A Father’s Day Surprise

Late last week I received a call from Chris to see if they could come for dinner on Saturday night to surprise his dad for Father’s Day. He had planned to travel 2.5 hours back to Melbourne the same night, so I suggested that they stay the night here – it just meant re-arranging beds for the night, as we also had others visiting the same night. He accepted the offer, but it was to be kept a secret, as he wanted to surprise his dad.

With everything arranged, I just needed to cook more food for dinner on Saturday night, and had planned to prepare a Father’s Day brunch, anyway – so again, just needed to increase the quantities.

Margaret, another of our wonderful friends, arrived for lunch yesterday. So before she arrived, I prepared food for our evening meal and the Sunday brunch, while Fabien set to and made a delicious Caesar Salad for our lunch.

Fabien’s Caesar Salad starring beautiful bacon from Coltish Pork

We finished the meal off with some beautiful cheeses (thank you Margaret), bread, biscuits and little pieces of lemon slice.

Once we cleaned up Fabien feigned that he was going for a nap, but really, he was putting clean linens on the bed for Chris and Cin, as he was going to sleep on an air bed in the sitting room overnight. Gary was non-the-wiser! Margaret and I took a walk around the garden – she loves gardening as much as I do, and it was wonderful discussing our plans with her.

Meanwhile, Chris had messaged me as they left Melbourne, so I had a rough idea of the arrival time – approximately 6:30 pm. I snuck out and unlocked the side gate, but when he messaged that they were 2 minutes away, I snuck out again and let them in. They managed to get in through the house to the kitchen where Gary was sitting chatting to Margaret. He got such a wonderful surprise, he was very happy. Dinner was late, but it was wonderful having everyone here.

Pumpkin soup with pan seared scallops and black sea salt

This morning we were up around 7am, so went to the kitchen and got the brioche in the tins and rising. I had cold smoked the salmon yesterday, and it was in the fridge, together with my home made natural yoghurt, roasted mangoes, and fresh berries. I then set to making hollandaise sauce in the Thermomix and I got to teach Margaret how to cook poached eggs – so she looked after them for me. Finally, from the pantry I took home made crunchy granola, and the table was set. So we wrapped up the Father’s Day Surprise with a lovely, relaxing brunch.