Tragic Sandwich

Tag: cake

  • Anatomy of a Birthday Weekend

    Or, What We Did On Our Birthday Vacation

    Thursday (our birthday weekends start early, by necessity)

    • Tour a school that we might want Baguette to attend next year.
    • Decide that we do not want Baguette to attend that school (it seems like a very good school–just not what we want for her).
    • Clean the house.
    • Clean the patio and back yard.
    • Go to speech therapy and music therapy.
    • Go to Costco and buy food and birthday cake.
    • Clean the house.
    • Make items for party games.

    Friday

    • Clean the house.
    • Clean the back yard.
    • Do some work that needs to be done even if I am on vacation.
    • Clean the house.
    • Clean the back yard.
    • Clean the patio.
    • Welcome grandparents and great-aunt, who are visiting from out of town.
    • Go out to dinner.
    • Clean the house.
    • Make party favors.

    Saturday

    • Make party favors.
    • Clean the house.
    • Clean the patio.
    • Make signs for food.
    • Clean the house.
    • Clean the patio.
    • Locate the Happy Birthday banner we bought two years ago.
    • Put up the Happy Birthday banner.
    • Locate more tape for the Happy Birthday banner.
    • Make the salad.
    • Put the Happy Birthday banner back up.
    • Welcome guests. Realize again that we have invited a really large number of people.
    • Abandon hope of keeping the Happy Birthday banner up.
    • Make sure parents and children are enjoying themselves.
    • Call the pizza parlor and confirm that the pizza is actually going to be delivered.
    • Make sure that Baguette has the chance to find some quiet time.
    • Put out the pizza, salad, and signs for the food.
    • Realize that I have left another parent supervising Baguette in the front yard for far longer than is reasonable.
    • Ask Baguette if she wants pizza. (“No thank you.”)
    • Ask Baguette if she wants macaroni and cheese. (“Yes.”)
    • Bring a chair we took outside for the party back inside, because Baguette wants to eat at the table in the breakfast nook like she always does, not at the table on the patio where her friends are.
    • Make sure everyone gets food.
    • Eat one slice of pizza and some salad.
    • Realize that, in spite of all the cleaning, the living room still contains a case of baby wipes and a 3-pack of contact lens solution.
    • Decide not to care.
    • Bring out the cake and put candles on it.
    • Try to light the candles.
    • Try to light the candles.
    • Try to light the candles.
    • Try to light one candle, which is the most that we may be able to keep lit with the breeze.
    • Abandon hope of lighting the candles.
    • Serve the cake.
    • Encourage Baguette to say “thank you for coming to my party” to as many children as possible.
    • Say goodbye to everyone.
    • Try to get Baguette to nap.
    • Abandon hope of getting Baguette to nap.
    • Regroup with grandparents and great-aunt when they come back from their hotels for dinner.
    • Order Chinese food.
    • Eat Chinese food (adults) and macaroni and cheese (Baguette).
    • Open presents from grandparents and great-aunt.
    • Accept that the most enticing part of presents is the paper, which tears interestingly and can be draped as a fetching hat.
    • Say goodnight to grandparents and great-aunt.

    Sunday

    • Have morning meltdown (Baguette, with collateral damage to Mr. Sandwich’s hearing).
    • Regroup with grandparents and great-aunt.
    • Caravan to 7-11 for coffee.
    • Caravan to L.A. Zoo, because it is the weekend and therefore we go to the L.A. Zoo.
    • Look at zoo animals.
    • Get in line for lunch.
    • Take Baguette for a walk, because the line is too long. (Mr. Sandwich)
    • Realize that Baguette is screaming, and Mr. Sandwich is waving energetically from outside the cafeteria.
    • Take Baguette and try to comfort her.
    • Realize that 5 feet away, a zoo docent is holding a small constrictor.
    • Consider one’s pathological fear of snakes.
    • Ask Baguette if she wants to touch a snake.
    • Confirm with Baguette that she wants to touch a snake.
    • Hold Baguette while she touches the snake.
    • Wash Baguette’s hands.
    • Eat lunch.
    • Leave zoo.
    • After Baguette falls asleep in the car, take advantage of the situation to trim her fingernails while Mr. Sandwich runs into the hardware store.
    • Go home and let Baguette unwind.
    • Make brownies for Baguette to take to day care the next day for her actual birthday.
    • Watch Baguette start to spool up again when grandparents and great-aunt rejoin us for dinner.
    • Try to prevent meltdown.
    • Fail.
    • Take Baguette into her room, comfort her, and tell her that she can take time to calm down, but that we will be in the living room so she doesn’t feel abandoned.
    • Give Baguette iPad when she asks for it. (Mr. Sandwich)
    • Be grateful that, this time, the iPad helps her come out of the meltdown instead of exacerbating it, because there is no predicting.
    • Send grandparents out for In-N-Out.
    • Welcome Baguette when she comes back to the living room, feeling better.
    • Feed Baguette one of her favorite noodle dishes.
    • Tell Baguette that we will be on patio, and that she can come out when she wants to.
    • Eat In-N-Out while Baguette plays with party games on back lawn.
    • Say goodbye to grandparents and great-aunt, who are returning to respective homes on Monday.
    • Give Baguette a bath.
    • Open a few gifts for Baguette and talk to her about what they are and which of her friends gave them to her.
    • Write thank-you notes to those friends.
    • Wrangle Baguette into bed.
    • Sleep fitfully.

    Monday

    • Put brownies in car.
    • Take thank-you notes to day care, along with party favor for one guest who didn’t get one.
    • Give brownies to teacher.
    • Realize that Baguette would still really prefer to have some quiet time.
    • Recognize that at this point there is nothing to be done about that.
    • Drop off thank-you notes.
    • Wonder how ABA will go tonight.
    • Wonder how birthday phone call with aunt and uncle will go tonight.
    • Wonder if Baguette will catch stomach bug that is running rampant through her school.
    • Think about how, at this rate, it will take several days to open Baguette’s presents.
    • Go to work.
    • Really, really intend to write the rest of the thank-you notes.

    Little girl in chair, covering face with "Happy Birthday" balloon

  • Traditions: Birthdays

    I grew up with wonderful birthdays. My parents never rented a pony or bouncy house (the kid across the street had a pony party one year–even at the age of five, I thought that a pony you didn’t get to keep was a terrible birthday gift). But they did put a lot of work into creating a fun experience for me–or my brother, on his birthdays–and our friends.

    I remember a pinata so tough my dad had to take a hack saw to it (we made it ourselves–papier mache is strong). I remember square dancing, which most of us enjoyed even while the Mean Girls in my Blue Birds troop (my mom made me invite them) mocked it and refused to participate.* I remember the world’s greatest relay race, in which we had to put on my dad’s clothes and run to a teammate, who would then don the clothes and run back, all of us flopping around in oversized boots and button-down shirts and hats.

    And every year, my mom made our cakes from scratch. She used the Four-Egg Cake recipe (although she’d add another egg or two) from the Joy of Cooking, and the frosting was butter blended with powdered sugar. When we were small, she’d cut a sheet cake into shaped segments and then re-assemble them into a duck or a rocket ship or whatever fascinated us that year. Later, she would make flat cakes that she and my dad would decorate by hand. They weren’t ever going to be mistaken for professionally decorated cakes, but they were a far cry from Cake Wrecks. We always had fun working on them, and the love was palpable. And tasty.

    So last year, it was really important to make Baguette’s first birthday cake. We had family and a few close friends over for a cookout, and I made the Four-Egg Cake (with another egg or two). The frosting came from a mix, because I have had bad frosting luck for years, and I colored it purple. (Mr. Sandwich’s race color is red, and mine is blue. The symbolism here is magnificent, if I do say so myself.)

    Cupcake

    This year? I had plans. I made a test cake, which was unsuccessful due to what I’m pretty sure was a failure to put in enough baking powder. We invited family over (we’ll probably have Baguette’s friends over next year, but right now she doesn’t know what birthdays are; in fact, she’s slept through much of this year’s and last year’s). But between work and car problems, it became clear that this was not the week to make a cake.

    So I agonized very briefly and ordered a couple of dozen cupcakes from Susiecakes, my favorite baker. They’re not cheap, but they’re delicious–and all I have to do is pick them up. And while I may not be doing it the way my mother did, the love is the same. Plus, it’s still cake. Delicious, delicious cake.

    Susiecakes

    *I just found out that Blue Birds is no more; it has been replaced by the co-ed Starflight level. Alas, my childhood is obsolete!

    Photo of Susiecakes cupcakes by Susan Lavoie.

  • Birthday Extravaganzas

    We worked hard to avoid one. My contention? A one-year-old doesn’t know it’s her birthday. She doesn’t know what birthdays are. So the party isn’t really for her.

    That’s why we went with a party we wanted–cookout and cake, served to family. Mr. Sandwich wood-grilled steaks and sausages, and I grilled salmon and asparagus on the gas grill. I also made a tomato-rice-parmesan salad that I saw in Real Simple and couldn’t stop thinking about. And then there was cake (with a cupcake for Baguette) frosted in an unintentionally poi-like shade of purple.

    As for the basic premise, I was totally on target. She had no idea why all those people were there, and passed out on her grandpa’s shoulder for most of the party. But I can’t blame her. Turning one is hard work.

  • Baby Showers Bring Some Kind of Flowers

    Babies need a lot of stuff. A lot. Of stuff. Fortunately, custom allows us to ask our friends for that stuff. And even more fortunately, I have very generous friends.

    However, rather than detail the stuff, let’s assume that there are some standard elements of baby showers: people you know, and gifts. Rather than detail them in a manner that can sound nothing but familiar, I’ll focus on the food.

    If you’re looking for a place for a women-only event, you might try High Tea Cottage. Just south of Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills, it must have started life as a house. Now it’s home to a wide selection of brewed teas, tiny sandwiches, and pastries. (Why “women-only”? Oh, come on. Not that many guys are into high tea. Admit it. They will.)

    Lest that sound snarky, it was all delicious. We had “Windsor Castle” (a black tea so good that Queen Elizabeth serves it) and some other tea that I have to admit that I didn’t drink, but that everyone who did liked a lot.

    Sandwiches: chicken-cranberry, curried egg, cucumber (my favorite). Scones: served with Devonshire cream and lime curd. Tiny pastries: delicate and excellent, with rich chocolate and flavorful fruit fillings.

    My next shower was a surprise: I had to stop work unexpectedly, so I figured that the shower my boss had talked about was unlikely to happen. After all, who can pull something like that together in–literally–24 hours?

    Answer: My colleagues. These are some seriously efficient people. And they don’t just get things done, they get them done well. I’m lucky enough (well, not when dieting) to work with a number of gifted bakers.

    Shower number three featured some truly excellent pizza, although I don’t know where it came from. However, I do know where the cake came from: Porto’s. This place is seriously good. I haven’t been there myself, but I have been lucky enough to be at events featuring food someone else picked up. This cake was no exception. It was so good that I’ve been eating it all week. Good thing I don’t have gestational diabetes, because that would really have put a cramp in my snacks over the past few days.

    So thanks, everyone! The generosity has been pretty overwhelming, and the food was great. But I have to admit that what’s going to stay with me the most is the time I got to spend with family and friends. You really can’t beat that.