.FOOrD BLOrG. Birthdays are for eating!!!!

I know I missed a post last week but I have good reason as it was my birthday week. Yes, I said week. Sure it was "Birthday month" when I was in my 20s but in your thirties a week celebration is adequate. I mean, I ain't Keith Richards...I can't party like that....all the time. Anyway, I am sorry and here is last weeks post:

Ah birthdays. Some people hide from them. Some people hate them. Me? I love it. I love having them and I love my friends having birthdays. It is a great time to appreciate someone and to thank them for appreciating you. Lets face it. The world isn't bursting at the seems with people I want to be around and share my life with so I am honestly and whole heartedly thankful for the friends I have and who keep me around.

In my opinion there are two few days like this. To the point where we wanted to have 'The last supper club'. The LSC was to be an evening where one person has their selection of close friends come together and eat what they would choose as their last meal and then everyone would say the things that they would hope to say at the persons funeral. Morbid? I don't think so. I mean people do that at funerals unsure if their ghost or whatever is there so why not have the peace to have said those awesome things to their fleshy living faces??? Makes sense to me. Sadly the LSC has never begun......yet.

For me birthdays are also a time for reflection. To look back on things both awesome for me and appreciate what may have not been so awesome for others. One thing that came to mind this year was a birthday cookie. Yep, a cookie. When I was a little tike my mother made a chocolate chip cookie that was GIANT. Now if you can remember being little, anything of an unusual size is pretty incredible. A giant cookie is no exception. There was something magical about not eating a cookie but eating a cookie size portion of a giant cookie. It was like my friends Aaron, Devin, Ryan, Clovis and I had quested to find this mythical cookie beast, slain it, and were now picking it's cookie corpse for delicious morsels. That is a prime example of the power a parent has and the challenge a parent has. To make those moments. Mine did it in spades. I know not everyone is that lucky and I am thankful that I am. (Did that sound right? Sounded a tad assh*lish didn't it? Well, I meant it in a nice way.) (Don't think cookies have those powers? Explain 'Cookie bouquets?" yeah, how is that a business?

My second and last example is not birthday related but childhood related. You see, from what I can gather, when you have a kid you can't pick all their attributes and interests like you can in a videogame. Not yet anyway. So as a parent you kind of have to go with it sometimes in order to have those shared experiences. As a kid I think you often take that for granted because you are a self absorbed jerk.....wait, that came out wrong. It is because you think something is awesome so why wouldn't everyone.

This is such a story. Like most children I loved cartoons. (still do. I can't help it. I love drawing.) I didn't care what it was so when a movie was playing in the theatre I had to go. My father loves movies and would often take me. Sure we saw some stinkers that I remember when I was older. Joe vs. the volcano anybody??? But as far as kids movies I didn't remember any until one night in my early 20s when I decided to re-watch the Rainbow Brite Movie. About 5 minutes into it I thought "good lord this is one of the worst movies I have ever seen!" And then I saw myself sitting in the giant cinema chair with my face all excited and filled with Whoppers and next to me was none other than my dad. Horror struck chords in my heart as I thought how excrutiating that experience must have been for a grown man to sit through this attrocity of animation. Sadly it was 2 am when I was re-watching it so I had to wait until morning to call him and apologize but I did. I couldn't imagine him not bringing this up everyday of my entire life. "Dad, can I have 12.99 for the new Depeche Mode compact disc?" To which he would reply "Oh you want money I suffered to make? Does my suffering through the experience of Rainbow Brite mean nothing to you? Which I payed for by the way." But no, he never said anything about it. He didn't even say anything really when I called. He just said "yeah, that was pretty bad." Am I appreciative of that? Yes. That is a true parent and a lesson taken to heart. It isn't always about you and you can still make a memory doing something that someone else wants to do.

But enough of this heart felt gobbity goook! LETS EAT SOME CAKE!!!!!!!!!!!
This product obviously comes from Japan and is cake that you microwave in a cup. Now I never had an easy bake oven but one time Aaron and I made a microwave cake from a box of Lucky Charms and we ate it. Although I seem to remember it not being cooked all the way through. In any case I ordered this from Tokyo and was excited to try a carmel flavored cake that you bake in a cup.
Ok, yep. So you see in the picture above there, those are the instructions. Um. Wait. Are those bananas? There aren't any bananas in the box. Well, at this point I looked it up online and found out that this product wasn't carried anymore. So I then looked at the company site that was again only in Japanese. I eventually found a recipe but without knowing the contents of the packet I didn't want to use that. On my third search I found another website that had the instructions.
Take the packet and one egg.
Whip together in a cup.
Microwave for 2 minutes.
Enjoy! So I followed the steps and made a cupcake in a cup! How was it? Better than expected. Really, it tasted more like maple syrup than carmel. The texture was more akin to that of a pancake than a cupcake. If I really liked either of those I would have eaten the whole thing but I did have 5 bites of it and it was fun and interesting to do. (if you can get past the whole 'I am eating microwaved egg" thing.) I would imagine if you had a kid that this might just blow their mind so I included a link to a recipe for making coffee cup cupcakes : Article

I didn't know how to post a link (quit laughing) so that portion of this post was made possible by Sarah. (Who not only makes me feel special when it is my birthday but everyday multiple times over.) Am I appreciative and grateful of her? Hell effin' YES I AM! Cheers to another year my friends.

(Don't fret, I will be my bitter self soon enough. I mean, I ain't growing out my hair, hugging trees, and renouncing soap anytime soon.)