The Royal Chef At Home: Easy Seasonal Entertaining

The sandwich seemed utterly simple. Bread, sauce and meat …lots of meat. No tomato, no lettuce, nothing extra. But it was a revelation. Tender, smoky meat with a hint of sweetness and soft yielding bread whose sole function was to make sure I didn’t have to pick the meat up with my hands. This was something I had never tasted before. Still recognizably beef but pulled toward fire and smoke so deeply that it became something new. Happily I got a job offer and moved with my family to Plano, Texas, where for the past two decades we have enjoyed more barbecue than I can remember. Texas, like a lot of southern states, is culinarily predisposed to cooking over an open flame. From eating and living here, I’ve learned a lot about grilling and smoking. My youngest, Harry, born in the States, can’t imagine that barbecue doesn’t exist everywhere, and in a way he is right. But while grilling over live coals is still a predominant form of cooking throughout much of the world, it is perhaps unique to the southern parts of America that the flavor of smoke from burning big chunks of Hickory and Mesquite wood is so deeply appreciated. There is a lot of wonky literature out there about barbecuing and smoking meat, filled with arcane timetables, precise temperature settings, pitmaster’s lore and a gender divide that puts men in charge of the grill. Now, while I can only speak to my experience in Texas, I’ll go out on a limb and say that most of that barbecue mystique is utter nonsense. Men and women grill equally well and making a perfectly smoked brisket or side of ribs does not require a PhD. Still, the myth of Texas barbecue pulls deeply on people's psyche here. The countryside around Dallas is sprinkled

with lakes, and many people have cabins that are a source of lots of weekend partying. It was by being invited to lakefront parties over the years that I developed a theory that I call the “Zen of BBQ.” This theory is that all the fussy rules about slowly smoking meat are just a front. The whole point of barbecue is sitting outside on a lazy afternoon and enjoying the view. It is about the kids shouting in the pool or jumping off the short pier into the lake. It is about sweet tea and beer and horseshoes. It is about gathering around the smoker for hours, relaxing, telling stories and “visiting.” Great barbecued brisket, ribs and hot links aren’t really the goal. They are the by-product (and a delicious one at that). Spending time with each other is the goal. Recognizing that makes me nostalgic about summer vacations as a child. In the north of England, the summertime break lasts six weeks. That’s it. And of those six weeks, you can be assured that only one includes sunshine. The rest is damp, drizzly and overcast. No matter. Like many working class families, mine would fill up the family camper and go caravaning to Skegness beach where the English Channel opens up to the North Sea or to Wales or Scotland or down into Cornwall for a proper look around. We traveled around and did the English version of summertime outdoor eating—we picnicked. Mum would pack a hamper full of sandwiches (my favorite was chopped eggs with salad cream and mustard topped with watercress), some gorgeous butter, cold ham and cheeses, pork pies, sausage rolls, drinks and fruit, and we would eat impromptu outdoor meals wherever we found ourselves. We picnicked because Dad couldn’t afford

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