No. 3: All skewered out with Kim and Brian

On the weekend I went along, with a couple of other friends and my flatmate Cody, to Kim and Brian's place for a pre-Christmas BBQ. I accepted the invitation on the proviso that I could take along some Heart Foundation BBQ food to cook. Kim and Brian were very happy with this proposal, but Kim vetoed my plan to cook calamari with couscous salad, on the basis that her couscous salad is far better than anything anyone else could possibly come up with. And I have to admit, it is pretty good!


Kim heads up a national rural health workforce body, and has recently taken on WHO committee work which takes her to all corners of the globe, so she's only occasionally home and available for a BBQ. She's been called "the funniest woman in Melbourne - or possibly in the whole of Victoria". Brian is a psychologist who runs a suite of programs for the national depression initiative, and he's been called "a freakily good listener". Which is probably an excellent attribute, since he has a tendency to surround himself with women who are good talkers.

Kim and Brian live in a converted-chocolate-factory loft-style split-level New-York warehouse-type apartment in inner Richmond, but have a decent size balcony and a real BBQ. Well, more real than mine...


My offerings on this occasion were the scallops on rosemary skewers (page 32), and the Barbados chicken thighs (page 76) - which I also cut up and put on skewers. If you've been following my blog you'll be gathering by now that I don't always stick religiously to a recipe. Experimentation is a good thing and can often result in new and wonderful discoveries, as per the harissa/maple syrup combo I discovered in my first blog BBQ, which I've been repeating since - it was a huge hit at the housewarming BBQ, people were fighting over it. But I digress.


The scallops on rosemary skewers were fantastic - they're wrapped in proscuitto, and interspersed with lemon leaves and segments - which I substituted with lime leaves and segments, which made sense as Kim and Brian have a kaffir lime tree on their balcony. It may have been the best thing I've cooked from the book so far. Brian did insist on closing the BBQ lid to get the heat up, thereby burning the rosemary leaves, but what the final product lacked in appearance it more than made up for in flavour.


The Barbados chicken skewers were pretty tasty too, and apart from putting the chicken on skewers, I pretty much followed the recipe (except that I only have a limited number of vinegars in my pantry and near enough is good enough!) But I have to ask, why is there no garlic in the recipe? Didn't garlic come from the New World? And isn't Barbados in the New World? Bring on the garlic, I say! But it was very good anyway.


Kim and Brian provided some excellent dishes too, but I'm sure you don't need to hear about those. A convivial night was had by all, and I've posted a couple of pictures of Kim and I with Brian below (which unfortunately seem to indicate that it was those two who slaved away over a hot BBQ while I stood back and took the credit at the end!)