Picnic at R@s T@nura

R@s T@nura is an oil facility about 150km north of Kh0bar. It has quite a nice beach.

Last Thursday we went there for a gathering of students of brother Saleem, who is my tajweed teacher. There were about 100 of us, including kids. It was a potluck gathering and I decided to bring a cake, sort of to celebrate Izani's 1st birthday.
The cake was nothing fancy. Just a chocolate cake out of a box. But to make it slightly more special, I sandwiched some hazelnut chocolate cream inside and decided to frost it with some chocolate frosting (also out of a box). To make it extra special, I decided to experiment with marzipan. I made some ribbons and bows and even cut out I, Z, A, N and I and arranged it on the cake. I did all this the day before and kept the cake in the fridge in its carrier, all ready to go.
I also made 3 pavlovas and cut up some strawberries and whipped the cream at home, so that I can assemble them when I got there.
We left the house around 1:30pm. The drive there took about an hour, and before heading to the picnic area, we stopped by a friend's house for a bit of lunch. We didnt bother bringing all the food into the house. By the time we got to the picnic area and had lugged all our stuff to the tents, it was about 3:30pm. I was putting strawberries on the pavlovas when Taufik plonked the cake carrier onto the table in front of me and said, "Look what happened to the cake".
[queue: gasp]
It. was. a. mess!!! :(
It was a lump of cake with melted frosting poured over it and flowing all over! An 'N' was all that was left of the marzipan decorations!
I was so frustrated I wanted to cry! :@
I didnt even get to take a picture of what it looked like before it was destroyed!

After finishing assembling the pavlova as calmly as I could, I went over to Taufik who was looking after the barbecue pits.
I told him how frustrated I was and how I felt embarassed to serve the cake now that it looked like a lump of mud.
At first he just said "dah nak buat macamana..." (what can we do), which just doesnt cut it for me, so I went on about how he could be more supportive and at least try to make me feel better.
In the end, he said, "Letak ajelah atas meja tu, jangan risau, mesti ada orang makan punya lah" (Just put it on the table, don't you worry, someone will eat it for sure.) Which makes a lot of sense. It's 4 hours till the end of the gathering, there were 100 hungry people, and no one can resist a chocolate cake, no matter how ugly it looks.
I gave my husband a little thankyou hug and walked back to the dessert table and sprinkled some colourful sugar stars on the cake.

The kids had a lot of fun playing on the beach. Even though the water looked relatively nice and clean compared to Half Moon Bay (which is not so nice and clean), because of the proximity of the oil refineries and possible pollutants from its effluents (read: god knows what they spew out into the sea), we decided not to let the kids swim in the water but just play with sand. Even that really built up their appetite and we had lots of food! Fried rice, fried noodles, fried kuey teow, roti pratha with chicken and potato curry, lasagna and a huge assortment of malay kuehs, on top of the barbecued chicken and sausages.
Guess what, by the end of the gathering, my chocolate cake was gone, just like Taufik predicted.
tee hee! :D

The next day we were too tired to go out anywhere, so we stayed in. My kids had a great time eating ice lollies which I made using lolly molds from IKE@ and bottled mango juice. The weather was sunny but not hot, so we hung out on the porch before Friday prayer time.



After lunch, the boys went to the pool while Anis stayed home with me. Anis took too long to finish her lunch, so staying home was her punishment. Izani wanted a nap, so I had to forgo a trip to the pool too, and I did some sewing instead.

All in all it was quite a good weekend! (Despite the cake mishap) :)