Barbecue Summer Hoax
What a bunch of mierda del toro! We’ve been fooled. Again. The forecast for the mega-summer-super-scorcher, linen inclusive, had to be revised! Niente BBQ, mucho propaganda del B&Q!
It’s official. The Met office made it up. A guy called Dave looked up at the sky and said “This is going to be a barbecue summer!’ He even made the phrase up: Barbecue Summer! And how we believed him. It was back in May during a reasonable sunny week in the midst of swine flu panic and recession angst. We just bought into it. It lifted our spirits and sales of garden-everything. 5 million staycations promptly booked, charcoal schlepped… only to freeze around the kitchen table having cups of tea.
But summer is only a state of mind.
Paella con rain, mucho
- olive oil
- large Spanish onions, finely chopped
- red and yellow peppers
- sweet paprika
- 6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- vegetable stock
- a pinch of saffron ~ 40 threads
- 250g bomba paella rice
- Your favourite summer CD
Heat the oil in a frying pan, and soften the onions and peppers. Cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add the garlic. Bring the vegetable stock to the boil and add the saffron to infuse. Add the rice and paprika to the vegetables in the pan. Stir the rice well for 2 minutes so it gets a proper coating with oil. Put the CD on, turn up the heating up, pour in the stock and some sherry if you like. Cook until the stock has been absorbed into the rice.
Serve with chopped flat-leaf parsley and lemon cut into wedges, and a huge glass of Rioja. Wear flip flops and sunglasses. Let the sunshine, let the sunshine in, the sunshine in….
