I have been up since 7am and cooking since 8am. Everything is finally ready though. I hand garnished the watermelon boat with my handy dandy garnishing tool that not only makes the V cut on the watermelon edge, but the other end of the tool is a melon baller. (You just wanted me to say baller didn’t you). The melon boat is full of fruits like watermelon, cantaloupe, nectarine, cherries, blueberries, strawberries, kiwi, and plums. It looks good doesn’t it?

We were going to serve munchies prior to dinner, so people could nibble with their beer or wine. We made salsa, BBQ chicken wings and bowls of peanuts in their shells. And we had both white corn tortilla chips and blue corn tortilla chips.

Dinner was going to be a groan-fest. Tri-tip served medium rare and sliced against the grain in thing strips like you would do London broil. And that would be served with grilled garlic bread. Some people in BBQ circles (and maybe other circles too) like to eat their tri-tip on a slice of garlic bread so that’s why we were serving that with it. And we made grilled corn on the cob that was grilled in the husk. Then some yummy twice-baked potatoes made with sour cream, buttermilk and a ton of butter and herbs which was then topped with 3 different kinds of cheeses and baked until it was melty. You know we had to have a veggie that wasn’t starchy so I made cucumbers and onions win a vinaigrette and also tossed in some fresh cherry tomatoes that I just picked from the garden this morning.

For dessert I made the world’s best brownies. They are this “to die for” concoction that you make with the unsweetened baking chocolate bars that you see in the grocery sometimes. I tell you these brownies are “slap yer mama” good!

And for your drinking pleasure there were several varieties of drink. In the alcohol category we had 12 packs of each of the following. Budweiser, Budweiser Light, Miller Light, Corona and Mikes Hard Lemonade. For the underage crowd we had bottles of water, Mountain Dew, Coke, Dr. Pepper and Grape soda. We iced all of this down last night so they would be icy cold today. About an hour ago we tested out one of the beers and was it ever good. We drank them outside in the 86 degree temperature. Nothing like an icy cold beer when it is hot outside.

Finally about 30 minutes ago everything was ready except the tri-tip. We were going to wait and do the tri-tip about 7pm or so. Then just minutes before everyone was supposed to arrive we got the call. Larry called and said that he had a back ache and didn’t feel up to making the 45 minute drive over here. He said his back has been out all day and he has been lying in bed all day hoping it would feel better but it doesn’t. WTF! You wait until minutes before you are supposed to be here to call? OMG! G-man talked to him though and the next thing I know G-man says we are moving the party to Larry’s to accommodate him. You can imagine how this is sitting with me. I have been working all day in the kitchen and now we have to put everything in coolers and hot containers and such and drive for 45 minutes so Larry can have a cold beer and a tri-tip. Bloody hell! And G-man insists on taking all of the beer too. I told him to just take 12 beers over there but he is hell bent on taking all 48 beers (minus the 2 we drank) and 12 Mikes Hard Lemonades over there. I have but one word to say about this whole venture - “Whatever!”