Of cabbages, birthday cakes, & energy bars

Yesterday I was invited to two 50th birthday parties, both out in the country, almost 50 miles apart. One was for a woman who's been a teacher for both my kids, and has the same birthday as John - we always try to do something for their birthday, ever since they met when John was in 3rd grade, about 14 years ago. But I got invited to the other one - for the architect half of the architect & librarian gay couple that used to be the gay boys down the street, but are now the gay boys out in the country - first, and David (the librarian) asked me to make the cake.

So I went to that party - it was a surprise (that worked; I just found one of the little sparkly star confettis we threw at the b-day boy in the back hall), it was at this fabulous house, I had heard about it before, another gay couple, a huge old place beautifully restored, with museum quality art, slate roofs, 2 cases of champagne cooling on snow in the sun room, and real fireworks. It took two guys an hour and a half to set them up, and 10 minutes to shoot them off. We left right after the fireworks, before the real serious drinking set in.

David said make your favorite birthday cake, so I did - yellow cake, with white icing and a layer of raspberry jam in the middle, and lots of chocolate icing on top, with kind of a louche white swag of the white icing around the edges. In some respects the cake was just for show - it was definitely guy food, protein, not too much carbs - lots of nuts and & cheese & a few crackers when we got there, David tea-smoked a turkey, someone else brought chicken mirabella with prunes & olives, there was a ham and a big bowl of cold shrimp, something (crab salad?) in endive leaves, and a few grain & corn salads. But we lit the candles and sang, and I carved and passed, with plastic spoons when the forks ran out.

March is the month of birthdays, and my brother's doing another bike race for his birthday this year, the 327 Words Taco Truck Time Trial. I can't go, but today I made energy bars for him to give out, and they're all boxed to ship tomorrow.



And I finally wrote up the cole slaw recipe.