Happy Birthday to Me

Our neighbours invited us to dinner to celebrate my birthday last Friday and I was treated like a princess albeit sans crown but that's OK.

We started off with some Veuve Clicquot for the birthday toast - I'm a big fan of bubbly especially when it's the good stuff. The entree was homemade crab ravioli served with a shallot and saffron sauce. Everybody protested when we were served three ravioli but I noticed that no plate went back with leftovers.

The main course was a wonderful beef tenderloin which had a wee bit of a story to it. Chef neighbour sent his wife out shopping for some pork tenderloin and being a recent immigrant from the US she didn't realise that in NZ the name tenderloin pretty much always means beef. Sooooooo, chef neighbour duly brined the meat expecting it to be pork and prepared a mango and mint salsa and a berry sauce (which had some fancy French sounding name I can't remember) to go with. The end result still worked well with the fruit sauces being a wonderful complement to the juicy beef. New seasons green beans and some herby roast potatoes were our accompaniment.

The piece de resistance was of course the birthday cake, complete with candles. Chef neighbour had prepared a luscious lemon layer cake made with rice flour and filled with a berry mousse. I think it was a recipe based on something from a bakery from back home in Palo Alto. I had seconds! Right in front of my usually non-dessert-eating husband but hey it was MY birthday after all.



I didn't get a birthday present from my husband because we will soon be spending some serious money on new kitties. The house has been very quiet with Scooter gone. I would love to rescue a couple of cats from the SPCA but I haven't found any suitable candidates to take home. I've been researching different breeds and identified a few that I liked based on looks or purrsonality (Bengal, Occicat, Devon Rex (hybrid) and LaPerm) but we have met a local breeder of Burmillas who has these gorgeous creatures and I think this is the route we're going to take. Since we both work we are going to get two so they have company during the day and don't tear up our house too much.