Fourth Annual Drink the Cellar BBQ

Saturday was our fourth annual "help us drink our excess wine cellar"; wine that is ready for drinking and we would hate for it to go over the hill. As usual our friends rallied round.

The BBQ went well. 41 peeps and 36 bottles. As expected we over catered so it is lamb burgers for a month for us. And while clearing up we discovered 24 lost sweetcorn under the sink. Succotash anyone?

Starters included Italian meats we brought back from Italy last weekend:

• capocollo
• bresaola
• salami piccante
• lonzino

And Mary's excellent Smoked Mackerel Pate with Cucumber Relish

Mains were lamb burgers, some spicy Mexican sausages and chicken thighs marinaded in Japanese soy sauce, ginger and honey. The magic ingredient was employing my nephew Tom as burger flipper. He did an excellent job which meant that Mary and I could mingle with our guests without worrying about carbonised food.

Desserts I spent the evenings of the week before preparing - giving the ice cream maker a severe hammering. All made from a base of proper cream and egg yolk hand-made custard with fresh fruit:

• raspberry
• blueberry ripple
• pineapple and stem ginger
• honey & hazelnut
• strawberry sorbet

Previous attempts to clear the cellar:

• 2007: http://blog.mmenterprises.co.uk/2007/08/social-double-header.htm
• 2006: http://blog.mmenterprises.co.uk/2006/08/bank-holiday-barbeque.htm

Not sure what happened to 2008 but I suspect overshadowed by posts about the London to Paris Bike Ride training

PS. 15-Sep-09.
This is what the cellar looked like 2½ years ago and, in fact, it is much fuller now because we brought a load of wine back from the wine merchants and had to put in a more racks to accomodate them: