Here in the UK the sun pops out from behind a cloud for five minutes and everyone’s changing into their shorts and t-shirts (while the Prof just takes all his clothes off so he’s naked under his lab coat – it isn’t a pretty sight). It’s no surprise then, that after a week of constant sunshine, BBQ season has officially begun.

As you know, here at giftlab.co.uk we like to make ourselves useful so with the first whiffs of a BBQ (We smelt the first one on Mother’s Day… can anyone beat that? Comment below if you can and you might win a prize!) we were already leafing through cook books, searching the web, and trying out our own styles of cooking so that we could give you our Top Ten Tips on how to host the perfect BBQ and a range of recipes guaranteed to win over your guests. So, without further ado here’s how you can impress all your friends and family with your outdoor cooking skills:

Cooking:

1. Marinate the meat overnight and remember to baste it during the last 5-10 minutes of grilling.
2. Season the grill with olive oil and rosemary before you start cooking – it adds a little extra that will leave everyone saying “mmmm… how did you get that flavour?”
3. When using wooden skewers always soak well in water before use – obviously we would advise doing away with the wooden skewers and cooking everything on our BBQ sword.



4. If you want the meat to cook through quickly, bring it to room temperature before you place it on the grill. Not only does it speed up the cooking time but it will also drain the fat better.
5. For a little extra flavour add a powdered spice to your meat (make some without though – remember, not everyone likes spicy food)
6. Light the BBQ well in advance (follow manufacturer’s instructions) before you plan to start cooking – make sure you use enough charcoal, and wait until it is glowing red (with a powdery grey surface) before you start cooking.
7. Cooking in a windy area could prolong the cooking time so make sure you pick a sheltered spot before you light the BBQ (obviously don’t light the BBQ and then decide to move it – this is dangerous.)
8. Always keep a bucket of water by you in case of an emergency.
9. If your BBQ is a spontaneous one and it’s getting dark, make sure you have enough light to see what you’re doing. You don’t want to end up with burnt sausages and you certainly don’t want to start a fire.
10. Don’t be lazy – a clean grill not only cooks better but it won’t leave a disgusting taste on the food.

Food tips:

For the veggies (and veggies who eat fish!):

• Monkfish barbecues really well - it is just meaty enough to hold together well. Why not try Monkfish kebabs on rosemary skewers with ciabatta and pancetta – a giftlab favourite!
• Salmon and tuna also go really well on the BBQ, but otherwise you would probably need to look at a whole fish (possibly in foil!) like sea bass or trout if you want to cook fish on your BBQ.
• Try par boiling baby new potatoes then making a bag out of some tin foil add olive oil, seasoning and some fresh rosemary and pop them on the BBQ. You can use the same technique for most veggies but if you are cooking asparagus like that try to make sure to keep them flat so they all cook evenly. With Butternut squash you will need to quarter it and scoop out the seeds then wrap in foil. (Timing these veggies is really quite difficult; as it will depend on the size of the veg and the temperature of the barbecue but normally they’ll take about the same time as they would in an oven.)
• Buy a corn on the cob and barbeque it with the husks on. Then when it is about done use some oven gloves and pull the husks off - you will probably need a pair of scissors to make sure you have them completely off otherwise they will catch light. Another giftlab favourite.

For the carnivores:

• To make a good pork chop try this recipe: crush some garlic cloves, mix with some grated stem ginger, some ground cumin, ground coriander seeds and chilli powder. Then add just enough sesame oil and dark soy to make it all sticky and gooey. Brush this onto the chops and throw them on the BBQ. Then use the BBQ Sword to hold them over the BBQ with the fat down so it crisps up nicely like instant crackling!
• To cook the perfect chicken take it off the bone and lie it on a chopping board, cover it with cling film and bash it with a meat mallet or rolling pin until it’s half a cm thick all over. (It’s important it’s the same thickness so it cooks at the same speed throughout). Crush a garlic clove and mix with a teaspoon of paprika, a teaspoon of grainy mustard and a teaspoon of honey. Smother this mix over both sides of the chicken - but not so much that it drips - and chuck it straight on the barbie. With the chicken so thin it will cook quickly and safely. You can make a sauce using the remainder of the paprika/mustard mixture - just heat it gently in a pan with either some plain Greek yoghurt or some double cream. Yummy.
• Steak is one of the best cuts of meat to barbeque. Just score it on one side with some ground black pepper and brushed with olive oil to stop it sticking. It is quite difficult to go wrong with cooking a steak on the BBQ but a common mistake is to turn it too often. Ideally you should only turn the steak once.
• For burgers mix the spices (salt, pepper etc) and add them into the patties making sure they’re around ¾ inch thick. Make sure you use ground beef that has at least 20% fat as you need that for the juices. Make an indentation in the centre of the burger to eliminate the “plumping” in the middle then throw them on the BBQ.

A nice side salad:

• Bean salad: Get some cans of mixed beans from the supermarket, rinse them thoroughly and add some canned sweetcorn, chopped spring onions and red peppers along with a jar of salsa. This will go beautifully with the barbequed meats.
• Pasta Salad : Use coloured shapes mixed with peppers, apple, celery, grapes and a low-fat dressing of yogurt, curry powder and mango chutney.
• New Potatoes tossed with fresh mint and chives or jacket potatoes with a cottage cheese topping.

Sauces & Dips for the centre of the table:

• 45ml(3tbsp) Natural yogurt, 15ml(1tbsp) Curry paste, 5ml(1tsp) Lemon juice
• 432g can Crushed pineapple,  30ml(2tbsp) Chilli sauce,  2 crushed Garlic cloves
• 150ml red or white Wine, Chopped 30ml(2tbsp) Fresh Herbs, 15ml(1tbsp) Olive oil,  Garlic cloves, 2, crushed

Finally - Safety:

• Don’t leave the BBQ unattended.
• Ensure that the ‘chef’ wears an apron and washes hands before cooking and in between putting food on and taking it off the BBQ.
• Keep all raw and cooked food separate and keep it “wrapped and refrigerated”.
• Keep meat refrigerated for as long as possible before cooking – and put the oven on to keep them warm after cooking.
• Use separate BBQ utensils when handling raw and cooked food.
• Check sausages and burgers are cooked through, (juices should run clear). Steaks being ‘solid’ meat rather than minced or chopped are quite safe eaten when cooked to rare or medium.
• Make sure frozen meat is thoroughly thawed (unless otherwise stated) before cooking and do not refreeze once thawed.

Another of our products at giftlab.co.uk has reached celeb status! Fresh from our Limpet bathtime drinks holder appearing on This Morning, now the Will Patrons tea towel has appeared on BBC’s The One Show. To get your own click here

HOLGA PUNK

words and pictures by Elliot Muir

Get your holga here

Whenever art or culture gets too sophisticated and tidy, you’ll usually find some creative insurgent unpicking it all, urgently trying to find something random and rootsy underneath. The Holga camera is the latest incarnation of lo-fi chic, and is currently ripping up the red carpet of mainstream digital photography. Holga is unashamedly the worst camera ever made. All the flaws that grown-up camera manufacturers have spent decades trying to eradicate are joyriding around her insides. Technically she is classed as a toy camera, but don’t be fooled – in the right hands she’s a serious creative tool with the potential to make your brain glow rainbows.

Part of Holga’s great charm is that her users require hardly any photographic experience to start making quirky images. By far the best approach is to shoot first and ask questions later, but here are a few tips to help start you off.

WHERE TO BUY:

Buy your Holga online here or www.lomography.com Be very careful on ebay, most of them come from Hong Kong and include a Free Gift!! but you may have to wait2 Months!! for delivery. If you can’t wait, then try the Photographers Gallery in Covent Garden, but be prepared to pay more. You shouldn’t ever pay more than around £50 or £60 for a brand new Holga.

FILM:

Generally, most pros will agree that pound for pound, film yields more vibe than digital. Holga has been built to work with high grade 120mm film, which is fairly near the top of tree in terms of image quality and resolution. You usually get what you pay for – cheap grade consumer film is a false economy. To find out more, have a good look at www.lomography.com/filmshop – then check out www.ebay.com or www.7dayshop.com for the best prices.

SHOOTING:

• Always make sure that the little switch on the bottom is set to N – this is the Normal setting. B stands for Bulb and you only use this at night for long exposures. Return it to N after making long exposures or you’ll blur and overexpose all your shots.
• Holga needs a lot of light. You’ll probably find that you have to use flash for most shots that aren’t in bright
sunlight.
• Be careful with the back of the camera, it has a tendency to fall off and wipe your film. Opening the back of the camera very slightly with film inside will give you ‘light leaks’ – magical peachy stains of retro analogue authenticity. They’re great.
• Pimp up your Holga. Go to www.squarefrog.co.uk and www.holgamods.com for detailed advice on modificationsand experimental techniques.

PROCESSING:

Most Holga people get their films processed by mail order. One popular place is www.spectrumimaging.co.uk but also try www.spectrumphotolabs.co.uk – they’re a bit more expensive but the quality of their work is faultless and they still do proper B&W processing. On the high street, Snappy Snaps and Jessops are good, but pricey.

SHARING:

Show your pics on Flickr and you’ll soon get an idea of what works and what doesn’t. Flickr group forums are the best place to find answers to any technical difficulties you may have. Check out –

www.flickr.com/groups/86881528@N00/
www.flickr.com/groups/dontforgettotakethelenscapoff
www.flickr.com/groups/holgachic
www.flickr.com/groups/holgaweekly

SUCCESS

Holga is rapidly gaining acceptance as a legitimate tool for both editorial and fine art photographic work, so there are some pretty exciting new opportunities opening up. Just remember not to take it too seriously; Holga works best when you leave space for chaos.

To check out another Lomo camera, the Diana+ go here

Elliot Muir is a graphic designer, writer and photographer – you can see more of his work at
www.flickr.com/photos/elliotmuir

Here at giftlab we love the I’m As Big As Height Chart. It provides hours of entertainment in the office as we grab anyone who walks through our door, pin them up against the wall and then laugh hysterically at them for being the size of a moustache. But… well… no one’s been to visit us for a while (except an old lady who wanted to pick up her order in person but we felt bad pinning her against the wall) and there’s only so many times we can measure each other while standing on different objects (FYI The Prof is ‘A giant panda sitting down’ with no shoes on, he’s ‘Elvis’ when standing on a box full of Floating Chain Wine Bottle Holders, an ‘adult Male Gorilla’ when the box breaks from the weight, and when he stands on his head he’s a ‘Giant’… work that one out?!) so I’ve made it my mission to put the chart to good use. I vow that throughout this blog I will track down as many celebrities as I can, hold a tape measure to their head, take a quick picture and then leg it before they work out what’s going on.
I come up with a plan of action… I’ll start off by hunting down the Z-Listers and I’ll end up measuring an A-Lister. How hard can it be? They’re only people after all.
I begin to change the places I hang out. Gone are my night’s in with a Chinese takeaway and a bit of EastEnders. Instead I’m dressing up and heading to Hoxton, isn’t that where they all hang out? It must be because immediately I’m faced with my first challenge: Agyness Deyn, singing with her band Five O’Clock Heroes (who even knew she could sing?) I’m a bit nervous and approach her timidly but immediately she’s friendly and chatty. I hold out the tape measure, take the picture and wander off. It’s over in seconds but I’ve managed it and I’ve discovered she’s really quite small for a supermodel.

According to our I’m As Big As Height Chart Agyness Deyn is the same size as… drum roll please… ‘Péle’! What a lucky man he is! (Don’t worry about the bloke the other side of me, I’m not even sure who he is?!)
Z List celebrity. Check.
It’s time to make things more exciting. No sooner have I walked away from Agyness but who do I see? It’s only Kevin Sacre (he plays Jake in Hollyoaks). Ok so he’s another Z-lister but his girlfriend’s on Strictly Come Dancing so that improves his status slightly (or does it?)

He’s happy to pose for a photo and laughs in delight when I inform him he is in fact the same size as ‘A Chinese Terracotta Army Soldier’. Well who knew?!

He’s slightly happier than the next celebrity I manage to track down.

Adam Garcia seems to take offence to being the same size as ‘Tutankhamun’… and there we were thinking it was a compliment. Some people are never satisfied.

Except, hold on, here comes Sharleen Spiteri. Surely she’s at least C-List. I have a quick chat with her about her music (everyone loves a bit of Texas don’t they?) then it’s time to take her measurement.

She’s pretty impressed to be the same size as the ‘Olympic Standing High Jump Record’. I would be too… I could never do high jump.

I roll up the tape measure, collect my camera and move on. I don’t even pay much attention as I gather up some more C-Listers.

AJ McLean from Backstreet Boys for example – same height as ‘Einstein’.

Zac Efron from High School Musical – same height as ‘A supermodel (average)’.

George Sampson from Britain’s Got Talent – ‘The average height for a British woman’ (but we’ll let him off that one because he’s still growing).

I’m fairly happy with my progress so far. Who’d have thought I’d manage to measure and get photos of so many people of celebrity status. I’d be happy to give up except I’m pretty sure there isn’t an A-Lister in sight and that’s what I promised. Feeling dejected as my searches across London don’t come to fruition I decide to rope in some friends for one last search. We scour the City high and low, covering posh restaurants, exclusive clubs and classy hotels, desperate for someone, anyone to help me with my task. What is it they say about buses? You wait for hours then three come along at once? They’re right. I leave you with….

Sarah Jessica Parker – ‘A jockey’!

Ashton Kutcher – ‘King Henry VIII’

Leonardo DiCaprio – ‘A Baby Giraffe’

Oh… and next time you bump into George Sampson, don’t call him a big girl. Even though it is factually correct.

I’m off now, but maybe I’ll see some of you in space.

Tess - The Height Requirement For a Nasa Astronaut

Here at giftlab.co.uk we’ve been innundated with orders for the Limpet - our bathtime drinks holder - after Gadget Guru Andy Hodgson featured it as one of his must have items on This Morning. The product’s now listed on the ITV website along with a vareity of others which you can check out here:

Glove and Boot Dryer  £14.95
Has a built in fan to circulate air around your wet boots or gloves.
Available from: www.gizoo.co.uk

Cat Napkin Chain £9.99
Tiny grippers shaped like cats on a chain hold a napkin exactly where you need it.
Available from: www.scottsofstow.co.uk

Kat Kabin £49.99
Keep your moggy comfy and warm while the weather turns sour.
Available from: www.iwantoneofthose.com

Bathtime glass holder £9.95
This bath time drinks holder features a super secure clamp system so it grips to the bathroom tiles like a limpet.
Available from: www.giftlab.co.uk

Piano Hands £49.99
Sensors on the fingertips of these natty gloves trigger the piano notes that play through the attached speaker.
Available from: www.iwantoneofthose.com

Avocado saver £2.73
This patented gizmo keeps the other half of your avocado safe until you’re ready to eat it next.
Available from: www.lakeland.co.uk

Potato Gloves £4.84
Clean even the muddiest potato with these multi-purpose scrubbing gloves.
Available from: www.divertimenti.co.uk

‘Retriever’ software About £21
The latest weapon in the fight against the thousands of annual laptop thefts.
Available from: frontdoorsoftware.com

Shower Foot Rest £10
A suction cup shower gadget to assist your balance while shaving your legs.
Available from: www.jojomamanbebe.co.uk

To make your bathtime a more relaxing and enjoyable one why not take Andy’s advice and get your very own limpet?