BBQ Baked Beans
BBQ has its own language. You can smell it before you see it — smoke curling up from a grill, someone laughing too loud, kids running barefoot, and a table full of foods that feel like summer itself. There are the classics: coleslaw, potato salad, watermelon sliced into perfect ruby wedges. But for me, the one dish that always meant we were celebrating something was BBQ baked beans. Growing up, summer was birthday season in my family — cousins, aunties, uncles, all packed into July and August like the universe decided to drop us in batches. I will admit my family is loud and dramatic; I think they are convinced that the world is their stage. Because of that, it felt like every year we’d end up gathered along the Columbia River, knee deep in birthday cakes because, of course, everyone had their own cake and surrounded by water toys — rafts, inner tubes, and those inflatable horses that never stayed upright — for one big, chaotic, sun‑soaked celebration. The kind where someone...
