Playing with fire

As I may have mentioned before, TheBloke (TM) is not allowed to do unsupervised Argos shopping. Having grown up in South Africa, despite living in the UK for over five years now, he still regards Argos as some kind of fairie magic - "They sell everything! In a tiny little space! It's witchcraft!". This can lead to over-excitement and purchasing of absolute rubbish. Mainly because this is all that Argos actually sells.

But on Saturday, we had a legitimate reason to go Argos shopping. And as he is not allowed to go unsupervised, I had to go too. As mentioned, the South African-ness of TheBloke (TM) means that as soon as the weather turns anything warmer than Arctic, he is genetically programmed to need to braai. For the uninitiated, or for those who prefer a greater number of consonants in their words (such as the Welsh), that would be a barbecue. Or for those who really can't get enough consonants, a BBQ.

Well, we always managed to rein this in previously, what with living in a one-bedroom flat with no garden. He was satisfied by the annual barbecue extravaganza, which takes place each summer with Erica and Dean, and we left it at that. But now we have a garden.

So off to Argos we went. A giant, expensive barbecue was bought. I suggested if we were spending that much on a barbecue, we could consider getting one with gas burners. He looked at me with derision and stated simply, "That's cheating."

Now, for me, and very likely you if you're British, a barbecue goes like this: spend an hour or so faffing with the thing trying to get it lit. Make lots of smoke, and ruin your neighbour's laundry. Slap on a couple of still-slightly-frozen burgers and a few sausages. Wait until it's charred on the outside and still raw inside. Eat quickly because it's just started to rain. Go inside again and wonder why there's more washing up than when you cook a normal meal. Take the next three days off with food poisoning.

Not for South Africans. Oh no. Meat had already been purchased and had been marinating since the evening before. "Could you get up at 2 a.m. and turn it over in the marinade?" TheBloke (TM) half joked to me. I didn't. But it was the first thing he did prior to the Argos visit. There was steak, there was chicken, there was marinade, there were curly sausages that looked a bit like dog poo. There may have been Pimms and lemonade, I can't possibly comment.

And you know what? It was pretty good. In fact, the steak was the best I've ever had in the UK. In fact, the cooking was such a success, we had a second one today. Well, we have to get our money's worth out of the braai, don't we?

As Mrs Nunn said to us yesterday, "Enjoy your brie!" Mmm. Cheesy.