Balmy summer eve after balmy summer eve, the delicious smells of barbecued meats waft from our neighbours' gardens. What better way of winding down after a hot day at the office, or of entertaining friends without having to prepare a three-course meal worthy of Raymond Blanc? The very smell of summer, surely?
Yet successful barbecues have always eluded us. Years of wheezing, blowing and swearing at unwilling charcoal have always ended in blackened chicken, impossibly oily and burnt on the outside yet bloodily raw inside. And our guests have departed drunk, hungry and argumentative after four hours of munching crisps and glugging wine. So this year we invested in a gas-fired barbecue. You know: all the fun, but none of the work. Well, the work was clearly in the assembly: like so much you buy these days, the sturdy frame I thought I was buying in the shop came in a thousand pieces. Two calls to local builders provoked snorts of laughter but no help. Eventually my husband, feeling his masculinity (rightly) under threat, gave in: three hours later we had a barbecue. Spurred on by this success, we summoned the family round. What happened? Leaping flames, a thick pall of smoke, tar- covered chicken, choking civilians. It was more like a scene from Saving Private Ryan than suburbia. Back to the salad and bread.
So I am not, after all, going to recommend barbecues. Instead, this week's self-indulgence is a negative - don't bother with that burnt meat thing. It is probably carcinogenic and polluting and the best bit is the smell anyway, which can be enjoyed with less fuss and danger from the other side of the garden fence. Instead, just buy some pasta; cook it with very good olive oil; eat with some ripe, sweet tomatoes and some fresh bread. Then saunter out into the garden with a large bottle of wine. And sniff.
