Our BBQ

We got 'volunteered' to host the Australia Day party for the Aussie expats - not a problem, we are the only family with a yard and we have plenty of space so we were happy to do it.  Only problem - we had no BBQ and every Aussie knows, snow or not, you can't host Australia Day without a BBQ.

It was decided that we'd celebrate on Saturday the 30th so we had a little time.  I ordered the BBQ online and it was delivered on Friday.

Since I was home with the sick kids (who were happily playing their IPads) it was the perfect time to put it together.

Well, I say perfect but I forgot one thing....  It was -4 degrees and Kris had turned off the garage heater to save power.  It was like putting together an IKEA bed in a freezer.  I couldn't wear my gloves and the metal got pretty cold.  But in true Aussie style I drank a cup of cement and got it done..

The super helpful instructions

The first bits come together - the legs were super floppy and kept collapsing down.

If you look closely at the picture above, you'll notice two things, firstly an absence of tools - we'd lent out our proper screwdrivers so I was left to assemble it with my pocket knife and secondly, and most importantly the top right leg is on upside down.  Of course I didn't notice this until I'd put all the other bits together and then had to pull the whole side apart again.

Meanwhile, while I swore at my frozen hands and skinned knuckles, Kris worked to fix another issue we had found.  Sweden doesn't have sausages.  They have korv which are much more like hotdog sausages and they don't grill well.  The other issue is the price.  We found a butcher that sold 'sausages' but they were about 10kr each (about $2).  Since we have 20 people coming over for Australia Day, the maths didn't look good.  The suggestion was made to do burgers, so we will be doing that, but we wanted some snags too.

So Kris purchased a food blender.  It was Andersson brand so Kris nicknamed it Hans (Hans Christian Anderson), but I've named it Neo (the real Mr Anderson).

Sausages! - well eventually...

Meanwhile I managed to get the BBQ assembled and we got ourselves a gas bottle:

Ready for action

Cooking the sausages

It was pitch black by the time I started cooking so I used the flashlight app on my phone.  But everything turned out well and it was a good taste of home.  We did find out that I had forgotten to fit 6 rubber spacers but oh well, it was cold and the BBQ didn't explode so all is fine.