National Barbecue Month

It’s National Barbecue Month. Yes, it’s time to fire up the barbecue and enjoy cooking in the great outdoors. And grilling isn’t just for hotdogs and burgers either. You can use your barbecue to cook vegetables, fish, pizza, corn on the cob and even certain fruits. 

And we here at Simply Elegant have some helpful grilling tips and barbecue event ideas that we’d like to share with you to help you celebrate National Barbecue Month. 

Planning on having a big time barbecue event? A good caterer can handle most of this for you letting you enjoy your barbecue as opposed to spending all your time over the grill.

Here are a few suggestions to help make your barbecue event the best it can possibly be:  

- make sure your guests know what to wear: proper shoes, warmer clothes for evening – you may get four seasons in one hour. Make sure your guests know that, and have back up sweaters, blankets, etc. for those who don’t come prepared.

-have a back up plan in case it rains. You may need to move your party indoors or under some kind of shelter very quickly. Be prepared and have your move rehearsed or at the very least planned.

-only have food out for a maximum of 2 hours – no more no matter what.

-keep food out of the sun.

-keep food platters on top of ice.

-serve clean ice for drinks (don’t have guests scoop ice out of containers cooling cans of coke, beer, etc.).

-don’t serve seafood. It’s an accident waiting to happen.

-don’t serve anything mayo based. Make you potato salad with oil not mayo. It’s safer and much more savoury.

-make sure your bar and bartender are in the shade. It not only makes your ice last longer, but more importantly, your bartender won’t collapse from heatstroke.  

-make sure your guests have shade as well.

-think about your power sources. Outdoor lights don’t require much power, cappuccino machines do. Will you need a generator? There are quiet ones out there. But they rent/sell quickly. So plan ahead.

-can you borrow additional power from a neighbor (again, only for sources that don’t need much power)?

-invite your neighbours regardless of the type of party. They will be more forgiving of noise, etc.

-make sure you know your neighbourhood rules and laws when it comes to noise, lights and cutoff times etc. 11pm is often the cutoff time – but not for everywhere.

-think ahead to any transportation needs, particularly if hosting it somewhere remote or if you are serving alcohol.

-offer taxi chits as necessary or have a plan to reunite those who wish to over indulge with their cars the next day (and/or a place for them to stay).

-make sure you also serve lots of fun non alcoholic drinks.

-have a bartender who knows how to appropriately deal with problem drinkers (there is always at least one).

-for alcohol, theme it and do something fun and momentous. Have a martini luge or something through an ice sculpture. It is decorous, practical and fun.

-bugs. Fact of life. Hardware stores offer eco friendly, non or little-smelling tiki torches to ward off mosquitoes.

-do a test of your planned site to check for wasps. Have a little picnic and see how many bees and wasps you attract. It may just be a fact of life.

-know who has allergies to nuts, bees, etc. and avoid allergens where you can. Ask guests who you’ve identified as allergic to bring whatever medications they may need to deal with an allergy exposure. And know how to work an Epipen.

Now that you’ve taken care of that, it’s time to celebrate National Barbecue Month. So let’s get grilling!