Birthdays are for cake, and sometimes for home

Father's Day and Dylan's birthday sometimes coincide, which can be a good thing if they're both fans of whatever kind of cake Dylan's picked that year. As I've doubtless mentioned, Eat Here is proud of its homey, comforting culinary style, which sometimes reaches new heights when cakes are baked. (Regrettably we don't make the same sorts of guarantees about the outward beauty of our cakes, for We Are Not Lis, and Don't We Know It.) But they are damned good to eat. This one is the famed Chcolate Buttermilk cake of Susan Purdy, the Second Goddess of Cakes at Eat Here, with Lis reigning unchallenged as First. You can - and should - get yourself a copy of A Piece of Cake, and I can tell you in less formal terms how to make this one, if you like. Suffice it for now to say that it doesn't come out of a box, has a touch of nutmeg and is the all-time favorite at-home chocolate cake at Eat Here.

Kisses are favored by both honorees also, in this case the birthday kiss being featured, but best friends who live most of the year in Africa and spend the rest of the year working so much you seldom see them any more frequently when they're home, do not have their kisses taken lightly. And the bestower of kisses could only be Katie, of course. This was before we settled down to the requested dinner. In our family it has long been the prerogative of the birthday person to choose the menu and the cake. By process of repetition I've learned to predict with pretty reliable accuracy what each of them will request. Mac usually asks for That Chicken (or as Suldog fondly recalls it, "Thai Chicken". Rodney always wants something that results in milk gravy over mashed potatoes. Dylan tends to change up the game a bit, but I'm never surprised when he wants tilapia a la meuniere, as he did this year, and neither is anyone else.

Consider, then: his menu.
Shot in too-little light with a camera phone, you can only glimpse its glory, but trust me: there is the tilapia with it beautifully browned, delicate crust and simple topping of browned butter. There are cheese grits, not the quick ones you do on the stove in 5 minutes and throw cheese on, but the ones you finish slowly in the oven (or truthfully: the crock pot) with carefully grated cheese, Teaxs Pete and a beaten egg, simmered for a couple of hours and topped with bright beautiful cayenne pepper. There are roasted potatoes because in their hearts my menfolk have a yearning for something with ketchup on it at just about every meal. And there was a decadent salad. Katie put fresh cilantro in and chopped fresh avocado, plums, mango and apricots and the most lovely goat cheese I've ever tasted, one that had a kiss of honey elevating it to mysticism. And of course, we put Tahini Dressing over the whole thing, though we had a backup plan in the form of a bottle of Annie's Goddess dressing which would have done nicely in a pinch. And those are gardenias off to the side, sweetening the savory scent of the room with their magic.

As the evening spun out like threads of gold, with laughter, friends, food and finally candles and cake, here is the ham we didn't eat, but which we enjoyed quite as much. I'd brought my exquisite Mon Amie Ribbonerie hat to show Katie. Looking as perfectly gorgeous as ever, it became a stage prop to the Dylan's Birthday Gents of the Back Deck Vaudeville Review.*

And at last, the best present of all, and the least expected: a brief visit from the only older blood brother with whom he has always marked the passing of time. Perhaps I will take my sentimental self into the kitchen tonight and make them stand still to be marked again, though they are both taller than their dad or me. Passing 6 feet, passing 6 feet and 2, maybe this year touching on 6 feet and 3 or so. No matter. I will sleep well tonight. As Ms. Moon reminds us, seldom do we sleep so well as when those babies, grown to men (or women) sleep in their childhood beds, Winkin and Blinkin and Nod. Love, everyone.


*Photo credits
Last photo but one, from left: Rodney, Luke, Dylan and Evan (all but Rodney products of the St. Johns County Center for the Arts at Murray Middle School and St. Augustine High School, with MANY THANKS to Mrs. Nance and Mr. Dodd!!)

Hat available from Mon Amie Ribbonerie (Remember, these are handmade and therefore no two are alike!)

Last photo, from left: Mac, A Gargoyle, played by Meg, and Dylan
Photos mostly taken by Angie
P.S. I think because I started drafting this last night it carries the 6/20 date. For the record, I'm actually publishing on 6/21, accounting for the belated note in Mac's appearance today.

Father's Day, birthday: simple graces

Here is my person, my dear old love. We have been married since 1988 and together since 1985, which adds up, astonishingly, to 25 years. Imagine that. Long relationships can be their own reward; such is this one. It's not always easy; it's not always perfect, but it is always its own blessing.

We have two very tall sons, of whom we are very proud, and a long history of dog children, often including fostered Boxers. This a kind of charitable work I couldn't do without Rodney's support and more: he is often the most important factor in changing a dog's life. Some dogs don't take much notice. Others are changed forever, and given the best days of their lives in the too-brief time they spend with us. Here's how Meg feels about it.

Some days are fine enough for a walk and a swing, some are by necessity quiet and subdued, passed in reading, old movies, resting. Each, we remind ourselves, is a gift; each is unique to itself, and creates a memory for us.

We spend days together walking on the beach, worrying about our kids, playing with our dogs, indulging our shared sporting obsessions, laughing with each other, finishing sentences and anticipating phrases for one another, figuring out how to get through things together. Some days the chronic pain of neuropathy makes this harder than others, but we manage to laugh and to cling to each other for strength and courage, each believing that the other is the brave one, the other is the strong one. Some days are bright, some are overcast but this is true in every long relationship and ours is typical in this way.

On this particular Father's Day, we will bake a cake and cook a special dinner for our Dylan, who celebrates his 19th birthday today. Mac will call, Katie will come to celebrate with us. And I'll post some pictures. Because the simple graces are the sweetest in life, and should be shared.
Dylan: Happy Birthday, sweet boy. We love you so.

Rodney: Happy Father's Day, dear old love. I love you now and always, and am grateful every day to have found you, and to share my life with you, still laughing, and still crazy, after all these years.