Blooming barbecues!

That's very good sunseeker. From your post you did seem to have been pressured into it. I'm glad you weren't.

BBQs too much faff, I dont mind going to them as long as someone else arranging it. ... on Sunday we had the family round, paddling pool out for little ones, I made 2 large Lasagnes night before, so only had to pop them in oven, garlic bread and salad, hence had more time to socialise and play with grandchildren, we all ate outside, and my lovely daughter and step daughter sorted kitchen out, and the lads put the chairs etc away, job done !

jings it was never a case of me being the "obedient wifey" more a case of my being prepared to go along with him in some things, just as he was prepared to go along with me in others without being the "obedient hubby"!! Its called give and take and in my experience most couples do it.

I'm so glad it's not just me! Like Phoenix, I like eating outside ( especially breakfast!), but a barbecue is just too much of a palaver. My two brothers are very keen ( and good) barbecuers, so I'm happy to partake when I'm staying with them.

Oooooh! Fried eggs and bacon out of doors. We used to have a cabin cruiser as we lived on the River Ouse. DH would get up early to go fishing and when I finally surfaced I would start cooking breakfast in the small galley with the cabin doors open. The smell would soon bring him scurrying back.

Any passing swans would gather for whatever tasty bits we allowed them.

We only live two miles away from our old mooring now but it has become a marina and the annual costs are astronomical so the boat had to go.

Jings
We have a Cobb barbecue for when it's just the two of us. It's brilliantly portable and, weather permitting, we often have a late breakfast in the local forest.
It has a frying pan, so we have a full(ish) English, it's entertaining watching people walking past drooling due to the smell of our bacon frying! Fried eggs taste better outdoors too!
I've done roast chickens in it, but not anywhere other than in the garden so far, perhaps that's a challenge for this year!

Like watermeadow I hate the smell of them. Other people's BBQs on a lovely sunny evening when I'm enjoying the garden are the worst because I'm veggie and the fleshy 'fragrance' which many love, makes me feel nauseous and sends me scurrying inside. I do love other people having fun in their gardens but do wish the smell could stay where the cooking is!

My son loves BBQs and used to sometimes bring mates over after hockey or whatever for one - but in those cases he'd do all the shopping himself. After all - many young lads don't know what salad is anyway so it would all be pretty straightforward!

I don't like bbq.......too much bother prefer to cook indoors then eat out

Was spared on Saturday due to storm!

I love eating otdoors and agree good cooked properly on a coal barbecue can taste good
We stayed with friends abroad one summer .They had bought this enormous gas fired BBQ the controls looked like the flight deck of Concorde Two hours later we ate food that tasted just the same as if it had been cooked in the kitchen And yes it was he who wielded the tongs and she and I who went back and forth to the kitchen ....

Kittylester, I had to laugh as you described our barbecue last night - even down to praising the DH for his efforts when mine were ten times his! It has taken me years to stop him burning all the meat on the barbie as he used to blacken and char everything as he wouldn't take things off the grill when they were cooked. We did have a lovely meal yesterday in the end and we were able to eat outdoors on the patio which was a treat. But we used every bowl, basket, plate and tray in the house and they all needed to be washed up!

I think that barbies might be more honoured in the breach than the observance this year unless I do the 'oven barbie' version where I can cut the time, effort, mess and clearing up exponentially. No wonder men, when living alone, live on cereal, takeaways and tins of beans. and even then they don't bother to throw the boxes or tins away. Sheesh!

Spontaneous entertaining used to be the best. Sometimes it just involved mugs of (tinned) tomato soup to thaw out after a typical English garden fête, sometimes it would involve everybody bringing something to eat or drink and the food was thrown together. I remember a "mercy" dash to a local deli when we can back from holiday once to a phone message French friends were in the vicinity and wondered if they might they look in so of course DH asked them for lunch. Nobody was fussy, it was just nice seeing friends , particularly without the formality if toward planning. I don't think our lifestyle or circumstances allow us to do that spontaneity any more

I would welcome friends back for a barbecue (if I had one) - but would also discuss with the profligate inviter the advisability of himself personally making sure that the fridge and freezer were kept well-stocked at all times if he were planning to make a habit of it.

Otherwise he could find that all he had to offer his guests might be dry toast with a tin of beans shared round. It gets expensive to have the ingredients for a super barbecue for a dozen always to hand for random feasts.

sunseeker, DH would also do the, 'Everyone back to our place' thing after Sunday lunchtime drinks at the pub. We used to throw all kinds of things together and it was great fun. One Sunday a load of bods from a local archaelogical dig turned up with half a sheep in the back of a landrover. Apparently they were going to have an 'end of dig' celebration but the bloke who was supposed to cook it didn't turn up!!

Happy Days!

DH does a great barbecue. He sits on his perching stool like a cathedral organist, pulling out all the stops. The food is delicious.

We rarely do anything impromptu these days because we now live two miles out of the village so there have to be enough sober drivers to go round

Maybe the first time. But not after that. Appropriate warnings would have been given.

Were you always so into the role of the obedient wifey

That's harsh, if meant the way it sounds. I think most of us would do the same.

I don't understand why all and any jollity and fun has to be put down to the effects of alcohol these days. I'm not only talking about the poster's husband. It happens on GN too.

sunseeker, couldn't you have directed him to the Co-op on the way home, and then left him to it while you sat in the sun with the others?

Were you always so into the role of the obedient wifey?

absent DH was a very hospitable and gregarious man - alcohol had nothing to do with his invitations! Yes I was willing to comply because after all the rushing around we had a lot of fun! I just don't like food cooked over a fire in the open air!

sunseeker That is not a problem with the barbecue, per se, but a problem with your DH's expansive –and possibly alcohol inspired – hospitality and your willingness to comply.

I love a barbecue - I love the smell, and the taste of the food when it is cooked properly. absent is right. Properly managed, you shouldn't get smoke, and gas barbecues are better for this than charcoal ones. We don't have one at the moment - our old kettle one fell to bits - but are planning to get a gas one this summer, even though, as far as food is concerned, DH can't see past sausages and chicken drumsticks. I'll get DS to give him some lessons - he does a brilliant barbecue.

I have never understood the attraction of cooking over a fire outdoors when I have a perfectly good kitchen! Like others I was always responsible for salads, cutlery, plates, glasses, wine etc. whilst DH stood around the BBQ chatting with everyone!

We would often go out for drinks before lunch on Sundays and DH would suddenly announce to everyone that he was going to fire up the BBQ and everyone was welcome! I would be desperately thinking about what I had in the freezer and whilst everyone was sitting in the sun I would be rushing around trying to defrost meat and make salad, whilst giving the appearance of a completely relaxed and in control hostess!!!

The smell of summer. Not flowers ang grass anymore, but greasy barbecues.

Well we barbecued duck on Christmas Day one year. OH lived abroad for years and all cooking was done outside in summer so he just gets on with it - shops, prepares, cooks and helps clear away. All I have to do usually is set table and sort out the wine. I think men brought up in the UK are just not brought up in the BBQ or Braii frame of mind, hence a lot of poorly cooked food and limited imagination with what to cook and how.

Barbecues shouldn't produce loads of smoke, nor should they result in food that is burnt on the outside and raw on the inside. Those are the result of incompetence and a failure to understand how a barbecue works.