Yesterday was my 27th birthday. I never understand people who don’t like to celebrate their birthdays. Seriously. It’s one of my favorite days of the year. I usually plan some sort of big celebration but this year, my husband was packing for a 2-week business trip to New Zealand (and why wasn’t THAT my birthday gift??) so I had to keep the celebrations pretty low-key. Well, until Saturday when I will have a birthday dinner with my girlfriends. 🙂
Now despite the low-key, busy-packing-Jeff’s-stuff birthday, Jeff still made sure that my day started on the right track with the best gift…the meat grinder attachment for my Kitchen-Aid mixer! Ha! Ha! My man clearly knows me well. I promised him some freshly ground fancy meatballs upon his return. 😉
I usually make myself a birthday cake but, this year, as Jeff was about to leave, I thought it would be bad to make a cake that I would end up eating alone. Instead, I remembered the bestest cookies ever that my January Foodie Pen Pal baked for me and instantly decided to have them as my special birthday treat. When I clicked on the recipe link she gave me, I realized there was a cookie sandwich recipe on the page. Well, why not?? I’ll let you look at the Picky Palate’s webpage for the full recipe but here are some of the photo evidence of my good times in the kitchen…
I ended up bringing most of the cookies to share with the girls in my French class. I knew that, otherwise, I would eat them all and regret it later. I still had a special one left for my evening dessert though…
After my class in Staunton, I stopped by Starbucks for my free birthday drink! I figured it was my birthday so I didn’t to worry about calories and all that jazz (all bets were off anyway after the cookies), so I had a grande mocha…yum! As a bonus, I met two guys from Quebec while I was waiting for my drink! We had a good chat and it just made me so happy to be speaking “Quebec French” with strangers who understood every word. 🙂 I also stopped at the pretty-view-rest-stop on my way home. The mountains looked beautiful!
Dinner was pretty simple but super tasty. I bought filet mignon at Market Street Market and made a side of sautéed asparagus. Jeff also made popcorn in the afternoon and I figured it was a good and tasty way to fill the rest of my plate.
Now, the upcoming days should be interesting. I will live the (almost) single life while my husband is on the other side of the world. I still don’t know how much or how little I will care to cook for myself… We’ll have to see how it turns out! 🙂
The Hungry Quebbie 