As if I ever need an excuse to light the charcoal, we had friends over twice this past weekend for a barbecue. Saturday welcomed Peter, Andrea and Michelle and Sunday Caswallon, Peter and Andrea. First time around we did burgers and hot dogs and second time it was grilled corn and pizzas. Lucky for me that Andrea commandeered my camera otherwise I would have no photos to share at all. She also brought chocolate fondue and her latest experiment, arugula pesto.

Michael bought a charcoal chimney for the grill and I really love it. So much better and just as easy as lighter fluid. We have since decided that we need to add grilling to the menu throughout the week and that we much prefer eating on the deck. We left our kitchen table out there (with a tarp in case of rain.) When the budget allows we will buy a picnic table but this works for now.

If you want to indulge your voyeur side, I’ll point you towards the flickr set I made with some of the photos. I particularly love Ivy trying to ride Damian’s petal-powered tractor. She seemed to puzzled that her little legs didn’t reach. This coming weekend I will have more om nom barbecue moments as we are taking the grill to the seventh annual Pagan Campout (thinking about taking my gauge and taking bets on how much rain we’ll get this year, yay camping in a rainforest.) Friends, bonfires and kettle grills, I couldn’t ask for more.

I keep meaning to blog lately but really nothing much has been going on. We are in the midst of a heat wave, our temperatures have been about 10 degrees above average for almost two weeks now. The clouds that linger at sunrise make for a beautiful morning sky but burn away quickly. We had a little Lughnasadh gathering this past Sunday but several people ended up not being able to come (they were probably hiding out from the heat too) so it turned into more of a simple cook out. I didn’t mind though, I always find the warm weather sabbats to be more relaxed.

I have been feeling the baby a lot more lately. She pokes Damian sometimes when he is nursing, it rarely notices but I find it rather amusing. The heat with baby belly has been a little oppressive at times but I am pretty adaptable, except during the hottest parts of the day. I have been catching up on all the projects that don’t require much physical activity, I switched my walk to early morning and Damian tends to get his bath around 15:00, when I find it to be the hottest. I let him play in the water while I cool my feet in the tub. Jim, someone Michael knows through work, gave us an old AC window unit which was very kind of him. The bedroom is nice and cool for sleeping now.

They say the heatwave will break later this week, which I am hoping for, I want to get out into the garden to start double digging for the new raised beds. The weeds are nice and fried under the plastic we laid down. We’ve been looking up lumber prices so that we can budget for the raised beds, I think we will be using 2×12 pine. I am hoping we have a couple short ends left from that projects so that I can make a couple mason bee houses for next year. They are a fantastic native pollinator. I have seen a few of them around and I want to encourage their population new Spring when they reemerge. Contrary to popular belief they are not a destructive insect. They are a solitary bee so only the females make nests and they make use of existing holes to do so, they do not drill holes in wood. They are called mason bees because they seal off each cell in their nests with mud. They are also quite docile and tend to only sting if you accidentally step on one or close one in your fist.

Beyond the heat and gardening, I have a new addiction. Grilled pizza. It is so good! I made it again for Lughnasadh and fully intend on doing it again this weekend and pretty much until the weather prevents me from lighting the grill. It takes more prep work then just doing burgers or corn, but it is completely worth it! I love grilled zucchini and peppers on mine.

Tonight I grilled pizza on our charcoal kettle grill for the first time and other then a few slip-ups it worked quite well. First of all, I separated the rolled out dough with wax paper, which would have worked great if I had greased the paper or floured the dough, but I didn’t so I had to scrap it off the paper and roll it out again. Secondly I put way too much garlic in my pizza sauce, and by way too much I mean I think Michael and my collective breath would kill every vampire within 100 miles. It was even a lot of garlic for me and that is saying a lot.

Other then that, I would totally do it again and again. For the curious, I loosely used the grilling instructions I found here. I used my usual whole-wheat crust with fresh herbs from my garden, which made four eight to ten-inch thin crusts. They were topped with zucchini and onions from my garden and peppers from the farmer’s market (which I lightly sautéed beforehand.) I used a mozzarella/asiago cheese blend and the aforementioned tomato sauce which needs less garlic.

For the record, photographing food is harder then I expected!