birthday love

Twenty eight yesterday. People kept saying "hope you are doing something fun." Well my day like you all can assume was spent in a pretty average way.

I woke up next to the woman I am going to marry. I drove to work in my dad's truck. I made Kim Chee and berry preserves. I took another stab at this potato and yogurt bread recipe I am trying to nail down. I butchered blue fish and salmon, I baked shortcake twice. At five thirty when I stepped up to my station on the line I looked left and right at my partners in crime and realized what a lucky guy am I. We are a tiny band of pirates and gypsies but we all have that desire in our hearts.

Then we had the privilege to cook for one hundred and ten people. At the end of service there was champagne to toast my birth and a little bit more fish to butcher, and then a surprise I hadn't anticipated, my fiancee arrives cake in hand candles lit.

After getting cavities filled and working a hot day in the sun on a farm, she baked me a cake, and drove it the 40 minutes up to Marblehead Just a simple white cake filled with strawberry jam and frosted in cream cheese. perfect..... what a lucky guy am I...

When I finally got home, I got to reciprocate her generosity by cooking her dinner. Pan roasted bluefish, with chard, fenel and tomato ragout....

Hmmmmmmmm did I do something fun on my birthday??? I guess the real high light was kate, cake in head candles lit as I am elbows deep in fish!!!!!!