Daddy's Surprise Birthday Party

It was Daddy’s birthday and boy did I plan a nice one for him! It wasn’t a surprise party (learnt that lesson very quickly!), so he knew that there was gonna be a party (and he helped set up a bit :)), but that was it. He didn't know what was planned, who was gonna be coming, what the menu was going to be, and even who was going to be coming! I’d first grabbed his mobile phone and pulled out all his ‘old’ friend’s numbers. And I called them one by one, people he’d not seen for a long long time. It was unfortunate that his birthday fell (always falls) on a super long weekend, and most people took the opportunity to get out of the city. But there were a few who didn’t and they came to join us. Daddy had no idea who was gonna turn up and boy was he surprised! He was really very happy to see his old friends, esp ‘Choux choux’. I had tears in my eyes when I saw him…it has been a long while.

I spent almost 2 days preparing and cooking the food. Unfortunately, typical me, I’d forgotten to take any photos (I was fortunate enough to ask someone to take pix of the b’day boy with his cake!) of the food. Sigh. So you’ll just have to imagine the food :

Menu
* Spinach dip placed in loaf of round bread, which had the top cut off, and the ‘insides’ dug out and used for scooping the dip (AND chips of course)

*Beef Rendang

*Vegetable curry

*Ghee Rice, cooked with lots of ghee, onion and lovely mix of cardamom, cumin seeds, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, star anise, black peppercorn

* Stir Fried noodles

* Glass Noodle salad with minced pork, lots of spring onion, shallots, mint, small chilli padi, with a good soak in a seasoning of lime juice, fish sauce and brown sugar, and topped with dried onions and crushed peanuts

* Mahmah helped with a jellyfish dish, that was marinated in lots of garlic, red chilli padi, black vinegar and sugar.
* Banana Bread (2 loaves!) – special request from old friends! (And apparently banana bread was the hot topic for discussions amongst friends old and new!)

* And a birthday cake (from our local bakery)

It was a lovely day out and we had the party in the garden, with the sun still shining till around 9.30 pm. Fortunately, prior to the guests arrival, we’d placed candles in little tea candle glass holders (from our wedding where we’d purchased over 100 of those!!) all around the garden, lining up the stairs and around. We were able to stay in the garden till very late. I’d made a special birthday card and everyone signed it and after everyone had stuffed their face with food, we brought the cake out and we had fun doing the singing dodad! And then tada, he got presented with his birthday present, which most people chipped in. It was a lovely n’espresso machine which a dear friend T helped to pick out. (we’ve been having wonderful delicious coffee and lattes every day now).