Bite me!

Today Guy and I (Leia) had a busy cooking day. We had some eggs for a late breakfast, then we packed up some stuff and went to meet my friend R and pick up her and her extra bike for Guy to ride on to Tempelhofer feld for the BBQ (Grillen). In the old Tempelhof airport there are some designated places for BBQ. There are many bikers and joggers on the wide runs and many people flying kites. It's a large park space thoroughly used by the public.

Leia went out before breakfast to buy BBQ tools, and we bought one-use-grills the day before. They were really one-use: they lit up in a few minutes but only stayed hot for 20 minutes or so, not long enough to cook many things. We ran out of grills before food. Leia got "minutensteak", which are very thin steaks of beef or pork, and we brought raw shrimp, and prepared teriyaki tofu and halloumi cheese for a vegetarian option (R is vegan and brought foil-wrapped mushrooms and German potato salad.) Leia's friends arrived spaced out over a few hours, but everybody brought with them something different. By the end we had nectarines to grill, mini-sausage skewers, salmon, pork cutlets, beer, chips, and tiramisu mousse (tiramisu got damaged in transit.) W went out to buy new one-use-grills, and he got better ones that stay hot for over an hour. One was enough to cook all the rest of the food. The grilled nectarines were surprisingly good.

The whole outing was friendly and nice and would have been perfect if not for a short rain shower in the middle, which started the second after R's friend O (who is from Israel) left. We were surrounded by Turkish families with children who were way better prepared than us for the weather and the concept of Grillen. They brought tents, and portable soccer goals for their children to play with. The Germans in our group had raincoats and an umbrella, and Guy sat nonchalantly in the rain in his T-shirt and shorts, eating chips and beer and making sure the grill was covered in foil. We'd used the foil to make it an oven for baking the shrimp and salmon, to keep in the heat, and to wrap red onions for grilling.

After the BBQ we rode back home with the bikes. At home, after resting a bit and some more grocery shopping on Leia's part, Guy started preparing food for taco night. He cooked up the meat we bought this week and chopped up vegetables. My friends arrived late and we had a nice taco dinner together. Leia, who hates eating leaves, even used lettuce as Guy instructed to line the inside of the taco so the ingredients wouldn't spill out. It was again a pleasant evening with nice company, and tasty food - some assembly required.