Sunday afternoon bbq in Seminyak Bali

My first real bbq went off on Sunday night and was a pretty fun occasion.

It was thrown together on the spur of the moment and here’s the breakdown.

I started making calls around midday and inviting likely candidates. My neighbor Mark from New York who is our antique sourcing expert was the first to confirm as were Liza and Lenny from Jember in Java who were in town briefly. Realizing I has only 2 plates, knives, forks and Bintang mugs I headed off to Bintang supermarket to see what they had on offer. The second floor is full of Indonesian quality goods at a reasonably low price.

I picked up 10 plates, 8 glasses and 10 sets of cutlery.

Next step was the food. Twenty small Bintangs supplemented what I had in the fridge and with a couple of kilos of steak and 1 of chicken we were on our way. I also got 2 large bags of assorted salad items, plus cucumbers and tomatoes. For dessert I bought and bag of oranges and a honeydew melon.

My plan was to steam some rice get some help cutting up the vegetables and fruit and handle the bbq and meat myself.

By 4pm I had Mark, Liza and Lenny already at the house. Mark was struggling with a gin and tonic I had made him from the remnants of Mick Turnbull’s liquor collection. Liza and Lenny had never made a salad before and sat on the kitchen floor eating grapes and melon. When I checked they had torn the lettuce into pieces like I’d shown them and tossed the whole cucumber in ( maybe they thought you pass it round and take a bite each).

Having a couple of Indonesians on the team I thought it a good idea to get them to handle the rice, so I left them to it and took off in search of coconut husks. People has told me go to Bintang supermarket, but when I started asking for coconuts they directed me to the vegetable section. After a few minutes it became obvious that what I was asking for did not register as Indonesians actually don’t use the word ‘coconut’.

Riding home I bumped into Wayan and after miming fire and burning we got the other Wayan to come over and sort the linguistic mess out. Wayan was about to finish work and told me I could follow her to her house in Kerobokan where they had coconuts in the back yard. Wayan gives off this sweet and innocent persona but get her on a motorbike and she turns into ‘demon racer’. I had trouble keeping up balancing speed with safety.

Arriving at he family compound her husband Nyoman kindly took me out behind the pig pen to collect a sack of dry husks. These are very light in weight but burn with intensity. As I was leaving Wayan’s mum and dad showed up and I got introduced. They wouldn’t take anything for the husks and with the bulging sack between my legs I was back in time for a trial run.

Using the ‘coconut starter’…the metal tube with a rack part way up I loaded some charcoal bricks and a couple of husks in. The cardboard underneath created a good flame and soon the charcoal was glowing red. The coconut husks are better placed on the grill when the coals are red in my opinion and once they are on they create clouds of smoke. This adds to flavour and keeps the mosquitoes away. It was amazing that while I was barbequeing I didn’t get a single mozzie bite.

Checking on the rice situation I saw one of the ladies stirring a pot of mush. “What the heck are you doing?” I said. “Maybe rice too wet.” she replied. Just my luck to get the 2 people in Bali who don’t know how to cook rice.

My friend Miguel had just arrived from Yogyakarta from a jewelry-scouting trip and showed up in a Suzuki Katana. He had never been to my house before but I navigated him down the alleys using my cell phone.

Adding his liquid contribution to the fridge it was now pretty packed out and after another 30 minutes I rode out to Jl. Dhyana Pura to rendezvous with my other guests, Palu, Stewart and Dave from Australia and Wiwin from Java.

These guys know how to bbq and Wiwin owns her own warung. No lounging about for these people, they set about getting the coals to their liking and arranging the meat…great for me to get some help!

This is my favourite shot. Its Dave holding his Bintang while balancing a tray of chicken.

There were a few things I didn’t have going on. For one thing I had no music, I did ask Palu but he forgot. That will be my next purchase. Another small detail was ice. My fridge was totally packed and I simply forgot, no worries for us beer drinkers but the liquor fiends had cool drinks instead of cold ones.

I ended up only using half the steak, all the chicken and half the salad. Towards the end of the evening Laurel showed up fresh from the Gili Islands in Lombok. I think she was surprised to see a group of people lounging around where there had previously been a tranquil space.

At one point in the evening Miguel loudly educated everyone present on the story of how a member of the Rockefeller family went exploring in Indonesia and was never found. It was an interesting collision of cultures for sure. The Aussies asked me how I managed to be mates with loud-mouth Yanks and I said they were not that bad.

The lamps were a great addition and I supplemented them with 3 short stubby candles placed on my 3 large Java flower pots. The garden was actually nicely lit.

For my next bbq I will have to focus on some of the smaller details like ice for drinks, seasonings and snacks beforehand. For a starter this went quite well though and 2 of the girls were nice enough to clean up before they left!

You never know if you come to Bali you could be invited to a bbq.

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• Walking through Kuta Square Bali
• Warung 96
• Scenes from Poppies Lane II

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