The smells of summer

There are two smells I strongly associate with summer: that of zucchinis and tomatoes sizzling in a pan, and the smell of meat on a barbecue.

Our backyard is a treasure-trove of edible pleasures at this time of year thanks to my green-thumbed husband: fulsome eggplants, aromatic basil, pert zucchinis, juicy tomatoes, wee cucumbers, rosy peaches and the odd whitefly-afflicted corncob that’s a bit sickly-looking but still edible. With all this prolific bounty, our charcoal-fuelled barbecue is getting quite a workout, as is that of our neighbours judging from the smells wafting over the fence. I must say that after all the excesses of the festive season, it’s nice to load up the barbie with produce that has travelled from our garden to our barbecue (usually via the kitchen).

I’ve worked out that in order for vegetables not to dry out or burn on the barbecue, they benefit from a fair bit of basting. I’ve been marinading them in olive oil, lemon, oregano, salt and pepper. I regularly ‘reapply’ this marinade during the cooking process, and feel as if I am liberally covering them in sunscreen (another of summer’s quintessential smells) to protect their delicate flesh.

My beloved cousin Stathis in Greece has another Mediterranean-inspired marinade for vegetables on the barbecue: olive oil, balsamic vinegar, freshly grated tomato and sugar (1 tablespoon sugar to each litre of marinade). For best results, he suggests marinading vegetables at least two hours before cooking. He feels that vegetable souvlakia make for a far superior ‘souvlaki’ to those with meat. The literal translation of ‘souvlaki’ is ‘little skewer’. He reminded me that the humble souvlaki has many guises, from skewers endowed with pieces of kid goat, to those with artichokes. Makes me want to run off to Greece this very minute.

Stathis with Australiana tea towel in the foreground, and barbecue in the background, Kiparissia, Greece

Stathi's mother, my thiea Kanella, visited us a few years ago from Greece. She was very taken with our public barbecues in parks and gardens: she felt it was very generous of councils to make them available to patrons free of charge. She said that if she had such barbecues in her town, she (and many of her friends) would never cook at home.

Hail then the humble barbecue, be it in our backyards or public spaces; and blessed be the bounty that our garden is producing to put atop it.