It’s Summer, which means it’s time for Climate Change to kick into high gear and bring the heat.  That means sweating, short temperatures, and body odor.

But, it doesn’t have to be all bad.  There are some upsides to Summer too, including backyard barbecuing.

When you’re in a mixed/multiracial family, any meal can get a little tricky, but when it’s barbecue, things get dicier still.  For every culture has its own ideas about what to grill and how to grill it.

Some like dry rub. Some like the sauce dripping everywhere.  Some like beef.  Others pork or chicken or lamb or goat.  Some want things skewered.  Others, just want it hammered down flat like a meat frisbee.

And, don’t get me started on the vegetables.  That’s a whole other layer of debate, where some have definitive feelings about corn, onions, peppers and other think “vegetables” is a dirty word.

Our family has its own internecine struggles.  We’re half-Black, half-White, and Jewish.  Our extended family is Eastern European, White and Jewish and our other half is Black from Atlanta and Detroit.  So, when we all come together, there can be differences about grilling.

1. The pork question: One thing that has to be sorted is the pork question — i.e., whether the Jewish people are going to agonize and feel guilty before eating the ribs or whether they’re just going to eat them.  I’m not condoning it.  I’m just saying, Jews have kept Chinese restaurants in business for years, and all that time, they weren’t necessarily avoiding the spareribs.

2. Which grandma’s recipe: Bottom line, Black people and Jewish people have a lot of grandmas, and they play a major role in the cultures.  Basically, you put Black people and Jewish people together and you get a battle of the Bubbes (that’s grandmothers in Yiddish).  If you don’t know it, grandmas can get pretty territorial about their kitchen, their recipes, their implements, their cooking techniques, and basically anything that has to do with food preparation.  They’re also not great at sharing the spotlight.  Bottom line: you gotta switch it up.  You can’t do a double-bubbe barbecue.  Because bubbes are like matter and anti-matter, you can’t touch them together.  So, you gotta alternate.  One weekend it’s Down Home cooking and next weekend it’s Straight Outta the Shtetl.

3. The final question — how well done: I haven’t done a scientific study, but it seems to me that this is a subject on which there is some agreement.  Basically, when you’re dealing with two cultures of peoples that don’t hunt (for hunters you gotta go find the Thurston Howell, III set at the country club), the general rule of thumb is that the meat ought to be “done.” And, by “done” what is meant is that there can’t be any red left, or, at least, it has to be so minimal that no one can know that this burger was once a cow with feelings and there’s no risk it’ll get up off the plate.

These are some of the major considerations.  There’s one other commonality – Jewish people and Black people have tasted the bitter end of oppression plenty, so one thing we all know is that it’s enough bitterness, you gotta have some sweet.  That’s the music, and by music I mean people yelling arguing across the table with one another.