Continuing from my last post, I'm still without internet :( 14 days without internet, bringing the total number of days I've been with internet in this last month since switching to Orcon to 9. That's right: 9 out of 28 days. So a warning to people thinking of switching to the Orcon Genius plan: don't. Not yet anyway - give them a few months to sort out all the initial problems, and then decide.

(The first time I join the 'early-adopter' boat, and it sinks the moment I set foot in it. *sigh* Just my luck eh?)

Anyway, I've been keeping myself relatively busy without the internet, and to survive the last weekend without it I went to my parents' house to leech their bandwidth :P

That's wasn't the only reason though: Sunday was Father's Day for New Zealand, and for Father's Day I thought I'd cook him (and the rest of the family) a pork roast that I saw on My Kitchen Rules.

As well as distracting me from my internet-less life for 1 hour a day, 3 nights a week, My Kitchen Rules is just another in a series of TV cooking competitions that I've been watching for no real reason except that I find myself channel surfing on a quiet night, and then come across the cooking show such that I keep coming back to it the next time it's on until the season/competition is done. Much like with the last Masterchef Australia - I just happened to see an episode half-way through the competition, and before I know it I'm watching the final and rooting for some guy who I didn't know just a few weeks before.

When I was starting on the pork roast, a voice started replaying in my head: it was Dylan Moran from his comedy show I saw just 2 weeks before when he was saying that we've all been "Masterchef'd to death", and it's unfortunate I can't even remember the context in which that line was used.

But he was right: the original pork roast recipe when taken straight from the My Kitchen Rules website was so 'chef-y'/restaurant-ish that I had to dumb it down for my mediocre cooking skills and middle-class tastes:

• Duck fat? WTF, I don't even know where I can buy that! Replaced with butter and oil.
• Fennel seeds? Couldn't find it at the local supermarket. Removed from the recipe.
• Jerusalem artichokes? Out of season, so not currently on store shelves. Removed.
• Prosciutto? Whoa, I'm not on that kind of salary. Replaced with bacon (which we didn't use in the end).

So what started as "Pork Cutlets With Caramelised Apple Sauce, Peas, Jerusalem Artichoke & Apple Puree" became "Pork shoulder roast with apple sauce, mashed potatoes, peas, baby carrots, and crackling". Regardless, the family was impressed, dad included. Although he was probably happier about not having to have to cook for the first time in... forever.

As a sort of spiritual successor to all my Mother's Day posts, this time I get to talk about Father's Day, or in this case, Father's Week.

Just like with Mother's Day, the book store I walk through to get to/from work has made it obvious for several weeks now (not many other commercial holidays around this time of year it seems) that Father's Day is coming. NZ likes to celebrate its dads on the first Sunday of September. With that knowledge in my head when I went out for lunch last week, and then while chowing-down on a salad soon afterwards, I thought: Hmm, my dad was right; this place ain't so bad. I wouldn't mind taking him out to here for lunch.

That line of thought then led to an idea for something to do for Father's Day which, with help from the rest of the family, we're putting into effect as of today (Monday). That is, for every weekday this week in the lead-up to Father's Day, one of us will be taking dad out and shouting him lunch.

I've been assigned today and tomorrow.

OK, so it isn't anything super spectacular - it's 5 free lunches, although just 1 free lunch is valued pretty highly in my family - but with the responses I got today from both him and a stranger when I took him out to lunch for one of my designated days, I'm starting to think I've chosen the right Father's Day gift.

Lunch today was at a Chinese fast food restaurant which both my dad and I frequent for their noodle soups (often the wonton roast pork noodle soup). My dad ended-up getting one of the noodle soups, while I went to get a 4-choice meal: fried rice, veges, sweet & sour pork and lemon chicken, nom nom nom. Because we went down separate lines to get our meals, I just handed him some money so he could get whatever while I went and filled my 4-choice plate. The man behind the counter must've noticed me handing my dad some money because when I went to order my meal, he asked me if that man was my dad.

Guy behind counter: Is that your dad?
Me: Hmm? *looks towards where he's pointing* Oh, yup.
Guy: That's very nice of you, taking your dad out to lunch.
Me: Heh, thanks. It's part of his multi-part Father's Day present.

I recounted the 4-line conversation to my dad this as we ate our lunch, and he said that the same guy asked him when he was ordering if I was his son. It elicited a bit of a smile from him as he said this, a sort of "That's right, my boy is taking me out to lunch, bitches!" smile.

I think I also saw some pride in that smile.

Not having been a parent myself (*shudder*), I wasn't very good at reading that emotion. But if the movies I've grown-up on are any indication, I think I've just done something which made him glad that he started a family, and ended-up with this family in particular.

Which, as his son, makes me feel pretty good too, because I've been trying for an eternity to make-up for that awesome sound system of his that I destroyed when I was less than 4 years old :P