Dede’s Barbecued Chicken

In the heat of the summer, there’s nothing better for keeping the heat out of the kitchen than firing up the grill. Dede would make his barbecued chicken on the Fourth of July, using a potent vinegar bath on grilled chicken that produced a pungent, meaty odor, sending out billowing clouds of steam and smoke as the chicken cooked on the grill. My sister and I fought to help pack the ice and rock salt in the ice cream machine for homemade peach ice cream. I wasn’t nearly as fond at the time of being given the chore of grating the cheese for the pimento cheese. For many years, my grandparents did not have air-conditioning. Meme would stay up late the night before or wake up very early in the morning and work in the cool, quiet hours of the hot July heat to prepare her portion of the feast. The humming of the fan was often her only company before the house started stirring and the cousins started piling out of bunks and cots.