Gardening & Father’s Day Treats

Father’s Day is coming up! This year we have decided to split up for Father’s Day and let all the Dads do what they truly want to do… Golf. Well that’s not entirely true, Ninja, his Dad, and BIL want to golf but my Dad, he’s not into golf. He loves vintage cars. My Sis and I grew up in a house where Dad and our Grandpa went to auctions, restored cars and sold them. My Mom loved cars, Dad loves cars, and Sis, Bro and I… Don’t mind cars lol. So we are Sis and I are going with our Dad and the Kids to the Vintage Car Show on Father’s Day while the other Dad‘s go golfing! Win – win – win – win lol. We won’t really see Ninja on Father’s Day but we celebrated him all month long with these fantastic Father’s Day recipes.

We have a brewery here in town that has Ninja’s favourite chicken wings, Tajin Wings. He liked them so much, my Dad bought him a bottle of Tajin Seasoning and we used it to make these Grilled Tajín & Maple Chicken Wings! Ninja LOVED them and so did my Dad so this was a double Father’s Day winner for me. These were SO easy to make and looked and tasted amazing, definitely a good pick for game day or a BBQ.

One of Ninja’s favourite restaurants is The Keg. The Keg is a Canadian steakhouse that opened in 1971 in North Van and now has 105 locations across North America. One of their signature dishes is, Billy Miner Pie. Billy Miner was an American outlaw whose time in BC made him a bit of a legend. He is credited with the first Canadian train robbery in Monte Creek, BC and it is rumoured that he hid his loot around 70 Mile House/ Green Lake. This copycat dessert reminded me of  The Keg and sharing a slice of Billy Minor Pie with Ninja when we first began dating, it’s still one of his favourites!

Ninja is a big fan of steak. He loves a good ribeye but he really enjoys a nice steak sandwich or steak and fries! He can throw a steak on the barbeque, some Cavendish french fries in the air fryer and he has the dinner of his dreams! Lol I thought for Father’s Day this year we could gourmet his pub food up by adding one of France’s staple sauces to his steak & fries and we had, Steak Frites with Béarnaise Sauce and it was DELICIOUS. I’m a big hollandaise fan, but I was unprepared for the yumminess of this Béarnaise sauce combined with the steak, it was a symphony of yum in my mouth. Ninja doesn’t like hollandaise but really enjoyed this sauce with his steak for a little something different!

I make Ninja chocolate chip cookies often but for the occasion, I made them a little extra special by adding, espresso! These Espresso Chocolate Chip Cookies were at a whole new level. The espresso plus the brown butter really really elevated these cookies into a different stratosphere. HBear marched into my bedroom after trying one and said, “those cookies are superior to any other cookies” and marched back out, grabbing another one before heading out the door lol.

I am not a whiskey fan. In fact, when I was a teenager and I got caught drinking, my Dad sat me down the next day and said, “do you want to drink? Let’s drink!“ And he poured us each a glass of whiskey 🤢 Haven’t touched the stuff since 🤣. Ninja is more of a bourbon turned scotch guy. However, as we are boycotting, American alcohol, and you can’t really make a cocktail with scotch, Ninja tried this Whiskey Smash instead! He really enjoyed it and found it a perfect June drink with the brightness of the lemon as it is quite citrus forward.

I picked this book because I knew that the main character was a Dad and it has been recommended to me many times over the last year but *warning* much like my typical Mother’s Day book reviews, this one is definitly a different take on a Father’s Day Treat lol. The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb A book with a main character who is or was incarcerated. Everyone warned me that this book was powerful and it would leave a lasting impression, they were correct. Part 1 starts out with a terrible but preventable accident. From there Corby gets into the years between 2006-2013 when he met his wife Emily and tells the story of how they fell in love. To be honest, the red flags in these early days were there. Her mom saw them and her UCLA housemates voted them out of the house because they saw them too. Corby takes the easy way out of everything and it even shows by the trailer hitch he bought for their cross country trip. After chasing after Emily (which can also be viewed as romantic or another red flag) to California, their lives are moving along nicely when they get bad news and have to go back home to the east coast, they are engaged by that time and Emily is pregnant. The accident. I had to put the book down when Corby told Emily what happened. Ugh heart wrenching. Honestly, I wanted to stop reading many times in those beginning chapters but I couldn’t put it down! We see the aftermath of the tragedy, the meetings, the therapy, the break in the family and it’s so sad. Part 2 begins on Day 1 of Corby’s sentence. I have friends that know people that have gone to jail, but I don’t know anyone personally or at least close enough that they would tell me their stories, so prison life was gobsmacking to me. I would’ve peed my pants on day one lol for real lol. After everything that has happened in the first 13 chapters, I did not expect the story to take such a political, racial, and mental health turn, this was such a gripping story. Wow! The open discussion about addiction, suicide ideation, and even how complicated the crime is, all makes you really think and digest. This is not just a compelling story. So many important things are discussed that not all of us know about first hand, but we all know people that are struggling with these issues so it is good to read from a different perspective. Part 3 begins a year into his sentence and he is navigating his stay much better than he did at the beginning. Emily. Perhaps because the narrative is from Corby’s view, we see his growth but while I understand Emily’s anger and grief, sometimes her behaviour as Corby’s wife made me mad. Part 4 broke my heart in all ways. This book is so real, so sad and touches on SO many issues. It truly encapsulates what the world went through over the past decade but through the rollercoaster ride of Corby’s life. I will think about Corby and his story for a long time.