Father's Day

2011 06 23

Sunday was Father’s Day and I hope Brian had a good one.  We bought him steak for dinner and gave him some framed and matted WWII stamps that he saw at an antique store in Oregon and wanted.  I also made him a special treat, which is becoming a Father’s Day tradition around here.  The treat usually has cake in it because Brian loves cake.  The first year that I tried to make him a special cake was a disaster.  It was a round, two-layer lime cake with lime glaze frosting and for some reason the top layer did not want to stay together.  We had to hold it in place while we sang “Happy Father’s Day To You” and as soon as we let go, the cake split in half and each half slid off the bottom layer in separate directions.  He called it his earthquake cake and it tasted very good and since the taste of food takes total precedence over looks in this family, I considered it enough of a success to try again.

The next year, I made him a tres leches cake.  It was delicious and looked good.  I made it out of a cake mix and added coconut milk in with all the other milks.  It was easy and fun and he loved it.  Another year, after dissuading him from buying an ice cream cake from Coldstone for $ 30, I made him a home made ice cream cake with yummy ice cream and ganache frosting for less than 10 dollars.  It was a hit. 

This year I made him an ice cream cake roll.  He’s always loved those ice cream cake rolls that you can buy in the grocery store and which, frankly, are quite lacking in taste, so I figured he’d like a home made one even more.  I used a German Chocolate cake and Tillamook vanilla bean ice cream.  The cake turned out very well, and we frosted it with home made German chocolate frosting.  When Brian saw it, he was very amazed, impressed, and excited to eat it, but there was one problem.  When I made it, I turned down the freezer to -7 degrees so that it would set up nicely and I forgot to turn the freezer back up to 0 degrees, so when Brian tried to cut into the cake, it was hard as a rock.  I don’t know why we didn’t microwave it for a few seconds, but we didn’t, he just sawed away at it till he’d chipped off pieces for everyone.  When we finally got to eat it, it was delicious—another hit.  I love Brian so much and I’m so glad he liked his Father’s Day even though he had to cook his own steak and cut his own rock-hard cake.

For my Dad this year, we wrote our family's version of one of the stories he told his kids when we were small.  It is called “Fatty Tuna,” and I’m not so sure that our version did it justice, but we wrote it anyway.  Then, of course, we just had to make a Madlibs version of it, after which we sent it to my dad to enjoy which he said he did, and I hope that is the case.  It was so nice to talk to my dad on the phone on father’s day.  He is an amazing guy who has great ideas and carries them out, who loves his children and grandchildren with all his heart, and who is a wonderful example of faithfulness to his wife, his children, and his God.  Yay for dads!

P. S. I gave a talk on father’s at church.  I shared thoughts about my grandpas, my dad, and Brian.  It went pretty good except it was too long.