Roof Top Barbecue with John Lewis.

The month of May has brought so much rain that my longing for a spell of dry weather is growing intensely. I know that rain is good for farmers and the gardens and the soil etc but I do hate wet weather and I can't wait for a proper summer to emerge. I love being outdoors and relish alfresco dining so when John Lewis invited me to their recent roof top barbecue, I jumped at the chance all along keeping my fingers and toes crossed that the sun shines on the day. As if by magic my request was fulfilled as the evening turned out bright and sunny and warm with not a sign of a raindrop!! The venue a film studio -Brunswick studious with a terrace garden set in residential area of Kilburn was perfect and really quaint.

The barbecue was organised to showcase John Lewis's finest electric and gas barbecues and we all had a wonderful opportunity to test them out. Our chef for the evening was non other than Ed Smith from Rocket and Squash, a lawyer turned chef who has recently launched his cook book "On the side" which has a collection of 140 side dishes. Ed showed us how to "burn" food on the barbecue!!!! I think he really meant how to char. 
I loved the electric and gas barbecues, but If you have a small garden like I have and don't have enough space to have these beautiful full size barbecues there are smaller tabletop barbecues available for smaller spaces like these portable grills  from Globo Surf.

We watched a demo of beetroot and red onions being char grilled and then served with a lovely dill and feta dressing. This followed by char grilled leeks and spring onions and baked butternut squash and sweet potatoes. The leeks were served with a romesco sauce made from char grilled red peppers and almonds. Ed also barbecued some lamb for the non vegetarians.

Ed showed us that barbecue food does not have to be boring and all you need to do is be a little more imaginative with your ingredients. With this thought in mind we split into groups, mainly vegetarian and non vegetarians and created our own dishes from all the lovely produce that John Lewis had provided.

With three other foodie friends, Jagruti from jagrutiscookingodyssey, Manjiri from travelsfortaste and Lisa Moore we set about making our two dishes. Jagruti and I concentrated on the savory dish of Barbecued Sweet corn with Roast pepper and Mint salsa whilst Manjiri and Lisa created a sweet dish Smoky-n-Crunchy BBQ Pineapple. 

The other teams created some skewers of vegetables and lamb, roasted sweetcorn and sweet potato mash, sweet potato wedges served with a lovely creamy dip and a dessert of baked apples made on the barbecue served  with vanilla ice cream.

All our creations were photographed by Charlie Richards who is the photographer for the John Lewis Magazine. Once the photo shoots were over, we all tucked into the lovely barbecued feast over lots of chit chat and prosecco. The evening ended with gifts of beautiful signed copies of Ed's book.

You can find the recipe for the Barbecued Sweet Corn and Roasted Tomato Salsa with mint dressing recipe in my next post.
I would like to thank  John Lewis for inviting me to this lovely event, it most certainly brightened the rainy month of May. All the opinions and views expressed in this post are my own as are all the photographs.