Dan for hosting another excellent day of eating and camaraderie.