With the sun finally starting to shine through the winter clouds, the beginning of spring is a great time to dust off your BBQ, stock up on Heat Beads® BBQ briquettes and test your grill skills just in time for Father’s Day (Sunday, September 7).

Over 750, 000 copies of Cheryl and Bill Jamison’s Smoke and Spice: Cooking with smoke, the real way to Barbecue have been sold already, so you know you can’t go wrong if you need a helping hand getting back into the swing of a ‘real’ weekend BBQ.

This latest edition of this award-winning recipe cookbook has been refreshed with over 100 new BBQ recipes and updated BBQ tips. With an evident passion for BBQ, Cheryl and Bill describe delicious BBQ delights as, ‘food that dances on your senses and gets your lips to rejoicing’. They describe smoking as ‘the real way to BBQ’ and encourage all in their quest to achieve results of professional standards when they state, ‘all you need to succeed are the right resources and a little learning about the barbecue craft and its delightful, part-and-parcel culture’.

Smoke and Spice: Cooking with smoke, the real way to Barbecue was first published by Harvard Common Press in 2003 and contains over 500 pages of all you need to know for successfully smoking on your BBQ this spring.

It was a sight to behold at the Heat Beads® offices on Friday August 8, when our team took on the pyjama day challenge! This fun event was organised as part of the Melbourne Citymission’s Homelessness Campaign 2008 to support services provided for homeless people in Melbourne.

The team came to work dressed in their finest flannel and enjoyed some BBQ’d delights such as egg and bacon muffins grilled over Heat Beads® BBQ Briquettes. You could enjoy breakfast for $3 if your were in pyjamas and $5 if you weren’t brave enough to bare your flannel amongst your co-workers. It was a good laugh and a great way to start a Friday, so why not get your workplace involved next year? PJ Day is held annually in the first week of August.

The Heat Beads® team are on a bit of a health kick and a part of that is exploring the world of organic produce in Australia.

Using the best quality ingredients helps bring out the best of food cooked over live coals. Currently in Australia there is a lot of confusion surrounding organic produce, there tends to be a perception that organic produce shows very little difference from rest of the pack, apart from in the price arena. Not so we are assured! The stringent quality standards that must be adhered to, to ensure that you and your family are protected against genetic modification of foods and pesticides and chemicals that are usually used to fertilise crops, are astounding.

And apparently organic produce doesn’t just help humans. According to the Australian Certified Organic website, ‘Organic systems work in harmony with nature, keeping harmful chemicals out of our land, water and air, creating a healthy environment rich in wildlife, woodlands and nutrients. The organic standards place great emphasis on building and maintaining healthy soil, nutritious crops and animal welfare.’

So look out for the Australian Certified Organic symbol to ensure that you are getting the most out of the health benefits of delicious BBQ’d delights.

The fantastic Redesdale Tavern Camp Oven Cook Off held on September 6th from 11am to 5pm will be fuelled by Heat Beads® BBQ Briquettes.

Everyone is encourage to form teams, devise a plan to decorate their ’site’ in the most inventive fashion (prizes are offered) and work on those secret recipes to win over the judges. As in previous years, the tavern will be providing the teams with basic ingredients: lamb or beef, carrots, onions and potatoes.

The Redesdale Tavern is situated just an hour and a half from the Melbourne CBD so if you’re on the Calder Highway/Bendigo region, why not come along?

The Aussie BBQ Ban in Beijing
Internet access isn’t the only thing that is hard to come by in Beijing at the moment. With the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics just two days away, the great Aussie BBQ has been banned!

The Australian Olympic team has been told its traditional team bonding BBQ will have to wait until London. This is due to fears that the pollution in Beijing would seriously contaminate food cooked outside - and its not only food cooked outside! Even taking warm meat that has been cooked inside is not permitted to be eaten outdoors. This great tradition has now been reduced to cold meats and salad! John Coates, the head of the Australian Olympic team said, ‘it might be false or misleading to call it a barbecue…we aren’t able to cook meat outside the dining room’ (http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/beijing_olympics/story/0,27313,24116320-5017275,00.html).

Heat Beads® Takes to the Road
Heat Beads® is taking the message to the street, look out for the Heat Beads® truck on your travels -you cant miss it!