Echoes of Celebration – family birthdays – soulgifts

Celebrations continue in our household. Shalini had a birthday on Sunday. Rather than go out for a meal, she preferred to have a family dinner at home. So TRH and I cooked. Garlic prawns, fried haloumi, chicken liver pate for entrée. Given TRH does not like shell fish of any sort, he did a magnificent job of the prawns. He also wanted to perfect a meatloaf recipe he’d experimented with previously. Served with steamed vegetables and a red wine jus, it was delicious. We finished off with a rich chocolate cake drizzled with white chocolate, served with Belgian chocolate mousse, raspberries and double cream. Yum!!

We’ve become cooking show tragics, TRH and I. Fine tuning our culinary skills in the footsteps of Marco Pierre White, Heston Blumenthal, Nigella Lawson and other cooking icons is perhaps beyond our capacity, but we try our best. Before the advent of Master Chef and My Kitchen Rules, I wouldn’t have known what a jus was let alone how to make one. Adding textural crunch and plating up are also on the agenda these days. “It’s a disaster!” rings out when things go awry. Admittedly this meal had no echoes of that. Whether it was competition worthy remains debatable. But if the evidence is in the eating, it was tasty and well liked by the tribe.

Marc is celebrating too. For the last almost ten years he has worked at Coles Supermarket in the Fruit and Vegetable department, having risen up the ranks to managing it. The heavy work, long hours, and relentless pressure has pushed him into seeking a career change. He has always dreamed of working in the armed services. After leaving school he applied for the Army. That path was not to be and he ended up in retail. However, his interest was rekindled last year and he applied for the Air Force instead. A series of assessments since then has seen him succeed. He’s happy to be eligible for one of his chosen trades – in communications technology. On Tuesday this week he passed the final assessments. He is now waiting for information about when he will start. It could be as early as August.

What a big change that will be in our family! He will move to Wagga in NSW for three months to complete basic training. A further forty weeks in Melbourne will follow before his first posting. Exciting for him. And for us, dosed with a tinge of sadness as son number one leaves home.