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Throw one thing on the grill and serve with a huge bowl of something else – from spicy roasted aubergines to a Greek salad
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While I am glad to be home in Rome, it was particularly hard to leave England this year. After a few days in London, we spent two weeks between Dorset and Devon, in gardens or on the pebble beaches of West Bay, Lyme Regis and Branscombe. Thrashing around in the sea has never felt so necessary. There was also plenty of good eating, the air filled with suggestive scents – of fat dripping on to hot coals, sun cream, insect spray and lavender. Which brings me to the theme of this newsletter: a barbecue plus one.
The term is actually borrowed from an Australian friend. It is her solution to feeding lots of people well without too much work or clearing up: one thing on the barbecue (be it sausages, chicken, slices of cheese, kebabs or vegetables) plus one enormous bowl of something else. The solution came about after a particularly chaotic afternoon when her kids were all young, for which she made loads of dishes and compromises, and still didn’t manage to make everyone happy. Clearing up, she thought: “Thats it – next time it is going to be one or two things on the barbecue plus the biggest bowl in the house, filled with one substantial dish.” If I am being precise it should be ’barbecue plus one’, plus pitta bread, so helpful people can stuff the item from the grill, plus the bowl ‘thing’ into a pitta pouch, avoiding the need of a plate, plus sauces in squeezy bottles.