You know what my secret desire is for Mother’s Day?
To order a Combination Phoenix Nest Deluxe.
What is this, you ask?
It’s king prawns, Chinese barbecued pork, straw mushrooms and bamboo shoots served in a golden fried potato nest, topped with cashew nuts and quail eggs.
Okay, you can hold the quail eggs.
But I have wanted to eat this bucket-list dish since I was a kid because it was the most expensive thing on my favourite Chinese restaurant menu.
I will also be partaking in lemon chicken, prawn toast and sizzling steak.
Forget chrysanthemums and chocolates. I would eat Chinese for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
If it is good enough for billions in China, why do we have to ration ourselves with these tasty treats?
The other big activity I have planned for Mother’s Day (can you tell I am overinvested in this one perfect day of the year?) is to read the actual newspaper in bed.
Remember the days when you felt smugly up to date because you read the paper from back to front?
These days, there is no start or finish to the news cycle. Endless doom scrolling makes me feel anxious and overwhelmed as I know I will never get to the end. Oh, for the sense of completion of a finished newspaper.
Okay, back to happier thoughts. Chinese.
My local favourite restaurant is in Caloundra.
It has dragons, red and gold wallpaper and little chubby Buddhas scattered everywhere (very 1985). Some of the tables even have lazy Susans.
When we celebrated the birth of our first baby, we got the lazy Susan table and I thought I had hit the jackpot.
Over the years, we have gone there for just about every family celebration you can imagine. We embrace the authentic aesthetic and we just love the menu.
So whether it’s a newspaper or rice paper, here’s to all our beautiful mums.
Happy Mother’s Day. Thank you for all that you do.
You nurture and inspire us, run around, worry and protect us. We are your biggest cheerleaders.
My mum did a great job raising three kids all by herself … even if she never did splurge on that Combination Phoenix Nest Deluxe.
Sami Muirhead is a radio announcer, blogger and commentator. For more from Sami, tune into Mix FM. The opinions expressed are those of the author. These are not the views of the publishers.
