BBQ Mojo

Well what happened to the BBQ MOJO, it was there and now its gone. Sure I still put on some burgers for the kids cook a few chicken thighs skin on and once in a blue moon do a Steak for my good lady wife. (when I can afford one there may be allegedly no inflation but my wages are not going up and although the same price is on the stuff in the supermarket the boxes packets cuts of meat are smaller, thinner, sadder how long will it be before I can no longer pay for my gas/petrol or the shopping in my trolly.)

So why do I have to admit my MOJO has wandered away? Well it became embarrassing it went from that to laughable and on into panic I had held great store by my ability to cook stuff and turn out a half decent party in my yard; and to those friends at work that I have premised/promised a BBQ to after years of having to put up with me describing  the BBQ’s of the past I am sorry. I know its been four years or more but I just can’t do it. I want to but every time I think about it and think I have a menu a solution, fear and inadequacy grip me and well I don’t deliver, I cant deliver (Maybe I take myself too seriously).

So how did this BBQ MOJO come and go? (So all my North American buddies understand this I am not talking about good old BBQ, Brisket ribs sauce and stuff I am talking about BBQ Grill as a tool for cooking and cooking other nations influences on it. I am also not talking about Ninja BBQ which I can still do.)

 

So a long time ago possibly back in 1983 we rustled up some of these newfangled BBQ grills and once we figured out how to light the charcoal BBQD everything in my mums freezer. Can’t tell you if it was any good but we certainly got in deep shit for eating everything.

So back in the day we wrestled with the art form of BBQ my best buddy Mark is still a master he has the faith and what a journey . Whole salmon, Spiced  Pork chops, Lushous  Lamb and Whole Chickens, things on sticks hand made pasta and tomato side dishes with real herbs and big umbrellas and Tiki torches and wild dancing and setting fire to stuff including the bird table (thanks to our resident Pyromanser Peter of the famous dressing gown) and drinking and hosting friends and such friends and such summer nights. And yes some of it slid into Ninja BBQ and I can’t and wont tell you how you learn it or where it comes from if you know you know but I can give you some tell tale signs some of the stuff to watch out for just in case your back yard, campsite, field or whatever becomes the mysterious host to a BBQ Ninja (Its rare and I recommend you take photographs because you are going to want to remember because you wont remember otherwise. Whether its the drink or the unexpectedness of it or only a slow dawning years later that that was a pivotal moment and can never be eclipsed its hard to say. (I have some photos of this particular Ninja BBQ.) I will share them with you and I will tell you about the obstacles overcome and I will tell you about density and I will be nostalgic and cry but will remain firm. So on on with the show lets roll back the years and be nostalgic and not judge and wallow mightily wallow……..

 

So you come home from work after finding out your husband took the afternoon off and he can’t be found on the Golf course, there is a white Ford Capri parked outside your house, in the back garden are more patio chairs tables umbrellas and Tiki torches than you own actually come to think of it more Patio furniture than the whole neighborhood owns  and your phone keeps ringing and friends from all over keep telling yes, yes they will be there later possibly 9pm and my patio furniture and husband are missing have you seen them  or how many bottles do you need. Its possible there are a couple of Ninja BBQ lunatics at work and when you push past all the shopping bags blocking the kitchen door and see a couple of bottles of something open and all the pans on the stove and bushels of salad leafs and herbs, something serious is afoot, but where are the suspects and at that point there is a banging and crashing and out of the shed come two very happy looking idiots wielding a BBQ and 20 bags of charcoal. (And your patience is appreciated).

 

 

 

So if you are at a party and the guests arrive in Tuxedos  jumping from helicopters and descend by parachutes or arrive on the beach with a gazebo a paving slab a 24Kg propane tank and industrial hob and a wok and insist on cooking Thai Green Curry Shrimp at 3 in the morning  or set fire to the house roasting and grinding their own spices or appear wet and naked from out of the forest looking for their Brandy Sour or you are on the replica of  a pirate ship with free food and booze and a promise you can party until you drop no questions asked or even if your lock your husband and all his friends in the unfinished basement for hours without a washroom and they don’t piss on the floor you are probably in the presence of BBQ Ninjas and everything is going to turn out alright. At six o clock on a Saturday morning he really is at the wholesale market scouting for fish and freshly butchered meat no matter how much he drank last night. Honest.

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