Labor Day

Friday

Robert F. Moss

Labor Day will revive barbecue

Oh my word. Will August never end? February is the shortest month and August is by far the longest, a full 17 days longer than any other. At least it feels that way. Nothing happens in August. The month has no holidays, since there’s nothing to celebrate. The business world grinds to a halt amid last-chance beach vacations and general summertime torpor. Emails go unanswered. Meetings are canceled for lack of attendees. Those who do make it into the office arrive late and duck out early, since no one’s around to notice. It’s not just in offices, either. Civic groups and charitable organizations avoid staging events during this cruelest of months, knowing attendance will be poor. Even the world of barbecue largely comes to a standstill.

Friday

Robert F. Moss

Is barbecue a summer food?

As someone born and raised in the American South, I’ve never understood why people consider barbecue a summertime food. If you do it right, barbecue is cooked outdoors over a wood fire. It’s frequently eaten outdoors, too, whether at a friend’s backyard gathering or at barbecue joints with picnic tables outside. Barbecue isn’t exactly the lightest food, with all the well-marbled brisket and thick slabs of ribs – not to mention hearty sides such as mac ’n’ cheese. Just thinking about eating a big barbecue platter on an August afternoon makes me want to lie down in a cool room to nap. Still, in the minds of magazine editors and television producers, at least, “barbecue season” starts with Memorial Day and runs through Labor Day.

Sunday

Teresa Mull

Barbecue is America’s food

Summer is fading fast, and though, according to my calendar, “the Autumnal Equinox” (is that the newest model of Hyundai?) isn’t until September 22, all the things we love about the season — swimming, county fairs, outdoor drinking, the August congressional recess — are essentially over after this weekend. And while people mark Labor Day in different ways, one of the best is with a barbecue, one of the few culinary traditions America can truly call its own. Smithsonian Magazine tells us barbecue has its origins in the first indigenous tribes Christopher Columbus encountered, who had a “unique method for cooking meat over an indirect flame, created using green wood to keep the food (and wood) from burning.

Tuesday

Calla Jones Corner

Spending Labor Day on the Cape

A few days before Labor Day I tend to get nostalgic for the sixty-five summers I spent in Chatham on Cape Cod. The feeling starts slowly, especially during our after-dinner, three-generation family strolls around the Chatham Lighthouse in the charming Old Village. If it is our last evening before returning to Europe, my father would be broiling the last steak. The stroll begins with a nip in the air and the gently falling, silver leaves from the trees that line small streets. There isn’t any traffic; residents of the Old Village walk. Later, when my mother had two bionic knees, she was still lovingly called the “fastest woman in town.” Now she strolls with the rest of us. We are savoring another tradition, after a summer filled with golf, tennis, swimming, boating and feasts.

chatham