I must say that this past week as a whole, and the weekend in particular, unfolded in quite satisfactory fashion. Early on, Saturday’s Buddy Guy and Mavis Staples concert down at Red Butte Garden got put on the schedule and that brought a fair amount of anticipation into play.

Actually, I couldn’t wait to finally hunker down on a blanket with a low-rider chair and a cooler for some outdoor evening fare. Summer, as we all know, has been taking its own sweet time arriving on the scene this year and some live music, not to mention a bit of ecstatic dancing, seemed well in order.

One interesting seemingly coincidental happenstance that took place during the week had my son Smokey and his five cousins all attending a “Steel Pulse” show. Nothing strange there. The family has long been “outed” as a clan of reggae fetishists.

It’s just that, with nary a word of communication between them, two hit the tour stop in Kauai, two others in L.A., and the last two, including Smokey, at The Depot in Salt Lake. All in the same week. What do think? A genetic predisposition, possibly?

In preparation for Buddy and Mavis, I pulled out a few relevant CDs and DVDs and, as the week crept by on tiptoes with its fingers to its lips, proceeded to get my game face on.

My favorite recorded performance by Mavis has to be from a segment of the Martin Scorsese film “The Last Waltz,” where the Staple Singers join The Band in a riveting rendition of “The Weight.” Filmed during the ’70s, Mavis was, in body, spirit, and voice, flat-out gorgeous.

For gospel music, of course, what with all the “halleluiahs” and such, one needs at least somewhat adequately functioning rotator cuffs to correctly perform that over-the-head “testifying” thing. Totally out of luck there! Maybe if I had a brew in one hand and a snifter in the other, they wouldn’t notice.

I had a few options in my preparation for Buddy. One, an old anthology “twofer” (two albums for the price of one) from the Vanguard label featuring a brief recorded history of South-Side Chicago blues, included a couple of cuts from when, after leaving Muddy Waters to form their own group, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells had gone into the studio to make their first recordings under their own names.

Although he was a blistering blues-guitar slinger at that time, Buddy had yet to evolve into the “King of the Fender Stratocaster” who would have Jimi Hendrix sitting in adoration at his feet. It wouldn’t be long, of course, before Jimi himself assumed the role.

The Red Butte show turned out to be even better than imagined with both Mavis and Buddy working the crowd into a frenzy. What a great pairing! Although, at first blush, they might appear to work opposite sides of the street, both acts are grounded in a similar musical and emotional virtuosity.

But as rewarding an experience as Saturday night at Red Butte proved to be, it would be the following day, Sunday, Father’s Day, that would walk away with best-in-show honors. And that would be due to the fact that Smokey, along with his heretofore un-touted culinary skills, would spend the entire day with the old man — talkin’ music and sports and Mexican recipes.

My job was crucial! I had to remove the slab of Sea of Cortez wahoo from the freezer and slip it into the refrigerator so as to thaw overnight. A recent gift from longtime friend James Wallace, the fish, once seasoned and “blackened,” was to be the centerpiece of Smokey’s culinary creation.

But, as things turned out, as savory as the wahoo proved to be to the taste buds, it would be Smokey’s quite singular rice dish that totally raised the bar around these parts. I haven’t been around anything so ethnically perfect since I hovered around his mother’s stove back in the day. The cat has truly developed a gift with south-of-the-border fare.

And then there were his “Hatch-chile-infested” frijoles, which, following a belt of Patron Anejo, had you humming “Cielito Lindo” well into the night. All of this emerges from the oral tradition. There’s nary a written recipe in sight for any of it. And all the while he’s got three pans going at once while he’s juggling spatulas, wooden spoons, and Cerveza Pacificos.

I wonder if I could talk him into a regular “meals on wheels” kind of a thing. It wouldn’t always have to be wahoo. Ahi or catfish or halibut would do. But, and I must make this perfectly clear, the frijoles and the rice dish are non-negotiable.

Jay Meehan is a culture junkie and an observer, participant, and chronicler of the Park City and Wasatch County social scenes for the past 40 years.