Party Time

We have just returned from a great weekend in Somerset for Janet's 50th birthday. She wanted to have a big party at their house for all the people they know locally, at work, at the local pub - in fact anyone within about 10 miles! The original idea was to have a BBQ. However that was soon replaced by the idea of a hangi - food cooked in the earth Maori fashion. So on Saturday morning masses of meat and veg, in wire baskets carefully crafted from chicken wire, were lowered into a big pit into which a fire had been lit several hours earlier. The food was wrapped in lettuce leaves, then foil. The baskets were covered in wet sacks and the earth heaped over it. Then it was left for several hours.