For the fourth time since I started this column and for the twenty-ninth time since the day I was born – summer is here once again. The time of year for late night parties with good friends, long days at the beach – and my absolute favorite thing about summer – barbecues.

I have an indelible passion for food – which explains my recent weight gain – but no food is as enjoyable to me as barbecue is. Nothing beats dropping some steaks, ribs, dogs, burgers, bobs, and sausages on a grill hovering over flaming coals. I don’t know why, but I just love to barbecue.

I must have had thousands of barbecues in my life. I have barbecued on terraces, in the pouring rain – I have even barbecued in the winter – despite the cries of my angry landlord. No matter what, I gotta have my barbecue.

The best part about a barbecue is that it brings friends together in such a happy and enjoyable setting. Everyone arrives with something else to throw on the fire and some more drinkables for the cooler. The men all hover around the fire and all try to be the expert while the women sit around a table and make fun of the men trying to be so macho, but after a while, the food is ready and before you know it – you’re spending quality time with a bunch of good friends enjoying great food and cold drinks under a starlit summer sky – what’s better then that?

Me, I love a big juicy steak right off the barbecue – blood rare. You smother that sucker in barbecue sauce – and it’s over for me. The world means nothing and it’s just me and my steak. And I’ll eat the whole thing – much to the disgust of anyone else at the table.

Don’t get me wrong, there are times that my vampiric craving for very rare meat has gotten me in a jam or two. Once I was at a friend’s barbecue and was actually told to eat my burger away from the house because everyone was disgusted at the fact that the burger was still purple on the inside. And don’t think Sandy is a big fan of my love for meat that moos – because she is not.

The funny thing is that even though I am such a barbecue nut, I never owned a really good barbecue grill. I would always by one of those cheapo jobs simply because I wanted to spend more money on the food for the grill rather then the grill itself. Well, as part of our house shopping when we moved in together, Sandy and I bought a gas grill – boy will she be sorry.