The modern age of the barbecue arrived at my house in the middle of summer. A handful of relatives arrived for the weekend and brought a large cooler crammed with thick steaks, plump sausages and a variety of vegetables. I’m a handy person around the kitchen, so I told them we could fry some on the stove, and roast and grill in the oven.

“No way,” they said. “This is the middle of summer. We can do everything on your barbecue.”

“What barbecue?” I said.

Silence fell.

“You must be joking,” one of them said. “Everyone has a barbecue.”

I told them I had an ancient one at the cottage that was fuelled by charcoal and every so often I charred something on it. But right here at the house, no barbecue.

With that, everyone opened a beer or two and we all sat down for a conference, the upshot of which was that I would go out and buy a barbecue powered by propane because everyone should have a barbecue.

“How much will that cost?” I asked.

They opened a couple more beer and decided that I might have to go as high as $150.

What the heck. In my role as genial host, I thought it was my duty to supply a barbecue they could cook on. So, a group of us climbed into the van and we set off to scour the stores. A couple of hours later and some $560 poorer, I had my own barbecue. Thank goodness it came assembled.

We pushed it to a corner of my deck, and my guests started marinating and chopping and slicing and calling for ingredients such as pine nuts and fresh basil and hot sauces and sherry vinegar.

“First,” said Guest No. 1, who is an accomplished chef, “we’ll get the barbecue nice and hot, and we can start some sausages and then the steaks. But we need a barbecue pan to do the vegetables.”

“What’s a barbecue pan?” I asked.

“It’s a pan you put on the barbecue,” someone said, “for doing vegetables.”

“I have no barbecue pan,” I said. “But I have some roasting pans and something we call an oven. And in that oven we can do vegetables to your heart’s content.”

So, that’s how we proceeded. Vegetables in the oven and meat on the barbecue. And, except for the odd flash fire, it went well and all was very good.

Helped, I might add, by generous consumption of red wine and cold beer.

The next morning, we had more barbecue — a few chops, sausages, eggplant and zucchini. And it went well with black coffee.

Then everyone left for home, assuring me that hours of barbecue fun were in my future. Of that, I wasn’t so sure, because my modern barbecue is as big as a mid-sized SUV and far more intimidating.

But, because I was a modern barbecue owner, I thought I should at least give it a try. So, the next day, I bought some pork chops and eggplants. I managed to light the barbecue without setting fire to the neighbourhood, and when the temperature gauge on the grill hit 300°, I threw on the pork chops and the eggplant. Half an hour later, I turned them over and eventually I lifted them off and put them on plates. My wife and I sat down to eat.

The pork chops were dry as sand but not quite as tasty, and the eggplant slices were crumbly. Not good.

In fact, it was voted a failure — except by the dogs, who were pleased to get pork chops no matter how dry.

My barbecuing might have ended right there except a couple of days later one of my recent guests sent me a stack of books on barbecuing. And I can tell you that while I have no real skill, at least I can do succulent eggplant slices and I have turned out a few salmon steaks that were almost cooked.

I have not gone as far as buying a funny apron or a set of utensils or a set of barbecue pans.

But I intend to do some more barbecuing, even a bit of experimenting with marinades and sauces.

And you’ll be able to tell when I’m doing it. Just watch for a cloud of smoke. IE