…and I’ve aged a year since the last time you saw me!

This will be rather a lame post as I don’t have a lot of guid photos on my own camera.  They turned out blurry.  However, on my 38th birthday I convened a party of 40 plus people to celebrate both my birthday and my mother’s nameday. 

Where are the photos of my mother, you ask?  I’m not posting them because she actually looks younger than me.  No joke.  Those of my friends who hadn’t met her already were shocked that she was my mother.  

So, I’m posting a photo of our mystery guest in her place: 

She brought along some mystery gifts:

(I guess she didn’t know that I’m a knitter!)

I also got lots of other fab gifts, including these:

… and these:

… and these… 

This was despite the fact that I said “no gifts or you’re not getting fed”.  But the friends who brought the gifts all told me “We can’t really read… so we didn’t understand what your Email said”. I had to accept this and feed them anyway. 

There was a little mishap with the cakes in the photo with me above, by the way.  I managed to give out the wrong buzzer code to my apartment, which was a problem with the cake delivery that my friend and colleague KP had arranged for me and my mother.  This caused a bit of drama at the party… but then every party needs drama – and the cakes got here eventually, more joy to us. The cakes were amazing – and for those in the Toronto area they were ordered from She Takes the Cake.  And surely she does take the cake as they spent an hour trying to deliver the cakes before the mishap was made known.  Sigh.  

There are photos of the big spread that we prepared, but apparently not on my camera.  I catered 20 different middle eastern / greek dishes, my mother prepared a tremendous tiropita (greek cheese pie) and my friend Jennifer provided tofu kebabs which disappeared pretty quickly.   I will be boring you with all of those photos when I get them, no doubt. 

The “I’d like to bore you with photos of my food” will be made far easier once I manage to get this gift from JJ installed:

(I guess he got sick and tired of me saying “I have to print out it out at work!!”)

I also got this fabulous lawyerly gift from my mother, who got it from ECCO Shoes where she works (in case anyone is looking…):

… and she threw these in among other gifts:

We also acquired eight bottles of wine and 50 beers from various generous friends, so we don’t need to hit the LCBO for a week some time. Not to mention a fabulous cookbook from my friend MT at work!

So, I had the best birthday ever, really.  And since I’ve been away more than a week from here, I have LOTS to rant about in the current events realm but I will save it for tomorrow whenever it seems appropriate.

As for my family emergency – thank you for all the kind Emails off list!  The emergency is sorted now and everything is fine.  

I wish you all a guid week, and leave you with a parting recipe for two salads which were an unexpected big hit at my party.  

Baby Spinach and Pea Salad

(original idea for the recipe from Jamie Oliver’s “Naked Chef” book)

– 4 cups/1 litre baby spinach

– 2 – 3 cups green peas (fresh if you can get them, but frozen and thawed would work)

– 113 g/4 oz crumbled feta

Combine all of the above.  Dress with extra virgin olive oil and lemon juice (the original recipe) or strawberry vinegar (my version).  Add salt and pepper to taste.  

Carrot and Orange Salad

(original recipe came from Claudia Roden’s book on Middle Eastern food, now out of print). 

– 1 1/2 lbs carrots, grated

– 2 tins of mandarin oranges, drained of all syrup

– 1/2 c lemon juice

– 2 T rosewater (which you can get at a middle eastern shop)

– 1/2 bunch of coriander (cilantro), ripped off the stems – don’t chop

– salt and pepper to taste. 

Combine all of the above in no particular order. 

A happy rest of the week to you all!

Regards, 

Kristina