A Smokin' Good Time!

I'm tired. Happy, but tired. We put on my nephew's wedding this weekend. My family is very talented and we can all pull together and work like a team of Clydesdale horses when it matters the most. In hosting the ceremony, we decorated, provided our own live and recorded music, hosted the bar, catered the food, and cleaned the hall.


The wedding was kind of East Meets West in style. The service was performed before a puja table by a western, non-denominational minister. Puja is a form of Hindu ceremonial worship that honors one or several gods. Other than the altar, the decor was western in theme and style. It truly reflected the couples beliefs and those of their guests which ranged from Evangelist to Hindu, carnivores to vegans, heterosexual to homosexual to lesbian, suburbanites to ashramites, northern hemisphere to southern hemisphere and those that dance to those that don't.


To respect the various diets in attendance, we served hummus and bruschetta with hearty, locally baked breads and crackers. Sweet fruits and salty cheeses spilled across cold, black marble slabs. Sliced strawberries and tangerine sections brightened a crisp, mixed green, winter salad, penne pasta dressed with pesto, sun-dried tomatoes and artichoke hearts, mouth watering, homemade spring rolls, and smoked chicken provided weight to the dinner.


Well, the chicken could have been more appropriately named Chicken Flambe after the Great Smoker Fire occurred. Oh, yeah! Up to that point, everything had been going so well and we were ahead of schedule. And then, during the champagne toast, we somehow lost a handle on the evening.


I was just about to announce that, after the final toast, we would begin serving dinner, when I was notified to stall another 30 minutes because of technical food difficulties. My other nephew and I kept asking if anyone wanted to speak and luck was with us. Most of the guests were chiropractors and chiropractic students who, after spending many hours in public speaking courses, turned out to be quite verbose. Becoming unsuspecting participants to our stall tactics, they embarked on a mission of one-upmanship that totally saved the evening. Instead of 30 minutes, it was nearly an hour and a half before we got the high sign to wrap it up.


How none of the guests noticed the large, raging smoker fire flaring against the night sky through the glass door, the fire extinguisher being nonchalantly carried out, the fortuitous removal of the propane tank from said smoker, and the steady, but curious, line of people carrying large, stainless steel pans of chicken through the building headed for the industrial ovens and further baking, is beyond me. When we tell you that you're gonna have a smokin' good time at our party, we can pretty much offer a guarantee.