Barbeque

Ah, the Great British Barbeque. As soon as a barbeque was on the cards, we nervously check the weather every day. British weather cannot be trusted. Last summer was a complete wash-out, the whole of last week was rainy and miserable, some might say positively autumnal. Conversations went a little like this:

"BBC Weather says cloudy and light showers".

"But Accuweather says sunny, and Accuweather must be accurate, it's all in the name."

"Maybe we could barbeque in the rain; we have done before".

I burst out of bed (when I say burst, I mean staggered) on Saturday morning and nervously pulled the curtains back. Hurrah! The sun was out.

My parents are champion marinaters. We had a million ribs, all swimming in the 'special marinade', so called because my dad can never remember exactly what goes in it.

What can be better than ribs? Especially these ones; they were slightly tangy, slightly sweet and well caramelised. Meaty too; quite often all you get is a bit of fat and bone, but these were something to sink your teeth into.

Other meaty morsels destined for the barbeque were squid, chicken legs, steaks and sausages.

You can see the tentacles of the squid sizzling away in the top picture. The squid was extremely tender, cooked to perfection and often the tentacles are the best bit, cooked so they have a bit of crunch.

We did have vegetably bits, such as barbequed courgettes, a lettuce, tomato and avocado salad and some potatoes with red onion and a little mayonnaise, but really - it's a barbeque! It's all about the building of the fire, the frustrations of the coals not catching, the joy of it finally being at the right temperature, and then, of course, the meat.

...And there wasn't a drop of rain.