Another barbecue gone by. No photos this time as I wasn't taking them.
The rain, as forecast, was heavy in the late morning when I was
setting up, and continued until about 3pm. The tent coped, though it's
not ideal for the job as it tends to build up water in slack spaces on
the fabric then dump it on the unsuspecting. The gazebo roof is
definitely not what it was now; it's good enough for working under,
but it really needs replacement.
As usual I started cooking when Chris went to fetch the first batch of
people from the station, but for some reason (perhaps the charcoal was
more enthusiastic than usual) by the time they got here there were
already eight steak-and-garlic burgers ready to eat, and sausages in
progress. The cooking seemed to stay ahead of people's hunger
reasonably effectively, and as usual I cooked more than people really
wanted to eat. Some people brought steaks in marinade, which while
they needed a little extra arrangement appeared to work well and were
certainly delicious.
A side note: the instructions on charcoal say that one should wait for
the flames to die down before one cooks over it. This seems to me to
throw away much of the cooking potential! So I put metal trays over
the flames for burgers and such like, then cook sausages more slowly
later. Thick steaks take ages, though, and I think people may have
taken them before they were really ready.
I went back to using iced water for beer cooling, which seemed to work
fairly well. Draught beer was Mansion Mild, an all-year brew from the
Tring Brewery which I'd picked up on
Friday, as well as some growlers from Camden and Brewdog (thanks to
I.) the contents of which I didn't note in detail.
Thirteen guests plus us, which didn't feel too crowded. Conversation
was wide-ranging as usual.
If you are reading this and think you should be getting barbecue
invitations, let me know…
Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.