Low and slow, that's how we cook it. Our two 12-pound Boston butts from Dickson's, rubbed with a heady mix of chile powder, cumin, brown sugar, salt and cayenne, were on the smoker by 10am the morning of the 4th. G actually prefers smoking on the Weber, because it retains the heat much better, but ours is just not big enough to accommodate all that pig. Several hours of smoking over hickory and apple wood chips, a couple in the oven, an hour to rest and then G and Philip were up to their elbows chopping barbecue. I almost fell flat on my face in the kitchen, the floor was so slippery.

After they pulled and chopped the smoky, fatty pork, I doused it with an Eastern North Carolina hot sauce made from vinegar, Tabasco and red pepper flakes. It's an irresistible combination: salty, tangy, spicy, smoky richness. Then this gets piled on a cheap, soft potato roll, smothered in pickles (dill or bread-&-butter, your choice), with perhaps an extra dash of hot sauce, and you've got some authentic barbecue. A high-falutin' roll is not welcome; you need something that breaks down easily and sops up all that juice. And though we don't generally do white flour in our house, this is a worthy exception.

As for sides, we had a classic, finely chopped green cole slaw with mayonnaise; a spicy purple slaw with japaleños and cumin-lime dressing; fresh peas with radishes, preserved lemon and mint tossed with buttermilk; kale chips; and jícama with chile and lime. A little while later, we passed out homemade ice cream sandwiches—triple chocolate cookies with raspberry or mint ice creams. Sadly, my popsicles (coconut-lime or rhubarb-orange) had softened irretrievably due to some strange freezer anomaly. Drinks? you ask. Check in tomorrow, and I'll fill you in on how you can get three bottles of Hendrick's gin to disappear in no time flat.