The merits of letting men loose at the barbecue!

My parents used to hold a lot of barbecues during the summer when I was still living in Germany.

My mum and I would slave away in the kitchen for hours to prepare salads, marinade meats, make burgers and other treats for friends and neighbours to enjoy.

My dad then would tend to the barbecue, pile up the coals, light it and wait for us to bring out the meats. He then grilled and handed out plates of food to our guests.

And at the end of the night, it was my dad who was thanked for the lovely food. My mum and I took it like strong women do and let him have his time in the limelight.

Funnily enough, my dad never questioned the praise, he took it as his own achievement and glowed when people congratulated him on the delicious food.

And yes, you have guessed it right – it was my mum and myself who did the cleaning up afterwards.

Now, with the gorgeous weather we are blessed with lately, Mr T suggested that I invite the girls over for a barbecue (to be honest, he wanted to go for a cycle himself) – and thankfully our garden is large enough to adhere to social distancing.

I marinated chicken strips in lime and chilli, prawns in a tandoori style yogurt and got some tasty sausages (no burgers as I really don’t like them). I also had a huge platter of veggies to pop on and brush with homemade garlic butter.

Now, you might think this was the main work done and grilling the food should have been a doodle. I used the gas barbecue (we also have a coal one but I didn’t want the smoke etc.) and it wasn’t as big as I thought it was, as I needed to grill in stages.

When you have friends over you haven’t seen in a while, you tend to talk a lot to catch up. I was able to concentrate on the meat but the veggies on the second round kinda got forgotten – first I didn’t remember to brush the vegetables with the garlic butter and then I got carried away listening to the wonderful stories.

So the result was that everything was quite dry. As successful the meat was, the veggies were a huge disappointment (thankfully, I had delicious cheesecake for dessert which made up for it).

I decided that I am happily giving up control of the barbecue to Mr T – he is not interested in small talk and I would have someone to blame if something goes wrong!

There is something lovely about al fresco eating with friends especially with weather like we have been experiencing but for me it wouldn’t be a barbecue again unless I have a gentleman attending the barbecue (apologies to all who consider me a total failure for this but life is too short to master the barbecue) – next time it will be salads and platters of food prepared ahead to give me time to chat and entertain.

So here, is to all male barbecuers – you are doing a great job!