Day 125, Year 8: Birthday Dinner
Date: Friday March 8, 2013
Weather: Continuing to Slowly Warm Up, Bright Sunshine
Location: Lightkeepers Marina in Coquina Harbor, Little River, SC
Today Mark and Patsy spent the day preparing for tonight’s birthday dinner in honor of Joe and I. We both turned a year older this week and have both already had birthday dinners, but we decided to have just one more. Mark and Patsy really didn’t work all day, but they did work all afternoon to produce a spectacular birthday cake and dinner. I put the cake first because it was truly a work of art, and oh, so delicious. They cheated by using a box mix for the German chocolate cake, but they made the filling and the icing using my mom’s old recipes. Mark had a little trouble with the filling as the butter clarified and separated, but he just poured off the excess liquid and added a bit of store bought coconut and pecan icing and it was then perfect. You put the filling between the two layers and on top of the third layer and then cover the whole thing with Seven Minute Icing done the old-fashioned way. Together Joe and I would have needed 145 candles. Forget that! We just added one candle for each of us and acted like we were blowing out the whole lot. The rest of the dinner was also very yummy, just not quite as spectacular. We had inch-thick New York strip steaks, rice Parisian, grilled marinated veggies, and salad. Friends Brian and Judy Thompson came over to enjoy the dinner with us. Joe and I decided that we will make this a tradition any time we are together for our birthdays. Patsy and Mark are not so sure about that, but I think we can talk them into it. So thank you, Mark and Patsy. It was a fun day and a fabulous dinner enjoyed by all.
Note: I think this was just the second German chocolate cake made by anyone in my family since my mother died in 1997. She was the master of making these cakes, and in her honor, my niece Janet and I made one for the family dinner celebrating Justin’s graduation from college in 1999. If today’s was number two, that is only two cakes in fifteen years. We must do this more often.
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| 130308 Day 125 South Carolina, USA–Birthday Dinner |
