Following on from ,’ not sitting outside’.

My son is a great cook and an expert with a BBQ, so I have enjoyed a few at their place, but we never do one at home. I have no interest. If the weather is really nice, we might take a plate of food to eat outside, but it is all cooked in the kitchen. Actually neither DH or I can tolerate the sun, though I do love sunshine as long as I am in the shade.

Luzdoh I love your story!!!! Thanks for your eloquent tale. I hate BBQs with a vengeance. I once suffered from terrible food poisoning at a BBQ. It was the start of my journey towards a “less meat” diet. Some of the “vegetarian” offerings are dire. With the very small number of suitable weather days here, I can’t imagine anyone gaining the experience to become a good BBQ cook! How can you plan one with our unpredictable climate?

My mouth's watering absent

but I have planned plain fish and veg or salad this evening (got to lose a few pounds!!)

You do seem a miserable lot and I feel sorry so many of you have had such bad experiences, it is only outdoor cooking, esp with a gas BBQ,, we are lucky enough to be able to cook away from neighbours and eat accompanied by the sound of birdsong looking at the burgeoning garden, bliss. I also don't understand all this men cooking the BBQ nonsense, fine if they like it and are good cooks but I usually cook ours but we share getting salads etc ready. Once you have had a bad experience it seems most of you aren't willing to try again, go on, surprise yourselves and enjoy this wonderful summer!

It is such a pleasure to discover I am not the only person, who is less than enamoured by barbecues. If I am going to eat grilled food with a salad, which is essentially what a barbecue is, I would rather cook it properly on the cooker inside.

Contrary to stereotypes, DH does not enjoy barbecue cooking. He gets hot, flustered and harried trying to keep an eye on everything.

If we want to eat outside, we just wander out to the garden table with whatever meal we would have had anyway.

I too am vegetarian but love BBQs and have one a couple of times a week if the weather is good, lots of lovely things you can cook, and you are outside not stuck indoors cookin. Sometimes just my husband and I, sometimes family, sometime invite friends, very relaxed and sociable, meat eating friends don't seem to mind eating vegetarian food, win, win, win

Chicken satay, steak with Tabasco sauce and parsley or watercress butter, spicy prawns with citrus salsa, home-made burgers, chicken nibbles in honey and soy and hoisin sauces and sausages with bacon and prunes (the last two for the kids) are just some of the things I cook on my barbecue, all served with a selection of salads, baked potatoes and home-made garlic bread. Nothing is ever burnt and nothing is ever raw anywhere where it is meant to be cooked – I do like my lamb chops (with sherry and mint marinade) slightly rare.

I can and often do vegetarian parcels, brochettes and other dishes.

As far as I am concerned, a gas barbecue is simply a kitchen cooking outdoors. A charcoal barbecue, properly managed, makes the occasion and the flavour – especially if you have home-grown herbs, such as rosemary or lavender (both fabulous with lamb) to throw on the coals.

Hate them, hate them, hate them!
Who wants sausages and chicken drumsticks burnt on the outside and raw in the middle?
The occasional bit of steak is passable but by the time you get it all the salads are starting to wilt in the sun and you've spent the last hour spilling your wine trying to keep the flies off them!
My ex loved a barbecue, to the point where he was known to barbecue outside in the pouring rain under an umbrella and then bring the food inside to eat at the kitchen table!
They're a pointless waste of a good summer's day if you ask me.

I'm not too keen on barbecues either - the German way is to provide huge amounts of meat, and everyone brings a salad - most people make a pasta salad, and sometimes the different tastes are not always compatible. We were invited to one recently and the whole thing caught fire!

However, we had a barbecue yesterday with DGS, his parents and the other set of grandparents. It was a wonderful day and the food was just right - but much too much, of course! It was all cooked perfectly. Most things I strung on skewers, mainly vegetables.

Parboiled some small new potatoes in their skin and put them on skewers, did several vegetable kebabs (mushrooms, inch-long bits of corn on the cob, thickish slices of courgette and bits of red peppers - very colourful). A few more similar kebabs with bits of chicken on, some sausages and some pork scallops (meat had been marinading over night).

DiL helped with the kebabs as I was a little behind time when they arrived.

But I had managed to get organised and had everything ready on the dining room table - the guests took it outside - and the drinks in cooler bags near the table, ready to pour. I had even made 2 cakes for later in the afternoon!

But I couldn't organise the weather - we were sooooo lucky! And DGS (nearly 4) loved being the centre of attention and was adorable all day!

I quite enjoy a barbecue now and again. Mind you, in this country, it can only be now and again anyway, can't it!? ?

We used to have a charcoal bbq but DH bought a gas one a couple of years ago; however, DS is the master at barbecues, as is DSIL.

Same here Jalima it’s hard work isn’t it?
We host a lot of barbecues over the Summer, mainly because we know it will all be cooked properly, be ready on time and be of good quality.DH likes a charcoal BBQ and cooks really well on it, and I do all the rest.
We have been to too many barbecues where the host takes all day to cook any food and then prods it doubtfully saying
‘I hope it’s alright’ when you know it probably isn’t and you have had too many drinks already on an empty tum!

A BBQ is a good excuse for men to do the cooking.
Gerispringer - as DH says - 'we'll have a barbecue, give you a break from cooking'

So there he is, beer in hand, turning the (good quality) sausages, steak, chops etc and I spend time in the kitchen making salads, new potatoes, perhaps a vegetable rice dish, etc oh, and any chicken is done in the oven just to make sure - it's such a break!

it is a gas barbecue, probably cheating but charcoal ones tend to give very variable results

I don't quite trust barbecued food.... but have eaten it just to be sociable and it hasn't killed me yet. But it's such unhealthy food generally. I'd rather have a salad.

Tweedl24, I could have written your post word for word, we used to love having a bbq, even when the children had left home they would soon appear if we had one! No more now that DH has died

I'm not a big fan of barbecues - IME there's a lot of waiting around and the results are variable - but if the cook really knows what he's doing they can be very good. I've been to some good ones and I've been to some bad ones.
They aren't my first choice of outdoor food though - that would probably be a simple picnic.

Another one here who thinks that BBQs never live up to expectations.

And what an invitation to gluttony!!!

Never, ever, when I cook sausages, for example, do I sit down at my table and think - well, yes, these look lovely, but what's really missing off the plate is some kebabs, burgers and chicken wings. I'd never eat those kind of quantities as a normal meal. But whenever there's a BBQ, everyone seems to pile everything on their plates.

For me, it's loads of preparation for little result. I always cook stuff in the oven first, and just sear it on the BBQ (fear of food poisoning), so it seems double the effort, to me.

I'd never turn down an invitation to go to someone else's BBQ though (hypocrite )

I must add we use a gas BBQ the charcoal ones do spoil things with the smell lingering for hours.

I am not keen on BBQs, but in the warm weather we BBQ our food most nights, then we have the meal of our choice, seldom hamburgers, sausages etc. It is usually only the two of us so its quite cosy a glass of wine or two completes the picture.

I'm another BBQ hater. I don't like the smoke, the smell, the undercooked or burnt-to-a-cinder food, limp salads, paper plates, and cheap wine. I dread being invited to BBQs and would definitely never host one. I can easily burn food privately in an oven, why would I choose to do it in public! And then there's the cleaning of the b****y thing afterwards.

So glad to have found this post. I was beginning to feel like a female version of Victor Meldrew. I absolutely detest BBQs. We wait forever for a nice day and the minute we get one someone lights a fire and pollutes the atmosphere with smoke and the stink of burning food. I have a neighbour who is currently blighting my life with this. I have to sit inside with doors and windows closed on stifling hot days to avoid having my whole house stinking.

Good job our bbq season is usually so short or wet, with all these grumpy anti bbq grans about.

I think a very good point is made by some, BBQ does require skill. If all you can smell is "burnt meat", then whoever is cooking, is doing it wrong. Also, a BBQ does not necessarily mean burgers and sausages. You can cook all sorts on a bbq, and it can be very enjoyable. As for vegetarians, offering a veggie burger is as considerate as offering a salad to a veggie guest. It is very easy to be a bit more imaginative than that!

I'm with micmc47, cooking on a BBQ needs skill and practice. We also have a kettle BBQ (2 actually, one small one and a larger one for bigger groups), and use lumpwood charcoal. We have a BBQ lighting chimney, so no fire lighters needed. We have areas of the garden where we can sit at a table in dappled shade or sunshine and quietly cook the foods we enjoy without fuss. I'm very choosy about who cooks though, my DS cooked today and was very competent (I don't let my DH cook though, he struggles in the kitchen).
I have my feet up in the shade of a tree now.

Used to love them. Luckily, we are isolated enough not to inconvenience neighbours. My husband was a dab hand cooking (in kitchen as well as bbq). No way would he permit boxed wine. Yes he “did the food” but somehow the meals also included home-made potato salads etc ( must have been a fairy around to prepare all that, deal with cutlery and crockery etc).
Sadly, he died 18 months ago and I would now give my right arm to be in the kitchen working while he was in the sun waving a spatula around with one hand and holding a glass in the other.
I got rid of the bbq last year knowing it would never be used again.