Yay, time to deck the garden with bunting and pour the Pimms because I’m pleased to say that summer has officially started chez nous as after many visits to bbq shops and shall we, shan’t we discussion, me and Mr R have finally gone out and got ourselves a bbq. It needed to be done as how can summer ever be complete without burgers, ribs and the like gently sizzling, or cremating, away over hot coals with the man of the house…apologies to ladies who grill…yielding tongs in one hand and a bottle in the other presiding over enough meat to fill the butcher counter at Morrisons! We used it for the first time last night, and armed with the 100 page manual and reading the instructions at least three times we managed to get it lit. Now normally you wouldn’t need a manual  to get a bbq going….throw coals on the rack, add fuel lighter, strike match, wait, wait and wait until at least three beers later the coals are hot enough to throw on the meat or for veggies, a halloumi skewer or two. For the unlucky ones, you discover that whilst you’ve been necking the beers, or buttering hotdog rolls and making at least five salads, the fricken things gone out! However, our bbq has vents to open, starter chimney like devices to fill with briquettes, and timings to be observed. This is no ordinary bbq, this is  a Weber bbq. This is one badass grill that promises to make your kitchen cooker redundant. It will even cook the Christmas turkey, although why I would want to baste a turkey in the garden in December is beyond me! Still it would at least free up the oven for extra roast potatoes and stuffing, Surely that has to be worth suffering from potential frostbite and hypothermia!

Being the first time cooking on it we decided to start small and grill  four very small kebabs. When we talked to the very nice and knowledgable salesman at the garden centre, he advised us to buy the super big size so we could feed half of Swindon if ever we needed to and that it had the advantage of being able to add lots of extras like a rotisserie or stone pizza boards. Mr R was pretty taken with a piece of kit that you poured beer into and then upended a chicken on a prong like thing. Mmm… chicken tasting of Newcastle Brown Ale, I sure can’t wait to try that! Of course we ended up buying the grill the size of a small town because at the time it made good sense to do so (and the salesman was very good at his job), except that 99.9% of the time we will only ever be cooking for the two of us, still it’s always good to be prepared for that .1% when we might feel the urge to throw a party. Our four little kebabs did look a little lost taking up about 10% of the grill but the clever people at Weber had ingeniously made the grill with are movable middle which made cleaning it a doddle with our newly acquired grill brush and cleaning gel, although to be honest all that was needed was a quick wipe with  a Jcloth.

I think it’s fair to say that we can see ourselves as dedicated bbq-ers, or grill-ers or whatever you call people who love a tray of hot coals. I’m rather excited to find out that you can actually go on grilling courses and even better is that they are held at the wonderful Hobb’s House Bakery and ran by Henry Hobb AKA one of the Fabulous Baker Boys. I bet he could teach me a thing or two about how to handle a sausage! Meanwhile Mr R will be seen most weekends flipping burgers, basting ribs and maybe doing things to chickens that involves beer. I might even be allowed to have a go, but it’s definitely his baby so It’ll take a bit of persuading to get him to step away from the beast and hand over his tongs. In this day and age of equality, the bbq still seems to be the domain of the male species whilst we are on salad duty. All’s not fair in love and grilling!