Monday, April 11, 2011

Australian Autumn - day 7

9th April: My 50th birthday!!!

Its official! I am half a century old today. :-(
My sis-in-law keeps saying 50 is the new 35, but I don't know about that! So how did the day go? It was as the Aussies say "brilliant, just brilliant!". We started by going to this place for breakfast, a wonderfully cosy but stylish organic cafe. I was so tempted to order something creamy and decadent, but I figured turning 50 was all the more reason to eat healthy, so while my nephew got the Belgian sugar waffle, my niece the Almond Croissant and my BIL the Banana bread, I opted for the homemade organic multigrain granola which was delicious but gave my jaws a good solid workout for half an hour!



After that a quick run to the grocery store to stock up on all essentials for lunch. A quick side note here - my SIL is a fabulous cook. Not only does she make some incredible dips - hummus, pesto, guacamole - she does amazing things with veggies. Salads, stir fries, simple veggie dishes.....all fabulous. So when she kindly asked me what I wanted as a birthday lunch my answer was of course - salad. So we bought assorted char grilled veggies at the deli - peppers, artichokes, fat plump olives, feta cheese, squash, baby beets, asparagus - I knew I was in for a treat at lunch time. She would not let me near the kitchen to help, kept shooing me away and then 2 hrs later produced this magnificent lunch.





I meant just one, but she went all out and made 5 salads...roasted mushrooms and asparagus; a marinated tofu salad, roasted baby beets, squash and feta, mixed greens with garbanzos and assorted veggies and a romaine lettuce with olives, tomatoes and avocado. I was in salad heaven! I stuffed myself with all this food while sitting out in the balcony looking at the wonderful view.
Post lunch was a fun afternoon......skyping with folks back home, talking to a gazillion people who called to wish me, chatting, laughing and just being lazy. No sooner had my lunch digested than we were heading out to dinner at a Lebanese restaurant. Lovely place, great food, wonderful ambience and some seriously fabulous belly dancing. The girl roped in my nephew who joined in like a good sport, imitating all her wiggly moves and sexy hip swinging! 


Back home, the eating wasn't done yet! All insisted we get a cake, so the food frenzied birthday was capped by some oozingly delicious carrot cake! 
What a day it was! Granted, I ate way way more than I usually do, but it was all so good I could not resist! And other than the carrot cake, it wasn't too unhealthy, right?

1 comment:

Soni said...

Happy Birthday Kamini!
~Soni