On Sunday, I hosted my first ever BBQ. It was to celebrate a number of things including a friends' engagements, my milestone birthday, a friend's milestone birthday (not the same milestone), a new house, citizenship, and the Fourth of July. I think there were a few other celebrations in there, but I really cannot remember as there were a backlog of items to celebrate. The new house and citizenship happened over two years ago, but I've never been in the position to celebrate, and before I moved into a house in October of 2015, I lived in a flat. Since I've lived in this house, I've been wanting to host a BBQ for awhile, but the ground floor renovations only finished last May, and then there was the unpacking and sorting of some of the boxes, and work has taken over my life since mid-December. So, this was a short notice BBQ. I'd only planned it a couple of weeks ago. So, it was a small affair.
The weather that we have been having is perfect, though I know some of you will not agree. I love the sun and warmth and the longer days. Winter is too dark, and we had cold and snowy weather into the end of May. Then, it was still cold and wet and cloudy until the beginning of May when we had some nice weather and then the past couple of weeks with this wonderful sunny weather. I would be happy if it stayed like this for longer, especially with that winter we had.
So, a BBQ meant quite a bit of preparation, tidying and hanging decorations. I got a lot of Union Jack flags, American flags and decorations (such as the ones photographed above), and some Chinese flags to honor the Chinese guest.
Even my beautiful cornflowers (my favourite summer flower) were in bloom in red, white and blue colours. I am slightly obsessed with cornflowers. The blue ones are my favourite. I'd actually planted a lot of these, but something kept taking the shoots when I planted them outside, and only this small patch survived. The others got planted when it was too hot and they were too large to really be replanted (I didn't have a place for them as my garden had a lot of weeds in it then), so they all died.
Unfortunately I didn't get to take a photograph of the food because I was still preparing when the guests arrived and then I also forgot to serve the bread rolls and rosemary potatoes that I made. I left them in the oven. I also forgot to photograph my juice jars with red, white, and blue punch (all non-alcoholic) until they were a little emptier.
I also ordered a cake for the celebrations. It is a little too large, and there's still cake left. Ops. I ordered from Angesdesucre, and it is a pistachio cake with pistachio and berry macaroons. It's a subtle flavour and not too sweet and not too rich. The icing was a little too greasy for my liking, and there was some slight damage in transit but my guests enjoyed it and asked for second helpings.
I hope that this nice weather lasts several more weeks now and so I can take advantage of the wonderful weather. I hope that my readers have some fun parties planned, and I would love to host a couple more before the winter sets in. I would love to have a bit of a longer party and games night.
Leave a comment