The Perfect
How to do the perfect prawns on the barbecue
Somehow, Eamonn thought, the barbecue plan had become very complicated. It had started out as the easy way to return the favour of many dinner-party invitations and had snowballed into a headache. He found himself opening flight-sale emails in the hope that some incredible offer would suffice as an excuse to cancel the whole thing.
Eamonn and Sheila weren’t big at-home entertainers. That was why they had stopped accepting dinner-party invitations. But they owed a few key returns, so Eamonn, in his innocence, had suggested the barbecue. That would save them from the high anxiety of suddenly seeing the house through other people’s eyes: the dusty lightbulbs they had never previously noticed, and the fact that they hadn’t graduated past cushion covers from Ikea.
“Get them outside, get them a few cold beers and a burger and pray for sunshine,” Eamonn said to Sheila.
“Kids, too?” Sheila asked. Eamonn paused. “Why not?” he said. This made sun all the more important. It was one horror to have your friends scrutinising the tastefulness of your home, but quite another to have their children wrecking it.
Two days to go, and the forecast wasn’t good. Sheila seemed to be ignoring it. She had bought lanterns, a garden table, “outdoor” cushions that were mystifyingly nonwaterproof, a hammock that was a middle-aisle special and potted patio plants that they’d kill within a fortnight.
Eamonn had stopped Sheila from hiring furniture. But he hadn’t been able to stop her from researching and rustling up three different marinades into which she was now submerging lamb skewers, pork skewers and chicken breasts. Eamonn had imagined that they’d be buying the meat pre-marinated by the helpful local butcher. But no. They weren’t buying the booze in the supermarket, either, where there were great deals.
That was run-of-the-mill wine and generic beer, though, Sheila explained; they needed a chic specialist off-licence on this occasion. “Eamonn,” she began calmly and maybe a little patronisingly, “this is a one-off opportunity. We are having people over once and once only. They won’t be able to fault us. They won’t be coming again, but they’ll remember they were here. It will be perfect.”
Eamonn thought outdoorsy imperfection was the very definition of a barbecue, but he also saw Sheila’s point.
“Good plan, pet,” he said, “though the weather might have other ideas.”
“If it does,” Sheila said, pouring them each a glass of rose for research purposes, “I got an email about €5 flights to Spain tomorrow. Cheers.”