Barbeques

Every barbecue I have ever been at has brought out the surging testosterone in men and therefore I find that sitting at the opposite end of the garden with a cold beer / glass of wine in one hand and a fag in the other waiting for them to bring on the burnt offerings is the best approach.

Marinades: the spicier the better. Have a bottle of cheap white wine, some lemons and limes, some olive oil, beef/chicken stock cubes, some Tabasco, LOADS of chopped garlic on hand. Marinate chicken and fleshy meat overnight using this marinade: 2 cubes stock dissolved in small cup hot water, at least 4 cloves of garlic, lashings of olive oil, squeeze of citrus, loads of pepper, dash Tabasco, some wine (white for chicken, red for beef). Soy sauce in mix will tenderise tough beef. Also: chicken is fab if you have tikka paste or jerk sauce (they come with instructions on packet/bottle).

Poussins are your friends: stuff them with garlic and lemon wedges, wrap in two layers of tinfoil and place directly on the coals. Should cook in 20 minutes. Ditto for fish, just drizzle with lemon, butter and pepper before foiling but 5-10 minutes good.

Hamburgers. Follow this one carefully, for burgers I Am The Law. Get mince, about 1kg. Finely chop two small onions, white. Add to mince. Crack an egg into this, add lots of salt and pepper, then mix with hands until onions evenly distributed. Make wide, flat patties (they cook faster). Cheeseburgers are best made with Kraft or similar 'single slice' cheese, I don't kmow why the plastifood option is best, it goes against my normal ethos, but it is. Toast the buns lightly on the white side so the bun doesn't break up while folks are eating. Give lots of salad garnish, mayonnaise, thin sliced tomatoes, proper non-Colemans mustard, Heinz only for dressing the cheeseburger.

Good luck!

The rest of it is part of my one-woman Barbecue Initiative to teach Brits how to do really good hamburgers, etc. What I propose takes an hour of prep the night before, so no biggie. You've already had the Blender Drinks masterclass, after all.

as a fish and chipocrite I usually manage to find something nice to eat other than the ubiquitous quorn sausage and burger combination. But a nice veggie kebab can be nice too.

They're like Veggie Burgers, except they actually taste good. Really ace stuff.

Boca burgers are made with soy, I think.

Thank goodness my independent wealth means I don't have to stoop so low but the situaton among the yoot' in Headington is clearly already tense given that 'Kirsten' has been called a "FUCKING LYIN WHOR" on the fence outside my bus stop, perhaps linked with the 'TINY COCK' attributed to 'James' a mere metre along. More news as it's made. (Also drawing of a fish next to "I KISS LIKE A FISH UNDA DA SEA")

Far out man, what will they think of next.

Whoever made those chilli burgers at Stevie and Tim's barbeque deserves a knighthood by the way. Though to call it Tim's barbeque would be perhaps to give him too much credit since he wasn't all about going outside that day.

WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!! ?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?????????????!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?

Fucking hell, I need to get some of that action. I haven't had any of that since I was at an "Irish pub" last year when this girl's fiance- now-husband was guest bartendering and was loading all the friends of the fiancee-now-wife with DW.

True fact: used to date a guy called DWD because of his adherence to Diamond White as a young 'un.

I think Tom should NOT serve beer and serve only ridiculous, girly mixed drinks like Midori Sours, Chocolate Martinis, and anything pink.

Tom: if there are vegetarians present, demarcate part of the grill (or, ideally, have a separate B&Q 6-quid job standing by) for meatless products and stick a sign up or something. It's amazing how verbal agreements over where to stick the animal flesh and where to stick the veggie skewers are somehow forgotten after a stubby bottle of French lager or two, and - hey! - there's salmon steaks all over the bloody place. Late-coming vegans are then forced to eat toast.

Is UNDA DA SEA some kind of Position Normal reference?

Ooops. Apologies to Sez, was briefly introduced - but would you blamew them from hiding good lady friend away from an animal like me?

(Animals like me: apes, monkeys, babboons, gibbons and orang-utans).

Mike: I so wish it was a Position Normal reference. I think of them every time I see it (which is often).

I dont know if any vegetarians are coming but any that do will be richly fed.

I am not all about eating or drinking outside like some beast of the field. It's vile.

Quite frankly, I think veganism is crap - I mean, what, plants aren't living? Fuck that, I want to kill all living things.

The Till They Lack Faces Cookbook: For Unsure Vegetarians by C. S. Lewis.

I don't understand people who call themselves vegetarians and have no problem with eating fish.

I guess the pisci veggies don't think the fish have proper feelings. Like do you cuddle fish when they're depressed like you can a chicken? Do fish giggle at toilet humour like cows do? Do fish get frustrated when they get can't do the Financial Times crossword like pigs? Do fish swim in the sea like sheep?

Umm... tequila and a lack of sleep is an interesting combination.

Of course, but they're the only living organisms less complex than yeast. I hadn't even thought of trying to construct a diet of non-living things. I can't see how it would even be possible...for appetizer we will have a multivitamin, the main course will be elemental carbon chunks garnished with lab-synthesized table sugar, some nitrogenated water (i.e. urine) to wash it all down...but where would the protein come from?

The problem with that I guess it that the tree drops fruit to be eaten so its seeds are spread by passing through the systems of birds etc. So to eat the fruit and then leaves its seeds in our sewer system would be downright cruel (it would end up in the sea near Clacton), depriving the tree of the right to spread it's genes, or whatever trees have.

The only logical solution to this would be to eat the fruit, and then crap somewhere a few miles from the tree. You'd have to admire the commitment of someone with this diet 24/7, but I think I'll just stick to the veggieburgers.

Can't you get windfall carnivores? Cow-tipping would increase tenfold...

Power Bars. Proven by science to be Not Meat.

Those fruitarians, btw, are true fact things, I've met one. Fucking hippies, yo, they're wacked in the head, that's all I gotta say.

I think Tom's BBQ should consist solely of barbequed fruit fallen off a tree.

As for the meat argument, is there any difference between windfall fruit and a sheep that has died from old age, having lived a full and happy sheep life in sheeptopia?

and would anyone admit to having compared aged sheep meat to worm ridden apples?

curry takes the bad taste away from bad food

therefore:

windswept dead mutton curry > windfall manky apple curry

I can't see the problem...

I'm going to try Suzy's burger recipe tomorrow. They look really good; similar to how I usually make them but simpler, and lately I've been thinking I should cut out a few ingredients. Now I'm really hungry.

http://www.theeagle.com/food/091102officeburger.htm

also, you don't necessarily want to make burgers too thin (unless the meat quality is low, then by all means flatten 'em like pancakes).

To do it right you need to use charcoal--you probably don't have a big enough grill to do it right. But the idea is to slow cook the pork (Texans eat beef, but pork is better, and I've had goat that was pretty good), while basting with a sauce you can make yourself--try a little tomato, vinegar, mustard, spices to taste. Cook for at least half a day over low coals. Until the meat is tender enough to come apart. Then either chop it or pull it.

Coleslaw is good too--not mayonnaise, but vinegar coleslaw, with some hot sauce in it.