Yesterday, we had a really fun time catering for a joint birthday party for twins – a 10-year old brother and sister. The theme of the party was pirates and we were asked to provide an outdoor hog roast in Ladybank to go alongside pirate-themed food in their large back garden.

For this fairly intimate event, we arrived with a small hog roaster and a medium-sized pig that we started roasting early in the morning. It was great to watch the party coming together as we cooked. We were providing the main food of hog roast Ladybank to go in rolls, together with our delicious stuffing, apple sauce and crackling. However, there were lots of amazing pirate snacks, including crackers (for Polly the parrot, we guessed), Maltesers as cannon balls, Rolos still in their wrappers so they looked like gold pieces, cola bottle sweets that were labelled as Captain’s rum, sweets in the shape of the number 8 (pieces of eight?) and so much more.

The decorations were really fantastic as well. There were stripey sheets surrounding the garden, skull and crossbones bunting and a ‘walk-the-plank’ game. All the paper plates, cups and serviettes were pirate themed, of course, and there was a huge piñata in the shape of a pirate. Plus there were jars for each of the young guests and each one was filled with a pirate’s kit, including an eye patch, a mini telescope, chocolate coins and a treasure map. The latter would lead the children to some buried treasure (pirate gifts to take home) at the bottom of the garden. Needless to say, I’m pretty sure I want a pirate party myself now!

Our hog roast in Ladybank was nice and hot and sizzling away in its own juices as young guests arrived and looked enthralled by the whole scene in front of them. We carved pieces to order and had to laugh as one of the kids asked us for his meat in part pirate-speak (“Shiver me timbers, I’ll have that bit please”) and kept saying, “Me hearties” to the other guests! What a fantastic day. It was a real pleasure to cater for this family.