You’ve invited your buddy and his family over for a braai.
The forecast says it’ll be a beautiful day, and you look forward to spending quality time with a good friend and his fine family.
You make a supply run, which includes popping in at your favourite butcher, where you select a choice cut of steak, a sixpack of skilpadjies, a packet of sosaties, and a curl of thick boerewors your oupagrootjie would have been proud of.
Your buddy and his family arrive at twelve, cos the kids want to swim. Besides, you’ve got time to kill, and there’s no better person to kill it with than him.
The day is spent relaxing at the pool, telling jokes, enjoying a beer or two and laughing at the kids’ antics.
At five, the sun is low, the kids are still in the pool, and the time has come to start the ritual.
So you head for your trusty gas braai, open the gas, take a lighter to the grid and watch the flames woof to life.
The women head indoors to fix up salads and discuss womanly trad-wife things.
Conversation cruises open-top down a quiet highway, as it always does with this specific friend. It’s just lekker to spend time with the dude. He’s the epitome of contentment and joy.
Before you know it, the steak’s medium rare, the skilpaadjies ooze fatty sauce and the curl of wors is at that crucial breaking-point.
Everything’s perfect.
You remove the meat from the grid, plop it into the aluminium container you inherited from your dad, turn the knobs to kill the flames, and close the gas.
You glance at the grid and dispel a thought entering your mind you don’t want to entertain; one about cleaning, because it’s not necessary to spend time thinking about it. Not in your case. Because it’s hardly necessary.
You head indoors, where your buddy’s wife is putting the finishing touches on a piesang slaai, and your wife is making sure the green salad is perfect.
The kids are starving. Of course.
You take a seat at the table and the dishing up begins, a ritual you love to partake in.
When everyone’s seated and ready, you smile and nod, close your eyes and thank the good Lord for his kindness.
The food is good enough to keep most mouths busy with chewing. Before long your plate is empty, and you send it around to be filled again.
Your friend follows suit, doing his part to ensure no food goes to waste.
When everyone’s sated, the incredible malva pudding is brought forth. It doesn’t last long, and there’s nothing left for later, which is a good thing. You need to keep a check on your weight.
You and the other grownups make your way to softer chairs, where you plop down, magies vol. Your wife takes a coffee count and heads for the kitchen, where she churns out a few cups of delicious coffee, which you slowly drink, savouring every sip.
Your friend gets up from his chair, stretches like a cat and makes the pronouncement that he will be heading home with his clan.
It was indeed yet another perfect day.
And the braai did its job perfectly, just as it’s done countless times before.
And hopefully it’ll do it again later in the week, and next weekend, and for many more weeks to come, Deo Volente.
That’s what a good gas braai does. It faithfully keeps producing phenomenal braai experiences that allow you to focus on the moment; to enjoy good company. Not spend your time worrying about the braai.
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