Living It Up In The Northern Suburbs....

Twenty seven degrees in Sydney and what do we do???

Time to get out for a sizzling barbie and soak up the sun!

Now allow your devastatingly handsome tour guide bring you through the forest into our secret hideout for this event! If you are observant enough, you will notice that I am very environmentally conscious, carrying a re-usable grocery bag containing all our barbeque materials, each carefully wrapped in 2 layers of plastic bags.

As we proceeded through acre after acre of rough bushland, our feet finally found the concrete pathway perfectly designed for human use. It took us a while to arrive at our final destination, all thanks to our head guide WeiWeh who grossly miscalculated the time and distance (7 minutes??!!! yeah right....) required to get to our secret hideout

We are almost there......Notice me in the background with the green grocery bag perfectly balanced on my left shoulder blade, accentuating the muscular and sinewy muscles running down my back. Nothing like a brightly coloured accessory to bring attention to my well proportioned body.

Ok this is it!!! Where the hell are we going!!!???? My legs are burning from the accumulation of lactic acid and the bags are getting heavier by the second. I am hot, famished and cranky....Gerald really helped by singing "Oh...I wish I was a punk rocker with flowers in my hair" over and over again in my right ear. I was singing in my mind too. "Oh I wish I had some masking tape for my friend Gerald's mouth"

Here we are! It's beaut!

Of course when I see anything I can cook with, I just go crazy and try to take charge! That's me cleaning up the barbeque plate and bossing WeiWeh around like she's my sous chef.....

As you can see, we've got a gourmet feast happening here! Deluxe Cammeray Red Skinned Sausages and Premium Dead Sea Salt Cured Organic Short Rind Bacon complimented with Caramelised Spanish Onions.

Under perfectly controlled cooking conditions, the onions, sausages and bacon assimilated their flavours to produce a unique aroma that could only be described as a gastronomic orgasm. There is a deep satisfaction gained from watching onions wilting and smoking under the heat of the barbeque plate. The orchestra created from the crackling and popping as the fat melts and slides away from the crispy bacon slices is truly sublime. Not to mention the poetry in motion as the casing tightens and the split crawls slowly down the entire length of the sausage. I'm telling ya, this is one classic meal.....either that or I'm getting really hungry.....

The sous chef was really happy to be given an opportunity to master the art of barbeque-ing. Because of my generous nature, I was, of course, more than happy to impart those closely guarded skills to her.

Now you will notice we do not have any pictures of us eating the food, only because there is really no classy way to devour a beautiful BBQ lunch. We felt that pictures of us with tomato sauce on our cheeks, runny yolks dripping down our wrists and sausages hanging out of our mouths would not fit in with our elegant surrounds. Those pictures would be more suited for tabloids doing an expose on celebs binge eating. Hence, you will not see those photos unless Australia Woman's Day come to us with an exclusive deal.

Of course, as with every successful barbeque, we need a celebrity cleaner. Our guest celebrity cleaner this week is Mr Lyons. Mr Lyons has worked with me at my restaurant L'appartement du Park as my official cleaner for the last 3 years, and he has amazing talent! Everyone knows I'm a hard nosed boss and rarely praise anyone, but Mr Lyons has astounded me time and time again with his cleaning ability. In fact, he has become a hit with my clients who are always asking him for advice on how to clean better.

Now Mr Lyons is quite camera shy so we are really lucky to get this photo of him in action. We make a good team don't we?

After we cleaned up, we laid out our Australian quilts for a relaxing chat in the sun. We also started taking some photos just for the fun of it and also because we love ourselves so much. The first few photos didn't turn out well, like this photo below of Weiweh next to the beached whale.

Now this photo reminded me of those shots in those coming of age/teenage angst movies where they lay in the open contemplating their future. Given our looks and ability to act, its a pity that no talent agencies have approached yet.

I lurrvvee this photo of WeiWeh!!!

So fresh, clean and summery!

Might print out a copy for her...

And so the day ended....it was great fun!!! Thanks Wei!

Time to work off those calories.......