- submitted by S. Matthews on 10/17/2009
Don't Get Between This Man and His Barbecue
By Sarah Matthews
Last weekend we took advantage of the unseasonably warm British weather and invited our neighbors over for a backyard barbecue. For us, that meant buying some sausages and dusting off the cheapo barbecue we got five years ago as a freebie promotion and have only used twice. For our neighbors - or at least my neighbor's husband - it meant undergoing a complete personality transplant.
One minute Mike, a normally well-behaved American businessman and loving father to a small coterie of delightful daughters, was loitering in our back garden, admiring my husband's carefully planted clematis and making helpful comments about our paving stones. The next he had turned into... the Barbecue Nazi.
First off, Mike practically goose-stepped out to our car, demanding a ride to the local Tesco's shop. After commandeering my husband to wait 47 minutes (he timed it), he reappeared with bags and bags of supplies to supplement our sausage menu, including several chickens, two cases of beer, various assorted salads, the world's largest bottle of Tequila, a large pineapple and an enormous four pound bag of limes.
A footnote here. I don't usually buy limes. If I did, I'd probably purchase one, perhaps two. I also buy only long-life orange juice. So Mike, after lovingly laying all the limes out on table and then discovering that not only do we lack an electric juicer but any juicer whatsoever, launched a veritable blitzkrieg on my kitchen. "I just can't believe this," he screamed, scaring my kids, his kids and the kids down the road. "How I am supposed to juice 45 fuckin' limes? Jesus Christ! These Brits are so stooopid!"
Cue me running to our next-door neighbor's house to borrow a juicer. Cue me running back two minutes later with a cheap plastic contraption that cost a whopping big £1.29 and was completely useless. "Whaddya think I'm supposed to do with this?" Mike yelled, catapulting the juicer onto the floor. "You think if Britain could invent the fucking Thermos they could at least invent a goddamn juicer that works!"
For the next three hours, as the children starved and Mike's wife Isabella and I surreptitiously scoffed snacks in the kitchen, Mike planned a lunchtime assault worthy of Hitler advancing on Poland. First he coerced my husband into hand-squeezing all the limes himself. Then he brandished a large knife and chopped all the tops off the beer cans, filled them with Tequila and lime juice and began methodically stuffing each one with chicken. Finally, he marched out to the garden.
After an hour spent methodically checking the coals on the barbecue with almost autistic precision, Mike began to cook the chicken in the beer cans. All the while he sipped from an enormous glass of Tequila (with lime) as he ranted and raved about the general state of the former Empire's culinary skills - and paltry equipment.
"I just can't believe how Brits can sit in their grubby little yards and make food in their teeny little BBQ's," he pouted. "If we were back in the US of A, we'd have the biggest goddamn barbecue you've ever seen. This is a goddamn joke!"
At 6:45, we finally had lunch. It was, in a word (or two), unbelievably delicious. The chicken was creamy and succulent on the inside, the beautifully browned skin crispy and flavorsome. The limes added a certain je ne sais quoi to the poultry that was tangy but at the same time melted in your mouth. Even the salads - and the Mike's homemade Margaritas - were perfect.
Unlike many of my friend's husbands (mine included), Mike actually does cook inside the kitchen as well as out. While his methodology may lack a certain finesse, the results of his cooking are more than impressive. Was it worth being banished to the car, ordered about, humiliated and forced to starve before finally sitting down to eat? Absolutely.
Sarah Matthews is an American journalist who has lived in a north London suburb for more than a decade. She is married with three young daughters and has chosen a pseudonym - and fake names - to protect the guilty (and avoid lawsuits). But everything she writes is real....read more rants
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