That was the official name of the wedding party Peter and Amy threw for Amy’s friend Martha and her newly betrothed, Hakan. We never really ascertained whether the Turks got the whole joke, but none of them seemed offended that we were fixated on their not eating pork.

So that was one good sign. The others were: a gorgeous sunny day; a bigger lamb (about 60 lbs, was it?; the increase in weight was all in the meat, not bone); and me not really having to do anything but show up and take a symbolic turn at the spit. This was all Peter’s baby this time. Tamara, once again the quintessential hostess, graciously opened her home to an Ottoman horde…of wonderfully polite and attractive young men, all cohorts of Hakan’s from various restaurants. Really, I haven’t been to a party with so many men in years–I really had begun to believe the statistics about NYC being 95% single, well-dressed, slutty women in their 30s.

But that’s beside the point–let me emphasize that Tamara had never met any of these people, and she was still incredibly game to once again have her front terrace coated in lamb grease.

When I arrived, Peter had already put our little friend on his spit–he chopped off the head this time, which made it a little easier to balance the carcass. He’d also added a bunch of red wine to the marinade, and was brushing it on the meat with big bunches of mint and rosemary.

Another improvement: actual charcoal. The back of the 20-lb. bag assures us that “this is the charcoal our ancestors used,” and I certainly felt a moment of primal bliss, sitting there in the still-weak, barely-spring sun, slowly cranking away as the scent of melting fat and crisping skin wafted over me. Perhaps later I would go draw a lamb on a cave wall…

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, Hakan had donned Tamara’s flowery apron and was rapidly plating up huge vats of hummus and tzatziki (sorry, cacik if you’re Turkish), drizzling them all in olive oil so they looked about as inviting as a swimming pool on a 90-degree day. He’d also brought some great Turkish bread, and had whipped up one of those mysteriously delicious Turkish salads of cucumber and tomato that somehow ends up being, as they say, so much more than the sum of its parts.

Soon night had fallen, huge Big Gulp-size cups of raki had been swilled, and the meze platters had been fairly devoured. To the soundtrack of heartfelt Turkish pop music, that warm hubbub of a party in full swing had developed: Happily mingling were, among others, a Turkish filmmaker, a Russian hairdresser, and the sort of fabulously articulate 13-year-old girl that makes you suspect you’ve never had it so together. Peter shone his Mag lite on the lamb and deemed it done.

When the carcass was brought out to the front table where Hakan was standing ready with a knife (and still his flowery apron), there was a surge like you feel at a concert when the lights first go up. The Turks were rushing the stage! Hakan was a blur with the knife, doling out huge tender hunks of meat–stringy, like pulled pork on the outside, pink and succulent on the inside–onto red and blue sectional plates, a strange refined touch in the midst of the ancestral feasting. Such glee filled the crowd, such a glow filled everyone’s eyes. (If there were vegetarians glowering, I certainly didn’t see them.)

After the lamb–which was even better than our New Year’s effort mostly because there was heaps more of it–the party continued, but at a more relaxed pace: the climax of the evening had passed, the anticipation was over.

With the encouragement of Hakan and others, the intestines were thrown on the grill, along with the head and some other bits. (The tongue was unfortunately forgotten in the fridge. Peter had pushed the bounds of his own squeamishness–who knew he had them?–helping to cut it out: “It’s just one more step from there to war crimes,” he said later with a small shudder. Does this mean Americans will never hack each other up with machetes because we buy all our meat shrink-wrapped? Does this mean I should be thanking the industrial meat machine? Oh dear…)

There was a wedding cake shaped like a fez, made by Amy (again, no idea if the Turkish guests thought this was funny–but they seemed to like it). There was lying on the sofa, digesting. Oh, and there was Hakan stuffing huge handfuls of kataif pastry in people’s mouths–so it wasn’t like it got completely placid and mellow after we’d spent ourself on the meat.

By the time the last guest left, the temperature had dropped back into the upper 30s, but the warmth of the brief spring afternoon was still there–in my big stuffed belly. Ah, barbecue, bringer of peace!