Lulu’s Barkin’ BBQ isn’t just about food. There’s big-name entertainment — this year, Sheryl Crow — and the chance to support the by donating money for medical supplies, microchips or hay to feed the horses at the league’s Harmony Equine Center.
Make no mistake, though: The mouth-watering spread that whips up for those attending this fundraiser hosted by attorney Fred Bartlit and his wife, Jana, and held at their Castle Pines home, has a lot to do with why folks return year after year.
Let’s start with the ribs served during cocktail hour. They aren’t dripping in sauce; they’ve been coated with Perini’s signature and roasted over mesquite coals for three hours. “Good, aren’t they?” Perini asks as a guest samples one. “The meat just falls off the bones.”
For dinner, there’s a Texas-size spread that includes such other Perini signature dishes as , fried catfish, melt-in-your-mouth beef tenderloin and .
Perini, a favorite of former President George W. Bush and one of Saveur magazine’s “24 Reasons Why We Love Texas,” has cooked for all 12 Lulu’s Barkin’ BBQs and makes the annual trek to Colorado as a favor to his longtime friend, Jana Bartlit. And because he enjoys visiting the state in which his late father grew up.
“My father, who’d be 117 if he were still alive, was raised in a house on Downing Street and his family ran Perini Brothers, a ladies’ store by the D&F Tower,” Perini recalled. “He had degrees from CU and Mines and then moved to Texas in the 1920s to drill for oil.”
Perini, who has also cooked at the in New York City six times, arrives in Colorado with a truckload of equipment and ingredients, including bags of rosemary fresh from his Perini Ranch gardens in Buffalo Gap, Texas. “Beautiful isn’t it?” he asks.
He sets up shop on a knoll adjacent to the giant tent where some 550 guests will be seated for dinner and the show. A crew from Castle Pines Golf Club pitches in to help.
Who attended Lulu’s Barkin’ BBQ, an event named for the Bartlits’ beloved ? What songs did Sheryl Crow sing? How many homeless dogs and cats were adopted that night? And how much money was raised? The anwers are in my Mile HighStyle blog: . To see additional pictures from Lulu’s Barkin’ BBQ, please visit our online slideshow:
Joanne Davidson: 303-809-1314, jdavidson@denverpost. com or twitter.com/getitwrite
Online: Watch a video of Tom Perini’s dry-rubbed ribs denverpost.com/seengallery
