Hosting friends at home has always been part of my routine. Weekdays or weekends, any reason is good to share good food and of course, good wine. It is certain that with the work I do, BBQ is an integral part of my life. But I do not share a tender moment on a Saturday afternoon with my smoker watching my brisket smoke, because one, I do not have a smoker and two; even less grass. BBQ for me: it is Montreal style.
But I have, in my opinion, the most versatile BBQ that exists. In addition to looking great with its gold color, my Weber kettle does justice to everything I put on the grill. Honestly, every time. Salmon, melon, roast, broccoli, you name it, it never disappoints. With every meal, I need a little touch of BBQ. But it has to be done quickly. I often have 2 or 3 burners lit, too many vegetables waiting to be cut and the BBQ to light. So I don't live without my kindling to light my charcoal. That way, you can quickly go inside to watch the boiling water and have a sip or two of wine.
I'm that girl who waits until October to order a pumpkin latte at Starbucks and who, in December, will opt for a peppermint mocha instead to get in the holiday spirit. No iced coffee in the winter, but no hot coffee in the summer. Well yes, do the same. So you see where I'm going with this. When I host, it's the same thing. I opt for seasonal vegetables and a menu accordingly. In the fall, I bring out the comfort food recipes that I had abandoned when I found the mixture of asphalt and black snow of the streets of Montreal last spring. Now that you see what kind of host I am, we can get to my menu from last Thursday :)
My generation is that of foodies. Honestly, I don't know anyone my age who doesn't love food. We have access to so many different products today, so why not take advantage of them? But I'm also a conservative at heart. Hosting without making dessert: impossible. Even less so without a starter. Really wanting a fondue with the cold that arrived too quickly in Montreal, we went with the classic fondue. But if I had found a way to make it BBQ, I would have done it, but we didn't have time for this brainstorm.
So I went with a starter of melted brie (the classic BBQ Québec on a salt board) but revisited. Or should I say, autumn version. Melted brie; it's super simple. Heat your salt board. Personally, I heat the cheese at the same time as the salt board to make the most of my time. Then I added figs and a few raspberries. And who says autumn says pumpkin, right? Just to be conceptual, you know. So I roasted my pumpkin seeds with oil and Kansas spices from BBQ Québec, just to give them a little kick. In a cast iron pan, oil, pumpkin seeds and spices and in 3 minutes you have a whole lot of flavor ready to be placed on the cheeses for the Instagram photo. And in addition to being beautiful, it was absolutely delectable.
At home, fondue is eaten with vegetables in the broth. So I didn't deviate from my classics. But I'm a girl who eats 48 portions of vegetables a day. So I grilled some beans, carrots and baby potatoes to make a salad. My classic with vegetables? The California dry marinade. You'll tell me that I'm preaching to the choir, but for me, vegetables without Cali are just impossible.
To top it all off and to replenish the insta feed (for my mother, here I mean Instagram mommy), we ended the evening with my trusty cheesecake. SO SIMPLE, but so good.
Of course, an October version of cheesecake. The BBQ version is as simple as the oven version. You just have to cook the graham crust beforehand. I mixed my graham crust (yes, it's the little bee box) with ginger cookies that I had previously crumbled. Butter, eggs and hop on the BBQ. While it cooks, you mix the Philadelphia with the sugar, a touch of cinnamon, pumpkin puree and voila. To make it all cuter, I grilled pralines on the BBQ with maple syrup.
48 Instagram photos later, the girls thanked me for the menu and the evening. So good, and so simple.
BBQ is just inspiring. It pushes us to try a lot of things, and a lot of new foods, and honestly, it's not more complicated than the oven. Max often says that we rarely gather around a microwave, but that everyone is always gathered around the BBQ. And I guarantee you that that night, even in the middle of October, my friends came outside with me, around the BBQ, because that's what BBQ is.
