grilling and entertaining in the summer

We had a pretty successful Labor Day get-together yesterday and came away with a few awesome summer recipes and entertainment ideas. Before the sun goes away for at least six months, try these out:

My summer food: St. Louis-style pork ribs on the grill
A good price on a rack of spare pork ribs from the grocery store is $1.99/lb., or about $9 a rack.
To trim the ribs St. Louis-style, flip them over and remove the skirt meat from the backside. Then trim as much fat as you can from the ribs. Finally, most importantly and most tricky, you must remove the membrane to allow the marinade to best soak into the meat. Start peeling the membrane from the square end of the ribs with a dull spoon, then use a paper towel to grip and rip. Here's a video showing how it should be done.
Marinade the ribs overnight with the following recipe:
2 cans Pabst Blue Ribbon
1 chopped onion
5 cloves garlic
1 TBSP seasoning salt
salt/pepper to taste
Slow cook the ribs in the marinade, covered with foil, for 3 hours at 225 degrees in the oven.
Place ribs on low-medium heat on the grill, add plenty of barbecue sauce. Cook for 12 minutes on each side.

My summer drink: Porch crawler
Tastes like refreshing lemonade, sneaks up on you and kicks your ass.
10 cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon
1/2 bottle of vodka
1/2 bottle of rum
1 can of frozen lemonade concentrate
lemon slices

My summer music: The Greatest Most Influential Music of All Time
See earlier blog post here.

My summer lawn game: Beersbee
I've long been a fan of horseshoes, bocce, cornhole, baggo, croquet, lawn darts and pretty much any other outside summer game that is highly competitive yet requires little to no athletic ability. If it's a game that the more you drink, the better you get, I'm in (and I'm probably pretty good).
I recently learned Beersbee and it ranks up there with the best lawn games ever.
To play, hammer two 4-foot PVC pipes into the ground about 40 feet apart and place a beer can on top of each. One team of two players stands behind one pole and the other team of two players behind the other. The teams take turns throwing two frisbees at the other team's poles/beer. One teammate throws his frisbee, and once it passes the pole, the other teammate is free to throw. The receiving team must catch the frisbees, but not until they pass the pole.
If you hit the beer, it's 3 points. If you hit the pole and the beer falls, it's one point. If a frisbee is catchable but the receiving team fails to catch it, it's a point.
If the frisbee hits the pole, the beer falls, but the receiving team catches the beer, no points.
If the frisbee hits the beer and it explodes, game over--tossing team wins.
Play to 21, win by two.