The journey of a father, and a manly feast.

If you just judged from Dad dancing or Dad jokes, it would appear that many dudes are totally cut out for fatherhood. Even so, if asked weeks before impending fatherhood if they were ready, many guys would admit (mostly out of earshot of their significant other – for safety reasons) that they were in fact not even close to ready.

My husband was one such guy.

Even though we both knew how babies were made, I think the sight of that double line on the stick was enough to send the poor man prematurely grey.

I was elated and terrified, just like the average first time mama, and as the pregnancy progressed I bonded more with the child concealed inside my flesh, and my excitement at the thought of meeting my little one rose.
I think it was almost the opposite for my husband.

As the pregnancy became more and more real and pronounced, the further from his grasp slipped bachelorhood. It’s not that he wanted to disappear for days of debauchery, it was simply a matter of change.

Big change.

Big, unchangeable change.

During my labour he was amazing. I was quite unsure how he would behave. To be honest, I wasn’t sure if he’d cut it, but he was my rock. Apart from the minor incident where he let rip a massive fart as I was pushing and he blamed me, I felt like we were a brilliant team.
I’ll never forget when all hell was breaking loose and I was so in the primal throes, feeling as though my entire back-end was about to do something surreal and he looked into my agonised eyes and I saw tears in his.

I love him so hard right then…. For a second, until I remembered I wanted to punch him in the nose.

The thing people forget to tell new Dads as they’re leaving the hospital is that little babies aren’t really interested in their fathers.
New Dads are often left out in the cold there’s really not much they can do.

In fact, they have all the responsibility of having a family and pretty much none of the benefits of having a girlfriend, because she’s busy being a mother.

Your sexy girlfriend/wife is suddenly a milk spouting, tired, greasy-haired crankmeister, and you are the very bottom of the food chain…unless you have a family pet, in which case you’re slightly elevated.

It’s not a question of love.

There is no doubt that my Baby Daddy is crazy bonkers about the bambinis, but it doesn’t remove the fact that there has been some grieving for the bachelor days.  The days where the biggest commitment was footy training and Friday night drinks.
I haven’t seen actual tears shed over the passing of these days, but I’m pretty sure there have been moments of deep loss.
I often wonder where my old life went so it only stands to reason.

I’ve often heard it said that there is nothing sexier than your husband doing the vacuuming.
I think conversely, dudes would say there’s nothing sexier than your wife cooking you ribs. You can forget about saucy underwear, it’s all about saucy smiles, and I don’t mean flirting. I mean, get this sauce all over your face.

If you wanted to give your special dude a treat you could whip up this manly meal.

Father’s Day Treat – American Style Ribs Recipe

Yield

2-3 whole racks of ribs, for 4-6 people

Ingredients

• 2-3 full rack pork/lamb ribs (for me, the only rib is pig)
• 2 large foil roasting trays and a basting brush

For the marinade…

• 1 cup of Brown sugar
• 1 onion
• 2 big cloves garlic
• 1 cup of tomato sauce
• 1 cup of BBQ sauce
• 1 cup of Coca- Cola (buy 2 litre bottle, the rest is used for cooking)
• ½ cup of Apple Cider Vinegar
• 2 tablespoons of Worstershire sauce
• 2 tablespoons of balsamic
• 2 tablespoons smokey paprika
• 1 tablespoon rosemary
• salt and pepper

 Method

1. Put your onion and garlic and rosemary into a food processor and blitz to a fine paste.
2. Chuck all other ingredients into a bowl and throw in your onion paste. Stir well to combine.
3. Put ribs in roasting pan with half the marinade and leave to marinate overnight.
4. This part can totally be done in the oven, if you so desire, but it was a stinking hot day so outside was better for me….also, you do get a bit of a BBQ flavour throughout the meat if it’s done in the BBQ. Heat up BBQ with lid / Webber to constant 120-150 degrees celsius with lid down.
5. Place ribs in BBQ but not on direct heat. I had the grill on with the ribs sitting on the plate next to it.
6. Pour remainder of 2 litre coke into roasting pan until ribs are fully submerged. Cover with foil and punch about half a dozen holes in it.
7. Cook for 5 hours at no more than 150 degrees. Your juice will barely boil, if at all, and mine did not seem to reduce much at all.
8. Take rib tray off BBQ and fire up grill section to blazing hot. Put ribs on grill and baste with remaining marinade (don’t be shy with slapping on the marinade)
9. Turn ribs every 5 mins and keep on basting generously. Do this for about 30 minutes until marinade caramelises and a sticky, gooey, gorgeous crust forms.
10. Remove from grill and tuck in… ensuring you get the full ‘smile’ of rib sauce.