Don't light the BBQ Ray, the washing's out!

Time to burn stuff in the garden aka get the barbecue going. Now, stop me if I'm wrong, but I think I heard  the majority of the nation's females groan, just ever so slightly.

It's one of the few things that truly excites the male of the species. As I kind of hinted in the last post, chopping stuff and setting fire to stuff is deeply appealing to the male.  I used to do it to old Airfix models of Sopwith Camels as a kid but now I've moved onto meaty bits. There's no point in me telling you that the speciality of the male BBQ house is a blackened yet still raw sausage.  We know that, been there.

I can't offer any sensible explanation, there is just something seriously appealing about lighting charcoal, watching the flames die down-ish, losing patience so therefore putting the meat on too early and generally doing a sort of OK job.  And we do know of course that the girls are pushed to one side.

Except that we chaps do occasionally want to tweak the boundaries and dump the briquettes in favour of twigs, and wood bits  so we can do the real outdoor thing.

This is the point were my wife shouts from the patio doors: "Oi! Ray Mears! Calm down, the washing's out and we could do with keeping the hedge for a bit longer yet!" This usually coincides with me glancing casually at the pint or so of unleaded that was decanted into a container, which is now by the bins, from the lawnmower at the end of last season.

"Don't even think about it..!"  Her capacity for mind reading is disturbing, wholly accurate and deeply frustrating. BBQ lighting brick things it is, then.

I am about to invest in some new heavy duty tools for the job.  Rather better than the lame fork thing I currently use which means I am far closer to the flame than sensible as the hairs of my arm sizzle in sympathy with the bits of burger now falling between the bars of the grill. I duck occcasionally as an overheated sausage explodes, turning itself inside out and, in sympathy with the burger, disappears between the bars, preferring the flames to me relentlessly prodding it.

Which is perhaps why the BBQ grill tray caused ripples of excitement at a men-only cooking show I did recently.  " My God! That's pure genius! " claimed one enraptured guest with one eye on sausage preservation and the trick of veggie cooking.

These are treats I will have to wait for.  Meanwhile now the rains have passed and the garden is walk on-able again, I'm out there, as flames engulf the bottom of the garden like a stunt from Die Hard 2 and bits of cremated burger drift gracefully to the almost dry white duvet cover  on the line. All that's missing is Bruce Willis in a vest, saving us all  from certain death. Speaking of which...

" You did get the washing in first, didn't you...didn't you?"

All this at the precise moment my wife, now through the doors with menace in her eyes, considers plunging my head into the still warm pasta salad bowl.

Don't worry, she's done it before. Honest.

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