Mother Nature was good to us, for it didn’t rain on the big double celebration day. It was cloudy and did threaten to rain a little, but the hot weather held for us to have the outdoor barbecue as planned.
There was a constant stream of deliveries that morning. From my usual online shopping items to dessert cakes, more cakes and pastries, and the ultimate cake towards the evening, we were busy receiving all the deliveries. The fridge was almost bursting with all the delectable goodies, on top of all the barbecue food.
All sorts of mouth-watering yummies!The funniest 4-inch tall birthday cake!Our private garden birthday partyA colorful spread
It was a lovely garden dinner affair for the three of us. The birds left us alone, unlike our last barbecue for our Reunion Dinner. Even the mosquitoes did not disturb us. As our little one turned 20 that day, I guess we have to face the fact she is not so little anymore. Happy birthday M2, and many happy returns! Love you to the moon and back.
Now that M2 is back safely at home with us, we plan to have a double celebration party with a garden barbecue tomorrow. Firstly, to mark her return and secondly, to celebrate her birthday, which falls on Wednesday.
However, the skies and weather have other ideas to thwart our plans. It has been raining a lot, unusual during this time of the year. Even today, it rained this morning and looking very gloomy. And there is a forty percent chance of rain tomorrow as well.
How are we going to have a garden party with such unaccommodating weather? We’ll have to cross our fingers and hope Mother Nature will be kind for a lovely double celebration.
It’s a week already that M2 has returned and under quarantine. Staying in a modern and comfy room in the city, with three meals each day, I’d say so far, so good, although all she does is eat, sleep, talk to us, and not much else! At least when we talk, we are in the same time zone unlike, when she was still in Ireland on a seven-hour time difference with us.
Soon another week will go by quickly, and she will be truly home. Yay! We plan to have a celebratory garden barbeque for the occasion. Time, hurry on faster, please? I can’t wait!
Today is the first day of the Chinese New Year or the Lunar Year of the Metal Ox. A very muted occasion for us because our status remains under lockdown, with no place to go or family to visit. Honestly, it is no different from the past 12 months. There’s nothing to celebrate. Sniffles.
We did, however, made an effort to liven up our situation for the Reunion Dinner. Instead of having dinner at the kitchen counter like every other night, we chose to eat in the garden patio last night! And have a barbeque while we were at it. We even had some feathered guests joining our party, but they ate earlier than us because bird seeds didn’t need grilling.
The birdies having a feast on the newly painted wall!
I thought we had to take precautions against the evening mosquitoes but there were none thankfully. We set up the table plus a side table at the patio and cooked up an eight-item BBQ menu for the occasion.
Typical Reunion Dinners are either six or eight dishes to signify abundance, but since it’s just the two of us this year, the eight-item course is more than enough and equally meaningful. And even though the dinner was technically not a Reunion Dinner, we enjoyed the change in ambiance.
Not the typical and traditional menu, I labeled it as an eight treasure platter.The colorful spread on our Barbecook grill
Both of us laughed about whether the dinner qualifies as a Reunion Dinner because, firstly, we are always together, and secondly, it’s more like a garden barbeque party. The lengthiest duration that we are separated so far this past month has been five minutes? Having long showers does not count, though. Whether it is indeed a Reunion Dinner or just a garden party, we need to inject variation and humor into our lives to keep sane. Let’s hope the current MCO status will revise for the better come 18 February.
Until then, steer the Ox by the horns towards having a happy and safe celebration during this Chinese New Year! Gong Xi Fa Cai folks.
I don’t normally cook but I do enjoy the task occasionally. Over the weekend, we hosted a birthday dinner (for hubby) and had a dozen friends over. Normally with numbers like these, we would just have a BBQ but the constant wet weather made it impossible to have an outdoor cookout. So I cooked.
I wouldn’t say it was tiring because I had help from hubby, M2 and the maid. Everyone played a role; it was good planning and timing that resulted in the tasks going smoothly without a hitch.
And the Saturday evening turned out very enjoyable. Lots of alcohol (beer, tequila cocktails, whiskey, Riesling, Chandon Brut and more whiskey), laughter and of course food. Lots of food that was, in my opinion very balanced – covering all the basic food groups: carbo (pasta and garlic bread), fibre (salad), fruits (there were grapes and pineapples in the hor d’oeuvres), milk/cheese (ice cream and cake) and protein (ribs and chicken).
Even the weather was cooperative. It drizzled for a short while and the wind was rather strong, creating a really cool and windy night. Sitting out at the terrace was just wonderful.
The star of the night was the ribs. I searched the internet high and low and found this ‘Easy Fall-off-the-Bone Oven Baked Ribs‘ recipe from inspiredtaste.net the easiest to do. But time was of the essence when baking the ribs. I decided–to save time–to also boil a second batch of ribs (with just garlic, salt and pepper) and doused it with ready BBQ sauce to bake so that everything was ready by the time all the guests arrived. Both recipes turned out excellent, complementing the balanced basic food group menu.
We did good and had a great time playing hosts. Having said that, I wouldn’t mind hosting a party and baking some ribs again.
Top tray was first batch, bottom tray the second batch
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