Recipe for A Successful Barbecue

Take one birthday cake, taking care to ignore the fact that somebody squished it with a bag of ice (I warned him not to put them together in the boot (trunk) but would he listen?)

Add one live band - Zazz. (Available for weddings, barmitzvahs and the odd garden party)

Carefully stir in 80 or so of your closest friends and neighbours, toasted to a golden brown under the first rain free day for weeks..

Add a generous pinch of spice (courtesy of our Argentian friends) and sugar (our favourite songbird Cantor Hasha)

Top off with a great hat bought specially in Disneyland

Stand around chatting until everything is ready...

Top with a surprise guest - my new English friend who has just moved to Naperville with her family from Dubai because of what she's read about us all on the blog!

Serve a generous slice to everyone there.

And enjoy!