Teenage Sleepovers

This weekend saw my son's summer "sleepover" party with BBQ. Thank God we picked this weekend when it was actually dry, sunny and warm and not any of the last umpteen previous, cold and wet ones! Not least, because owing to my own facetiousness, it was an "under canvas sleepover". The last major sleepover we had was on New Year's Eve and H insisted that it would be far the most fun if everyone kipped down round the Christmas Tree and the open fire in the living room rather than decamped at a suitable hour to bedrooms equipped with beds. The result was that nobody slept at all but sat up all night gambling with the contents of my button box at Poker, Pontoon and the like. It was not the most restful night even for H's past-it parents who tried to get some sleep. His mother, who had to get up early for work the following Sunday morning did not find it an entirely satisfactory formula particularly when after a very disturbed night she crept into the kitchen at 5.30 am to make a quiet and restorative cup of tea, she was joined by an assortment of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed teenagers wanting to argue about the meaning of life! Generally I am up for these kinds of discussions but at 5.30 am, after very little sleep, it can be pushing it a bit!

This time, when the sleepover party thing came up, I said, "People really must go to bed at some point. We can't have an all-night gambling den again." H left me under no illusion that this was party-pooping of no mean order and "What was the point otherwise?" In response, jokingly, and with hindsight, I realise slightly rashly, I said that in that case they must sleep outside. "What a good idea!" said H. "Let's do it."

One tent later here we are:

I suggested we might have a theme for this extravaganza. A degree of "discussion" took place on this and in the end we went for an amalgam of British Jubilee / American Independence Day / French Bastille Day which meant that food had to go red, white and blue and include British, American and French offerings. So far so good.

Have a tricolore burger bun anyone?! H's view is that these are "seriously weird" but I love them!

Before cooking...

... and after!

These lurid little numbers were made to contain homemade lamb-burgers which are this household's favourite BBQ food. I did wonder about tinting the mince but I was told in no uncertain terms to go no further with the idea! Shame!

These burgers are just straightforward minced lamb mixed with grated apple, grated courgette and plenty of chopped fresh mint and lots of black pepper. The courgettes nearly never made it into the burgers as H, who was helping me make these, decided they could be put to better use as baseball bats for batting balloons up and down the kitchen! Never a dull moment cooking in this house, I tell you! You can't taste either the courgette or the apple in the cooked burgers but both lend the meat a lovely juiciness and lighten the mixture beautifully. I don't put chopped raw onion in as I find it never gets cooked enough for my taste on a BBQ and if you're not careful it can dominate everything rather unpleasantly.

Again, (of course!) nobody slept at all and because I left the patio door open to enable access to the bathroom etc there were a lot of comings and goings in the small hours to recharge phones (who decides to recharge their mobile phone at 3.00am, I ask you?!) and to raid the larder in case terminal starvation set in between an enormous supper and an equally enormous breakfast. Leaving the patio door open possibly was a mistake with hindsight, as of course every time the door was slid open and shut, the noise reverberated wakingly upstairs. Also the lure of a James Bond computer game, playable by a number of people at once on a split screen, appeared to be compellingly strong around 4.00 am which was fine apart from the fact that winning or losing was an extremely noisy business!

But a lot of harmless fun was apparently had and although they are (of course) all substantially larger and noisier than they were just six months ago, which Mrs T, who feels herself by comparison to be shrinking visibly!, finds slightly disconcerting, they are a great bunch to have around.

Again deals were done and stakes dealt high, way into the small hours and beyond - never have buttons been so hardly fought for and won! Again I am amazed at just how much food hungry teenagers can put away. I am not sure whether I would put more money on teenagers or a plague of locusts in this respect! And although the sheer quantities takes me aback a little, it's absolutely lovely to cook for a bunch of people who hoover so appreciatively whatever I produce - even my weird and wonderful lurid rolls! But also ...

a gargantuan snowdrift of cheese straws,

a veritable mountain of chocolate brownies,

and two large, red, white and blue trifles!

I remain staggered at the stamina of teenagers and also the discrepancy between normal service in the holidays when I can barely get H to stir before midday and these occasions when he seems to be able to go for almost 48 hours without any sleep at all. Something doesn't quite add up here! I on the other hand cannot go without sleep for that long and felt distinctly fragile yesterday! I am not sure I ever could go for that long without sleep either, even when I was 14 / 15! But may be it's just so long ago, I  can't remember!

Something to go home with, in case starvation should set in again en route!

If anyone has any tips for teenage sleepover parties that enable parents actually to sleep even if the teenagers don't, I'd be glad to hear them!

A happy aftermath of this, is a tin of the most delicious shortbready biscuits made by the mother of one of H's friends as a thank you. They are exceptionally good and like Scrat and his nut in "Ice Age", these are going to be all mine! Thank you, Heather, so much. Shall be emailing you for the recipe and for where you got the lovely, big, flower-shaped cutter!