A friend spent 14 months building a boat. Today was the launch. I asked what to bring and he said, "bring a side."
I took small sweet peppers, made little boats out of them, filled them with a spread and wrapped them in bacon.
the tea-stirrer spoon is tiny, so is the pepper:
When I started to think about the bacon it didn't seem like the right complement here, but knew I needed it. I wanted a bridge of some kind to bring together the filling and the bacon profiles, and a dollop of spicy hot BBQ sauce made sense:
On the way over I knew he'd bring his smoker. What I didn't know is that he had an Orion. Inside is a brisket and some ribs:
I set up to cook and enjoy the scenery:
Here's some of what others provided, tuna fish, potato salad, salsa, some other salad ...
And so ... I didn't get a pic of my pepper boats, nor the ribs he made. Both were great. Everything happened too fast. I have some leftover pepper boats and will add a pic tomorrow!
But here's the brisket finishing on the lower level of the Orion. it was yummy too.
What was interesting is that while I was cooking the pepper boats, one of the friends comes over and sets down some mystery meat in a bag for me to cook. I'm like, "huh? OK" I'd never met her and had no idea what it was, but my JJ was already busy. "That's OK, it'll cook fast." So I said I'll put it on later.
Took off and served the pepper boats. Opened the bag of meat from the cooler and discover it's $22 worth of seasoned carne asada ... yikes, I don't want to F this up.
I spread it all out but my fire is dying. The beef was two long pieces and consumed the grill area and then some. Good thing it was a super-thin cut of meat. One cooked faster since fuel was only setup on one side. This went on for a while, with her and I sometimes turning the meat until I stole some coals from the Orion and then went into my car trunk for some lump ... about the time the temp came back up she pulled the beef off!
Now, I didn't mind this stranger working my grill ... it was her meat at "stake" there, and she was comfortable with it all even if the lid bale feature was totally lost on her.
Here's a shot of that beef, tasted like restaurant quality stuff!