Tag Archives: Family

Set fire to meat

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Crikey, I’ve not typed on the iPad touchscreen for a while. The keyboard is charging up, so I’m resorting to this input method… this is going to be strange, and probably curtailed because of this.

Anyway, so the blazing hot bank holiday weekend hit with full force here today: overcast all day with the threat of showers. Saying that, it was warm enough and the rain stayed off. But why this rather unremarkable weather report, both of you are asking? Well, two reasons. Firstly, I’ve come to learn that whenever there’s a weather forecast, whether it be via iOS app, or on the TV or radio, they always emphasise the extreme, whether it’s good or bad, and the media tends to forget that the forecast for that London and the South East rarely applies to the rest of the country. Hence, when it’s baking hot down there, it’s generally fairly shit up here. Secondly, with the promise of the sun shining all weekend, I’d decided to have a barbecue today.

Over the years, what with living here, I’ve come to realise that you can never organise a barbecue anything more than two hours in advance because the weather just never does what it’s supposed to. I knew I was taking a risk when I bought about £15 worth of meat to set fire to in the supermarket the other night, but my new optimistic self didn’t mind if the sun didn’t shine, there’s always the oven and it was the company of my family that meant more than anything.

And so it came to pass that I marinated pork chops and chicken pieces overnight, prepared home-made burgers and defrosted a load of sausages that I’ve found in the freezer when I was looking for my car keys.

How do people cope without those beautiful Logitech ultrathin keyboards? I’ve no idea.

Now, I have a little gas barbecue. I have no objection to gas barbecues per se, however mine was cheap, so it only cooks along its central band where the burners are. In addition to this, well, the oil/grease doesn’t drain particularly efficiently and then ignites when it reaches a critical temperature, thus engulfing everything in flames and covering the food in black soot. There’s a word I haven’t used for a while. Soot.

And so today, the chicken pieces soon achieved “cooked out” status, that being, cremated on the outside, raw on the inside. Mum was wittering, “you should always cook the chicken in the oven first then finish it off on the barbecue”. Everyone else was being very polite as they waited for all the batches of food to be cooked, then as I took the final burger out of the flames, all hell broke loose. My dad suddenly sprang to life from the sofa (he’d been inside, don’t blame him), my sister went into overdrive, whipping things out of the oven from where they’d been kept warm, I was inundated with requests for burger buns and getting irritated by my sister, Mum couldn’t cope without butter… and the Little Dog hid behind the sofa.

WOOSH! It took an hour to cook it and half an hour for it to be demolished. I suppose that means it was nice and everybody enjoyed it, so that’s good.

I’m a crap hostess. I can’t be arsed with talking to guests when there’s a mess that needs clearing up, so I took myself to the kitchen and started filling the dishwasher. I returned to the conversation outside, but couldn’t relax as I looked at the disgusting mess of the barbecue. Trying to be vivacious and sociable when I have one eye on burnt fat is something that I just can’t do. Who can? Who are these people who just leave a mess until next time they come to use something? PIGS, that’s who they are. Or “men” is another word for them. “Oh, just leave that, relax, you’ve been busy all day”. Yeah, but I don’t want to be greeted by the funk of burnt flesh whenever I open my back door, so I’m cleaning this right now.

I tried my best to keep my guests occupied with booze while I cleaned up in the kitchen, but pudding couldn’t wait and so I found myself getting bumped and knocked as cheesecake was doled out behind me. Then my sister was reaching behind me to put the kettle on do she could have a coffee. JUST FUCKING WAIT FIVE FUCKING MINUTES!

“Why do you never have milk?” Because I don’t use it.

Relaaaaaaaax.

Here’s a thing, I was talking to my sister’s feller about the Greek salad I’d made and he asked how I did it. I mentioned that I gave it a good sprinkle of salt because tomatoes always need salt or they’re horrible. “I can’t believe how much salt you use.”

“But did you enjoy the flavour, did it taste too salty to you?”

“No, it was lovely. I can never get food to taste like yours.”

“Maybe you’re not using enough salt in your cooking.”

I actually use way too much if I’m cooking just for me. I LOVE IT!

I will preserve my general salt rant for another time.

Anyway, so, yes. It was a really lovely day. Order is restored to my kitchen, the BBQ is clean and back in its place, I have sausages for lunch tomorrow and half a strawberry swirl cheesecake for dinner. All in all, quite a successful day.

Tomorrow, I’m pegging out my towels. The downside to this good drying weather is scratchy towels. Me no likey.

My family… and continued hopes that I was adopted

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Families are odd things. I’m not an anthropologist or a biologist with even a basic knowledge of which species stick together as families past adolescence, but we humans tend to. We maintain contact and loyalty to, and responsibility for those whom we share the closest matches of genetic code.

Genetics dictates that we shouldn’t reproduce with those whose genomes are closely matched with ours. And this is a good thing. Yet we are glued to those in our family units from birth until the various branches of the family tree die off an leave us.

Some families aren’t that close. Offspring move on and maintain little contact with siblings and parents. For some, this seems the only way to survive adulthood, but it’s more akin to budding off of yeast than the reproductive methods of higher organisms.

Like them or not, our families are our reference point. They’re where it all started, they helped to form us into who we are now. For better or worse.

I had to take my dad shopping this afternoon. I had to take my shopping to the worst possible place on earth: Farnworth. To Asda in Farnworth, to Lidl in Farnworth, to Tesco in Farnworth. My sense of duty to my family meant that I had to spend time in a place that I consider an inbred-ridden hell on earth with a dad who glares and shouts his way through life. He shouted at people crossing the road, the price of Fanta. He shouts to ask a question.

Still, I love him. He’s the one I used to follow around as a child, we were inseparable. He’s the one who used to come and wake me up at 6am when we were on holiday in Italy and we’d walk to the beach together in our matching flip flops and hats; we’d go to the bakery and store to bring back provisions for breakfast (focaccia over here is awful, by the way). He came to find me when I got lost on the beach. He’s the one who is quiet, observant and it’s him who knows when I’m “not right” without me having to say a word. He is kind, generous and gentle, with a huge heart, but a fierce temper.

My mum adores him, and he her. It’s a beautiful thing, their devotion to each other. They fall apart without one another. When they are together, they bicker and shout, but each night, my dad carries my mum’s handbag up the stairs to their bedroom.

I have been observing my folks for over forty years, wondering why they are together, how they stay together, what with my dad’s grumpiness, my mum’s pessimism. All the arguments and toil, my dad’s moods, us lot to contend with. I guess, they’re just soulmates. They love each other beyond doubt and always will.

They screw you up, your mum and dad?

Only if you let them.